How did poor performance in high leverage situations affect the White Sox?

The 2024 White Sox hitters had the lowest OPS in High Leverage situations since the deadball era, .546. Previous low since 1920 was .558. Only 2 deadball era teams were lower than the 2024 White Sox. See this Stathead link to see where they rank all-time.

The White Sox had a record of 41-121 for a .253 winning pct. Their hitters compiled a .618 OPS while their pitchers allowed a .760 OPS. So they have a -.142 differential.

From regressions I have done, this equation estimates team winning pct.

Pct = .5 + 1.32*OPSDIFF = .313

That predicts that they would win 50.6 games, alot more than they actually did.

But another regression equation, broken down by leverage is

Pct = .5 + .306*LOW +.420*MED + .564*HIGH

The table below shows the Sox OPS, what they allowed and the differential by leverage.

Leverage	OPS	OPSA	DIFF
High	0.546	0.768	-0.222
Medium	0.670	0.734	-0.064
Low	0.603	0.778	-0.175

The formula predicts a .294 winning pct. or about 47.7 wins (still many more than what they actually won). We could say that leverage cost the Sox about 3 wins.

But that still leaves 6-7 wins unexplained.

They hit into 116 double plays, 4th in the league and 8 more than the league average while having the lowest OBP, by far, in the league of .278 (next lowest was .300 and the league avg was .309). So that is pretty bad, to hit into that many DPs without getting many runners on.

In fielding, they made 3 more errors than the league avg. (90 vs. 87). They turned 115 DPs, 2 less than the league avg. But their pitchers allowed the highest WHIP in the league, 1.437 ( avg. was 1.252). So they probably had lots of opportunities to turn two.

The Sox stole 90 bases (the league avg. was 110). But they were caught 33 times, 1 more than the league avg.

These additional defects hurt, but they probably will not explain 6-7 wins. Maybe 2 wins.

So that still leaves 4-5 wins unexplained. But the leverage did make an impact.

Update 9:02 PM, 10-2-2024: There may be some slight non-linearity in the model. I noticed that in a trend line for all teams from 1901-2021, the very worst teams in OPSDIFF (-.100 or worse) tended to have an actual winning% that was lower than predicted (alot of points below the trend line). Of these 85 teams, 50 did worse than expected. They had about 1 less win per 162 games than the trend line shows. And with a -.142 OPSDIFF, the White Sox would be tied for the 3rd worst team from 1901-2021. The 1954 A's were the worst with a -.156 OPSDIFF.