A Really Bad Team: The Curious Case of the Chicago White SOx

Winning doesn't come easy for many teams in Major League Baseball. The Athletics have struggled to find steady success in recent years. Same with teams like the Angels, Marlins, Pirates and many more. No team, though, has exemplified a losing mentally more then the south side's own Chicago White Sox.

A lot of the information collected in this blog was researched on Baseball Reference. This is a website dedicated to baseball history and statistics. If you are a nerd for the sport like I am, I highly suggest you take a look.

A Numbers Game

Throughout this blog I will be using statistics to explain the success and downfall of this franchise. In recent years, baseball has become a sport much more about math than that of hitting a ball with a stick. So, first, let me explain some of the stats I will be spouting out.

First and foremost, Win Above Replacement (WAR) has become the main stat when trying to look at a player's productivity. This stat tells how many wins a player gives or takes away from his team during a calendar year. Zero means that a player is replacement level, and anything above 2.5 is regarded as very good.

OPS+ is another important number. This grades a player on his overall offensive production. It takes the scoring environment of all seasons in MLB history and averages them out so that hitters can be compared across generations. With this stat, 100 is always league average.

ERA+ is essentially OPS+ but for pitchers. It takes the run scoring environment of the league at the time and applies it to how well a pitcher prevents runs from scoring. 100 is always league average on the scale.

The final saber metric that I will use is Defensive Runs Saved (DRS). This tallies how many runs a defender saved on the year at his position. A prime defender usually has about five DRS per year, while a league average defender is around three.

These advanced stats along with more generalized stats, such as batting average, home runs, etc. will be used to grade players and their success across recent White Sox history.

Winning?

The year 2020 was the worst year for some people, but not for the White Sox. The COVID-19 shortened 60 game season played well into the hands of the young Chicago team.

The team was led by four players who were the cornerstone for the future of the franchise. The first, and most exciting of which, was Tim Anderson. He was only 27 and was already one of the premiere contact hitters in all of baseball.

He finished the shortened campaign with a .322 batting average, 140 OPS+, and a top seven MVP finish. He was also decent with his glove at a premiere shortstop position with a four DRS that year.

Anderson was clearly the best young player on the team, but there were other great guys as well. Yoan Moncada, Eloy Jimenez, and Luis Robert Jr. all posted positive WAR seasons with above league average hitting statistics. The young talent was certainly gearing up to be one of the best cores in baseball.

The crazy part about all the production with this young team is we haven't even talked about the best player on the roster in 2020. This player was Jose Abreu.

Abreu, a long tenured star first basemen for the White Sox, had a breakout year in the shortened season. The 33-year-old batted over .300 at .317 and slugged at a team high .617. He was 65% above league average with the bat at a 165 OPS+ and hit 19 home runs in just 60 games played. This effort earned him the American League MVP award that year.

Pair this offense with a decent pitching staff led by Lucas Giolito and an aging Dallas Keuchel, and the White Sox were playoff bound for the first time since 2008.

They faced off against another low budget team in the Oakland Athletics during the AL Wild Card series. This series was a best of three in which Chicago lost 2-1. Even with the early round exit, this team seemed to be bound for greatness down the line.

A Magical Season

Following 2020, there was a feeling of optimism on the South Side. A year more of experience for this young core plus the addition of Lance Lynn made this team better than the one previous.

All of the familiar faces produced at an above league average level. Tim Anderson had an All Star caliber campaign, batting over .300 yet again and having a WAR of 4.5.

Yoan Moncada flourished, slugging 14 homers and offering a 116 OPS+ in 128 games played at the hot corner.

No young bat was better, though, then Luis Robert Jr. this season. In limited action due to injury, Robert reached a WAR of 3.7 in just 68 games played. He also batted at a well above league average with a 154 OPS+. He had a great glove in the outfield; and if he had played more, he would have received a couple of MVP votes.

The veterans were stepping up as well. Catcher Yasmani Grandal had a great season with 23 home runs and an OPS+ of 155.

All of this offense was complemented even more with the breakout campaign of Carlos Rodon, a left handed starting pitcher. Rodon offered 5.1 wins above replacement and pitched to a 185 ERA+. He had turned himself into the ace of the staff.

