Rearranged Sox: after years of failing to slug their way into the playoffs, the White Sox have gone back to basics.(MLB)

Scouting reports on the White Sox used to tell the same old story: Keep them in the ballpark, and you have a chance.

Those reports are about to undergo a major rewrite.

The team that introduced the exploding scoreboard has lost its enthusiasm for home runs. After a desperate plea from manager Ozzie Guillen, the Sox are discarding the power-based formula they followed for years.

So what if they play at the major leagues' most accommodating home run park? Beginning this season, the Sox will go the small-ball route, relying on pitching, defense and speed.

"The easiest thing we could have done was to sit back and say, 'Well, we've got all these great players, and they're not getting it done,' and putting it all on their shoulders," general manager Ken Williams says. "They would be giving us a built-in excuse of the great players not coming through. We chose to take a different road."

Gone are bashers such as Magglio Ordonez, Carlos Lee and Jose Valentin--players whose power was ideally suited for U.S. Cellular Field. The new White Sox offer a speedy combination of Scott Podsednik and Japanese import Tadahito Iguchi at the top of the lineup.

"Maybe it doesn't have the star power or the firepower that it did have," Williams says of the offense, "but we certainly have a heck of a lot more balance than we have had in a long time."