We may be getting close to a month of games being played, but the small-sample-size bison are still roaming the plains, blissfully unaware of their approaching demise. There are teams performing pretty much as we expected, but there are also plenty of surprises, and Chicago can even boast a team in each category. The fact that the Cubs started off the season to the tune of 15-5 isn’t particularly surprising, given the lofty expectations hoisted on the Northsiders. The White Sox going 15-6 to date, good for the best record in the AL, however, falls into the “surprise” category.

Per Fangraphs projection system, the Cubs’ chances of making the playoffs now stands at 95.9% (!!!) whereas the Southsiders’ sit at “only” 54.7%. While it’s probably not wise to bet the farm on either team keeping this up over a full season and winning 115 to 120 games, we’re going to dig deep and take a look at what’s going on in the South Side and see what’s going on with the current holders of the best record in the AL.

The White Sox are currently tied for fourth place with the Mets for the best run differential in baseball, with +25. The fact that White Sox pitchers have allowed only allowed 53 runs in nearly a month of baseball, good for 2nd after the Nationals with 43 RA, is a pretty good start in showing just how great the pitching has been. The team ERA of 2.35 through 21 games looks pretty great, too. While FIP (3.05) and xFIP (3.53) don’t predict that the pitchers will be able to keep this up indefinitely, one only has to look to the Cardinals’ ridiculously successful staff last year (2.94 ERA/3.48 FIP/3.71 xFIP) to see that it is possible, if extremely unlikely, to keep this up for a whole season.

Chris Sale may be striking out less batters than normal so far (7.8 in 2016 vs. 10.3 K/9 for his career), but he’s also walking an absurdly low number of hitters (0.9 BB/9), so he is still leading MLB in the strikeout-to-walk ratio (8.67) as he did last year over a full season (6.52). His .186 BABIP isn’t going to last the whole season, part of the reason his FIP (2.91) is almost double his ERA (1.66)m but he’s clearly still pitching like the ace he is. Whether or not his strikeouts are down, Sale is, as usual, on track for Cy Young votes, unless you already believe he’s going to win the damn thing.

While Sale’s looking great (as always), Jose Quintana has actually been about as good as Sale. Quintana is striking out more hitters (8.0 K/9), walking only 1.8 per 9 and has yet to give up a home run over his first four starts. His 1.82 ERA and 1.92 FIP are much more in line than Sale’s and that FIP is good enough for the best in baseball. Quintana has been a reliable pitcher who has reached at least 200 innings in each of his full seasons and has become one of the best pitchers in the game in the last few years (9th in fWAR from 2013 to 2015), and has done so stealthily thanks to pitching behind Sale and not notching up ridiculous strikeout numbers.

The biggest surprise in the rotation, without a doubt, is Mat Latos. Signed this offseason to a one-year, $3 million deal, his 0.74 ERA puts him in third place for the best record in baseball, behind only Jordan Zimmermann and Kenta Maeda. However, the differential between his ERA and his FIP (3.55) is actually the biggest in baseball and, as with Sale, his .167 BABIP isn’t going to last forever. While his peripherals suggest that he will be coming back to earth sometime soon, the four wins in his starts are already in the bank and he doesn’t even need to pitch as well as he has been to end up being one of the best bargains of the offseason. Don’t count on this continuing though.

Carlos Rodon is struggling with his command, as he’s already walked 10 batters in just 20 innings. He’s still got the raw stuff that got him drafted third overall in 2014 and is still issuing plenty of strikeouts to go with the free passes. Given that Rodon’s overall numbers were hurt quite a bit by his first start of the season, where he gave up five runs in the first inning, look for Rodon to improve going forward, especially in light of the adjustments that Rodon made in 2015 as the season progressed.

Fifth starter John Danks has been worth an average of 0.7 WAR since 2010 and it certainly looks like he’s on his way to being below replacement level this year. He’s already been skipped for a couple of starts, so, while he’s the fifth starter on the depth chart (and all apologies to Danks), I’m not even really sure why I’m still writing this paragraph. If the biggest problem your team has is its fifth starter, things are probably going pretty well. Unfortunately for the White Sox, the biggest problem is not their fifth starter, but we’ll get to that shortly.

Jose Abreu and his .190/.275/.342 slash line and .152 ISO could certainly be a problem going forward, as he was expected to keep on mashing and be one of the anchors of the White Sox offense. Given that he’s a defensive liability, he really needs to hit if he’s going to deliver surplus value. The good news is that his .211 BABIP is significantly lower than his .356 in 2014 and his .333 in 2015. If there’s one struggling hitter who you should bet on to turn things around, it’s probably Abreu.