This bunch of characters led the team to a 93-69 record with a first place finish in the AL Central. It was the first time they had won their division since 2008. The great season they had set them up with the Houston Astros for a American League Division Series date.

The best of five series was decided in four games with the Astros coming out on top over the Sox. Though Chicago fell short, their young core had gained post season experience the past two seasons, and it was only up from this point. Or, so it seemed.

Trouble in Paradise

2022 was the first year that the White Sox saw real regression from some of their stars. Yasmani Grandall turned from one of the best offensive catchers in the sport to a well below league average bat with an OPS+ of just 64.

Yoan Moncada also struggled when he was healthy. Dealing with injuries over the course of the year, he had an OPS+ of just 77 and hit only 12 homers in 2022.

Thankfully, a small bright spot was the continuing success of other young players like Anderson, Robert, and Jimenez, all of whom had good years. Anderson once again hit at above a .300 clip.

The offense was inconsistent and so was the pitching. They lost Carlos Rodon over the offseason to the San Francisco Giants, where he would pitch well enough to receive NL Cy Young votes. Along with this loss, there were struggles from Lance Lynn and Lucas Giolito.

The once bright spot in the rotation was Dylan Cease, who turned into a true ace this year. He would have a team leading 6.4 WAR along with a monster 180 ERA+. This success shot him to a second place AL Cy Young finish for 2022.

The inconsistent play from top to bottom in the organization led to a 81-81 finish. The team was just as average as average gets, which would be a sign of things to come in the next couple years.

Oh boy...

Going into 2023 there were a couple of things to be excited about. All Star outfielder Andrew Benintendi signed the largest contract in team history at 5 years/$75 million. He had accumulated over 14 WAR during his tenure with the Red Sox, Royals, and Yankees.

Mike Clevinger, a solid middle of the rotation arm, was also an addition made over the winter. Clevinger was a positive WAR player in each of his first 6 seasons in the big leagues.

With these additions, hopes were high-even after an average season-just two years removed from a division title. The hope would soon dissipate.

The Sox got off to a decent start with a 3-2 win over the Astros to start their season. They couldn't capitalize on this win. By the end of April, they were a dismal 8-21 with little to no hope of clawing their way back.

A lot of the losing was due to the sudden regression of one of the most consistent batters in the lineup, Tim Anderson. Anderson saw a massive dip in his production. He became a negative WAR player at -1.8. He also had an OPS+ down at 62.

The big free agent signing in Andrew Benintendi also struggled out of the gates. He barely got over replacement level, with a WAR of 0.4 and just 5 homers hit throughout the course of the season.

These two players batting poorly led to the rest of the lineup struggling as well. Just one player was able to get over 1.2 WAR this year. That player was Luis Robert who had a 5.3 and a 12th place MVP finish.

The pitching staff was also worse then the year previous. Dylan Cease regressed to just a league average arm. The new addition in Mike Clevenger was good, but he threw only 130 innings in 24 starts.

The team ultimately finished in fourth place in the AL Central while losing over 100 games. They finished with an atrocious 61-101 record for 2023. The crazy thing? It only gets worse.

The worst Team in Modern Baseball History

There was no hope going into 2024 for White Sox fans. They had just come off a 100 loss season, and there were no moves made over the offseason to improve the team.

Tim Anderson had been let go after his bad 2023 season, and Yoan Moncada would not be in the lineup for most of the year due to multiple injuries. Benintendi took an even larger step back this year by being the worst qualified hitter in baseball.

The only real bright spot for the team was Garret Crochet who had a sneaky good 2024 on the mound. He had a 115 ERA+ and was in the conversation for Cy Young votes at the mid way point. He was eventually traded away during the offseason to the Boston Red Sox.

This team was just awful. They ended the year with a record of just 41-121. They also were at the bottom of the American League in attendance, ranking 13th out of 15 teams. They at one point lost 21 consecutive games from mid July to early August.

A bad outlook

With the team coming off of a historically bad season, there is not much hope for the White Sox. As in the past, little movement was made in the offseason, and they are projected to, once again, be the worst team in the league.

The southside is most likely years away form sniffing competitive baseball again, and it would be a surprise if they won even 60 games in 2025. A poor outlook and a shrinking fan base is going to hurt the franchise overall.

I feel for you Sox fans. I hope it gets better soon.