The current era of White Sox baseball started Dec. 6, 2016. That was the day general manager Rick Hahn traded All-Star pitcher Chris Sale to the Boston Red Sox for four prospects -- Yoan Moncada, Michael Kopech, Luis Alexander Basabe and Victor Diaz.
As we all know, Moncada is now the starting third baseman (when healthy) on the South Side, and Kopech is a member of the starting rotation (when healthy) -- although neither has fully lived up to the hype that surrounded them as prospects. Those other two guys in the deal flamed out, but that's not the point of this blog.
The point of this blog is that the Sox are now in Year 7 of this grand project, and it hasn't yielded the promised results. From day one, I was skeptical of Hahn's master plan. The fact is, my view was the minority one. Most Sox fans bought in.
Why did they buy in? Well, let's remember what the baseball climate was like in Chicago in winter 2016. The crosstown Cubs had just won the World Series for the first time in 108 years, the culmination of a five-year rebuild executed by then-team president Theo Epstein.
Sox fans looked at that and thought, "Yes, this is the way forward. It worked for them. It can work for us, too. Let's do it!"
But there was one key difference: The Cubs were put in the ditch by their former GM, Jim Hendry. There was an ownership change on the North Side, and a new regime was brought in -- led by Epstein -- to take a fresh look at some old problems. Hendry and the old guard were fired.
On the South Side, the Sox have had the same owner since 1981. They've had the same GM since 2013. Those people were responsible for the franchise bottoming out from 2013-16. You can't change the owner, but at minimum, Hahn should have been replaced. Instead, he was given a second chance to rebuild the club, and frankly, he's done little with it.
Let's compare the arcs of the respective rebuilds on both sides of town. For purposes of this exercise, we'll look at the Cubs from 2012-18, and we'll look at the Sox from 2017 to present day.
So, for the Cubs, "Year 1" is 2012. Year 1 is 2017 for the Sox. Year 2 is 2013 for the Cubs and 2018 for the Sox, so on and so forth:
Year 1
Cubs: 61-101, finished fifth in NL Central
White Sox: 67-95, finished fourth in AL Central
Year 2
Cubs: 66-96, finished fifth in NL Central
White Sox: 62-100, finished fourth in AL Central
Year 3
Cubs: 73-89, finished fifth in NL Central
White Sox: 72-89, finished third in AL Central
Year 4
Cubs: 97-65, NL wild card, won NLDS, lost in NLCS
White Sox: 35-25, AL wild card, lost in first round of playoffs (pandemic-shortened season)
Year 5
Cubs: 103-58, NL Central champions, won NLDS, won NLCS, World Series champions
White Sox: 93-69, AL Central champions, lost in ALDS
Year 6
Cubs: 92-70, NL Central champions, won NLDS, lost in NLCS
Sox: 81-81, finished second in AL Central
Year 7
Cubs: 95-68, NL wild card, lost in NL wild card game
Sox: 6-10 through first 16 games.
What do we notice here? There are two things in common. Both teams put their fans through three years of intentional losing, but when the Cubs came out of it in the fourth year, they had an elite team. The Sox were good, but clearly not among the elite teams in the AL.
Both of these rebuilding projects peaked in the fifth year. The Cubs' rebuild resulted in that World Series. The Sox rebuild peaked with a division title and a quick ouster from the playoffs.
After the Cubs won, they were still contenders for two more years. Despite a decline in play, they still won a playoff series in Year 6, while the Sox finished 11 games out in their division. The Cubs were a playoff team in Year 7, too. There's 146 games to go in Year 7 for the Sox, but it's not looking good so far.
This is not to say the Cubs were the model rebuild. Look to the Houston Astros for that. They've made the ALCS in each of the past six seasons. They have made the World Series four times, and they've won it twice -- 2017 and 2022.
Basically, I'm seeing three levels of rebuilds here. At the top of the pyramid, you have the Astros. They were trash for four years, from 2011-14. But once they started climbing, they got to the top in 2017 and have stayed there ever since.
The Cubs are in the middle tier. They got to the top in 2016, but they couldn't stay there. The championship core was disassembled in 2020-21, and they've started anew with a different group of players.
At the bottom tier, we find the Sox, who put their fans through three seasons of intentional losing -- all for a grand total of two contention seasons.
You read that right: The intentional losing on the South Side of Chicago lasted longer than the contention window. It shouldn't be a surprise that fans are so pissed off. They were promised parades. They were promised contention for "multiple championships." Instead, they got a 2-5 record across two playoff appearances.
Whoop dee doo. Soon it will be time to start over. Sox fans can only hope someone other than Hahn will lead the next rebuild.
No comments:
Post a Comment