Todd Frazier was the biggest move and the biggest upgrade of the White Sox’s offseason. Even though his numbers this season fall below his career numbers and he’s turned the corner on 30, his .217 BABIP this season is, like Abreu, well below his career BABIP (.285). There’s reasonable room for improvement here and, even if Frazier just keeps on his current path, it will still be an upgrade of around 4 WAR at third from last year.

Melky Cabrera is hitting like the player the White Sox paid to sign rather than the Cabrera that showed up in 2015. Throughout his career, Cabrera has been wildly inconsistent from year to year, so it makes him especially hard to predict going forward, but the fact that he’s off to such a good start (.320/.393/.453, 10.6 BB%, 7.1 K%) certainly bodes well for this being one of Cabrera’s “good years.”  

Brett Lawrie has been putting up numbers superior to what we’re used to and nearly doubling his walk rate from last year. His .392 BABIP is definitely worth a pause, but even if he doesn’t keep up his current production, he’s still, like Frazier, a huge improvement at his position over last year.

Jimmy Rollins is undergoing a twilight-of-his-career career resurgence and hitting .262/.313/.410. Given the numbers that Rollins put up last year, both offensively and defensively, and the fact that he’s 37, expecting him to keep this up all season might not be prudent. Number one prospect Tim Anderson was waiting in the wings to take over at short, but he’s struggling in his first taste of AAA this year (.238/.238/.286, albeit in a 14-game sample size), so the White Sox need to hope that Rollins keeps looking vintage rather than just looking old so they don’t have to rush Anderson.

Adam Eaton is hitting .309/.345/.420 and looking like he might be on his way to yet again outperforming his projections and making yet another Diamondbacks trade during the Kevin Towers era look straight-up dumb. The biggest issue for Eaton is going to be his health as his 2015, with 153 games, was the closest Eaton has gotten to a full season by a long stretch. As long as he stays healthy, he’s still in his prime and playing excellent defense and should be counted on to keep contributing.

After that it gets really ugly really quickly. Austin Jackson was signed to a reasonable one-year, $5 million deal late this offseason ostensibly under the pretenses that it would be a defensive upgrade and offer some upside, given his that he produced 18.9 WAR in his age 23 to 26 year old seasons. His .219/.265/.281 slash line is such that his defense in center field would have to be truly exceptional to make up the difference, and he’s grading out below average defensively to boot.

The Jackson signing may have removed Avisail Garcia from center field, where his defensive miscues negated his offensive contributions. So far, those contributions have vanished as well and his .186/.269/.373 line just about says it all, as he’s striking out as much and walking as little as ever. Perhaps Garcia just needs some time to adjust to being an everyday DH, but Garcia has consistently failed to deliver the results that his prospect pedigree predicted. While it wouldn’t be unrealistic to expect a bit of improvement, unless and until he proves the scouts wrong, we’re going to have to assume that the DH position isn’t going to look good as long as Garcia occupies it.

At catcher, Dioner Navarro has taken for Alex Avila who has started only 10 games so far and hit the DL earlier this week with a hamstring injury. Hopefully Avila gets healthy quickly, as Navarro’ 13 seasons since 2004 don’t exactly inspire confidence when paired with his .179/.233/.359 line. His .161 BABIP will likely come correct, but, even if it does, his history suggests that he’s better off in a backup role.

So as not to close out discussion of the lineup on a negative note, the fielding is better (and how). GM Rick Hahn was obviously aware of how atrocious the defense was last season and made moves to upgrade it seemingly everywhere. You can’t trust raw defensive stats to tell you this much this early in the season, but it’s pretty clear this is an area where the White Sox have improved.

As with defense, the bullpen is also an area where you can get yourself in trouble with small sample sizes, what with relief pitchers having smaller sample sizes to begin with, but this also looks like an area where the White Sox have improved. Last year, the White Sox were middle of the pack in MLB with their relief corps, but so far this year, they have been among the best by most stats. We can certainly ignore the bullpen’s 1.39 ERA since it’s pretty useless for the bullpen, but the 0.93 WHIP with 1 HR to date certainly look good going forward. It certainly doesn’t hurt that they are staying fresh with the aforementioned one-through-four starters eating so many innings.

All in all, the White Sox paint pretty much the same picture that we were expecting to see before the season started, with a great front of the rotation but some holes in the lineup. Latos and Rollins are probably going to regress, but there’s plenty of room for optimism when it comes to Abreu and Rodon. While a hot start in April is hardly enough to ensure you’re playing October baseball, the White Sox aren’t giving any of those wins back, and the incremental improvements from last season are obvious. Do a little juggling with regression towards the mean in both directions and you don’t have to squint too hard to see two teams still in the mix when the first snow hits Chicago.