Good morning!
As Jim wrote about on Thursday, right field continues to be an unsolvable problem for the White Sox organization. It is, to quote The Simpsons, "Where logic takes a holiday and all laws of nature are meaningless." While the signing of Kevin Pillar potentially could make watching the defense in right field (or center, if only to spell Luis Robert, Jr.) more bearable, the offensive production is likely to balance that out.
Alas: whether it's Gavin Sheets, Kevin Pillar, or somebody else, it seems one troublesome trend will continue: the White Sox haven't had a right fielder log a 3+ WAR season since 2017. And you know what happens if you go lower to see where the bar is? You get the same list of results in Stathead. 2 WAR? 2017. 1 WAR? 2017. It isn't until the decimal points enter into the equation that the list updates beyond 2017. (Adam Engel logged .6 WAR in 2020)
And, really, Sox right fielders haven’t traditionally covered themselves in glory, either. The late-90s and early-aughts saw perhaps the most successful run in the 9 spot on the diamond for the franchise: from 1996 to 2003, the position logged 3+ bWAR in 6 of those 8 seasons. For reference, the Sox had a 17-year gap between three-win players from 1945 to 1962 and another 17-year gap between 1965 and 1982.
For today’s Sporcle, I’m asking you to name those 3+ bWAR players in franchise history. That’s thirty total entries, how many can you get? Good luck!
Quiz Parameters
- To qualify, a player must have played at least 50% of his games in right field, and also logged 3+ bWAR.
- I’ve allotted 10 minutes for completion attempts.
- For hints, I’ve provided the season and bWAR logged.
Useless information to amaze, annoy, confuse, and/or confound your friends and family:
- The average triple-slash of the players on this list: .301/.372/.453
- The most home runs logged came in 2006, with 44, while the fewest was 0, which occurred twice, in 1907 and 1902.
- Every player on this list logged at least 1 triple during their individual season(s).
All data from stathead.com
