White Sox player review: Paul Konerko

October 8, 2:49 PMChicago White Sox ExaminerJJ Stankevitz

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Paul Konerko struggled to hit well in 2008.

The player: Paul Konerko

Position: First base

Vital statistics
Batting average: .240
OBP: .344
SLG: .448
OPS: .783
Home runs: 22
RBI: 62
Runs: 59
BB/K: 65/80

For the second straight year, the White Sox saw a noticeable regression from Konerko, who played a huge role in the White Sox' offense from 1999-2002 and 2004-2006. In 2006, Konerko arguably had his best season in a White Sox uniform, hitting .313 with 35 home runs and 113 RBI to go along with a career high OPS of .932. It certainly was not a lucky season, as Konerko's line drive rate of .246 was actually below the .120 difference threshold between line drive rate and BABIP, which was .333 for Konerko that year.

Then, 2007 rolled around. Konerko got off to one of his trademark slow starts, and while his power numbers (31 HR, 90 RBI, .231 ISO) weren't a huge dropoff, his batting average (.259) and OBP (.351) took pretty bad hits from where they were in 2005-06.

At age 31 in 2007, Konerko's regression can be fairly assessed as unexpected—especially after the seasons he put in the three years prior. A lot of people had high hopes that Konerko would break out of whatever funk he had in 2007 and hit like he had in the past, but that was not the case. Instead, 2008 was a year that compared very fairly to what was the worst season in Konerko's career, 2003.

Konerko hit just .234 with 18 home runs and 65 RBI in 2003. His OPS was a weak .704, and he had the lowest ISO of his career at .164—not exactly a pleasing statistic for a power hitter in Konerko. But it should be noted that, in 2003, Konerko's BABIP was .229, by far the lowest in his career. His line drive rate sunk to .184, and while that isn't a spectacular line drive rate, it does show just how unlucky Konerko was that year. A bounceback was inevitable, and it happened in 2004.

Fast-forward five years to 2008. All the major projections (Bill James, ZiPS, etc.) had Konerko bouncing back to about a .260-.290 batting average with home run numbers in the high 20's or low 30's. Essentially, if the projections did not expect Konerko to improve, at the least, he was going to stay around where he was in 2007.

Instead, Konerko's performance plummeted. His OPS fell below .800 and his ISO dipped below .200 for the first time since 2003. He hit a grand total of four home runs from the start of May to the end of July and hit just 12 doubles from Opening Day to the end of July. In the month of May, Konerko's slugging percentage was .255. Anybody who watched Konerko play during the first four months of the season knew that it was an event when Konerko got a hit, let alone hit an extra-base hit or home run.

While Konerko likely won't admit it, a good deal of his poor early-season performance likely had to do with a sore hand that he had been battling since the beginning of the year. Konerko's swing looked to be off as a result, and every time a pitcher jammed him with a running inside fastball, it just looked painful.

There were calls for Konerko to go on the disabled list. There was even a front-page article in the Chicago Tribune sports section suggesting that Brad Eldred be called up from AAA-Charlotte to replace a DL'd Konerko. But he played through it, and as a result, his performance suffered.

An oblique strain may have saved Konerko's season from being one of the worst in baseball. The injury sidelined Konerko from June 14-July 8, giving him nearly a month for his hand to recover. However, when Konerko came back off the disabled list he still was not hitting well, as his OPS for the month of July was still below .600.

Finally, Konerko began to heat up in August and September. His OPS in August shot well above 1.000 and in September it settled just below 1.000. He only hit four home runs in August, but he collected 22 hits and drew 19 walks, compared to 14 hits and 4 walks in July. Konerko then proceeded to hit nine home runs in September, including hitting home runs on back-to-back-to-back days twice.

His August and September finish were a reminder of just what a healthy Paul Konerko can do at the plate. He's certainly able to put those monthly numbers up again, but over the course of a 162-game season, it remains to be seen if Konerko can put those numbers up in every month.

A concern regarding Konerko is his rising ground ball rate, which jumped from 32.9% in 2006 to 38.0% in 2007 to 40.6% in 2008. Konerko has had good seasons in which his ground ball rates were high—2002 (42.7%) and 2004 (41.4%)—but in both those years, Konerko was able to bang out a lot of doubles (30 in 2002) or home runs (40 in 2004).

I don't have the numbers on this one, but in 2008, I would have to wager that the number of times Konerko rolled over an offspeed or breaking pitch and grounded it weakly to third base or shortstop were higher than any point in his career. When Konerko hit .313 in 2006, he was spraying the ball to all fields and hitting it with authority. In 2008, seemed to pull the ball far more than he did earlier in his career—which is a shame because Konerko has excellent power center and right field. When he's taking the ball to all fields, he's staying on pitches better, seeing them longer, and hitting them harder. He wasn't really doing that this year, as he hit a lot of those weak ground balls and popped out far too often.

Konerko still has the ability to be a productive player in this lineup—August and September proved that—but he has a lot to fix before the start of next season. For the $12 million that the White Sox paid Konerko in 2008, they certainly did not get a great return on their investment.