Working out all Right

By Benjy Lipsman in News on May 17, 2005 11:31PM

The Cubs and White Sox both said goodbye (and good riddance) to former All-Star right fielders during the previous off-season.

Following steroid allegations and his early exit on the last day of the season, the Cubs spent most of the winter trying to ship out Sammy Sosa before unloading him on Baltimore.

The White Sox chose not to re-sign Magglio Ordonez after an injured knee that was followed by a mysterious surgery in Austria and verbal sparring between Mags and Sox brass.

With the departures of Sosa and Ordonez, both teams had to find replacements in right field and both teams chose to sign free agents to fill the spots.

The Cubs inked their Sosa replacement before his trade to the O's was even complete when they signed Jeromy Burnitz to a $4 million deal for 2005 with a mutual option for 2006.

Meanwhile, on the South Side the White Sox signed Jermaine Dye to a $4 million deal the day after officially parting ways with Mags.

Chicagoist decided it's time to take a look and see how these personnel moves have worked out so far now that we're about one quarter through the season. Obviously, both teams reduced their payrolls with these moves -- although the Cubs sent Sosa packing with bags of cash. So we're going to look simply at the on-the-field production.

	Sammy Sosa		Jeromy Burnitz
G AB H HR RBI BA 27 108 29 4 13 .269		G AB H HR RBI BA 36 136 39 6 21 .287

	Magglio Ordonez		Jermaine Dye
G AB H HR RBI BA 3 10 0 0 0 .000		G AB H HR RBI BA 35 126 25 6 14 .198

At this point in the season, both teams seem to have made the right moves. Burnitz is having the best season of the four so far, and is on pace to about match his numbers from last season. Meanwhile, Sosa's currently on the DL for a "minor" foot injury and was putting up subpar numbers prior to that.

Ordonez's knee looked to be nearly healed at the start of the season, but now Mags is down until July with a hernia. Dye has not been hitting very well this year, but he's hit a few home runs and driven a few runs. Were Magglio healthy, he'd probably be putting up bigger numbers than Dye. The Sox's situation is much more difficullt to truly assess at this point.