MLB’s Biggest Joke: The Failed Rebuild of the Chicago White Sox…

the MLB season has been underway for a little over a month and already the current landscape of Major League Baseball seems to be way different than we're used to seeing the American League East is on Pace to be the greatest division in the history of baseball with all five teams at or above 500. while the Texas Rangers and Arizona Diamondbacks are first in their respective divisions along with the Pittsburgh Pirates who have the single best record in the National League despite having back-to-back 100 lost Seasons so it's a pretty unusual start to the year but while a lot of teams are gaining recognition for their success there are others who are making headlines for all the wrong reasons teams like the Chicago White Sox just last year the White Sox were projected by many to win over 90 games finished first in the AL Central and be one of the best teams not only in the American League but in all of baseball for a fan base that suffered for over a decade prior it felt like 2022 was the year that all the pain that came during the rebuilding process was going to be worth it fast forward to this week and they have a player getting benched for not hustling fans chanting for ownership to sell the team while having one of the worst record words in the entire league but how do they get to this point what went wrong and who's to blame we're gonna break all of that down in this video but before I get into it welcome to the War Room a channel where I discuss all things sports related I'm gonna be making MLB content like this all season long so subscribe to the channel if you're new and let's get straight to it to explain everything in full detail we have to rewind all the way to 2008 where the White Sox won 89 games and the AL Central after beating the twins in a tiebreaker this team was led by Jermaine dye Carlos Quinton Jim Tome and Mark Burley Ken Griffey Jr was actually on this team as well he was 38 years old and made pretty much no impact but I thought it was interesting so shout out griffy unfortunately Chicago got bounced in the first round by the Tampa Bay Rays in four games and little did anyone know that this was the last playoff game White Sox fans would see for a while the next four years from 2009 to 2012 the team never completely rebuilt they were still trying to make the postseason but fell short every time 2013 to 2019 was officially the rebuilding period and this was a very very rough time for White Sox fans because each of these Seven Seasons saw the team finish the year with a record below 500 but during these years like any rebuild there were some small positives within the organization that gave fans hope for the future with the call up of some big name prospects for example in 2014 the White Sox called up top prospect Jose Abreu who had an amazing start to his MLB career winning Rookie of the Year becoming an All-Star and finishing fourth in American League MVP voting in his first season next in 2016 the franchise's new top prospect and future All-Star Tim Anderson made his debut and has been their starting shortstop every year since then on December 6th of that year the White Sox traded their star pitcher Chris Sale to the Boston Red Sox in exchange for four prospects with infielder yawan mankata and starting pitcher Michael kopeck being notable name Chicago got in return the very next day on December 7th Chicago traded Adam Eaton to the Washington Nationals and received three prospects in return including starting pitcher Lucas giolito and pitcher Reynaldo Lopez on MLB's official top 100 prosper specs list for 2017 moncada came in at number two ahead of a lot of future MLB Stars such as Ozzie Albee's Cody Bellinger Vladimir Guerrero Jr Aaron judge and plenty of others on that same list giolito was ranked at number 12 while kopeck was at 16 and Lopez was at 45. the White Sox were the only team to have three prospects in the top 20 but general manager Rick Hahn wasn't even close to done in April of 2017 the team signed the second best eligible International Prospect when they Inked 19 year old Luis Robert to a deal with Japanese sensation shoheiotani being the only overseas player ranked higher than Robert in 2017. a few months later in July the White Sox made a trade with the Cubs sending starting pitcher Jose Quintana to the north side while the Sox received a package of four prospects two of them being Eloy Jimenez and Dylan cease for the 2018 top 100 prospects list Jimenez came in at number four Robert was 28th and cease was 61st not only did the White Sox build their farm system through trades they made some notable draft picks as well these are other highest draft picks from 2013 to 2020 with all of these guys spending some time on the top 100 prospects list at one point or another so despite the team losing games at the major league level year after year the rebuild was going great their farm system was ranked by mlb.com as the third best in the league heading into the 2018 season and many people expected the White Sox to be contenders in the near future if everything went according to plan just to recap these are some of the key players that the White Sox Acquired and how they got them looking at the players on this list alone you would expect this to be a playoff team this doesn't even take into account the players the front office signed in free agency after the 2019 season they signed catcher yasmani grandal to a four-year 73 million dollar deal at this point in the franchise's history this was the largest contract they dished out in terms of Total Money when grundahl signed with the team he was a two-time All-Star and one of the best catchers in Major League Baseball they also signed former Cy Young winner Dallas keikel to a three-year 55.5 million dollar deal on top of that they extended Jose Abreu for for another three years and Louise Robert for another six there were some other smaller moves that they made that off season but these were the big ones so with 2020 opening day right around the corner it's safe to say the rebuild is finally over most of the team's top prospects have been called up they filled the holes they needed to fill in free agency and it was time for the team to compete for a championship unfortunately we'll never know how this team would do in a full 162 game 2020 season since the pandemic happened and every team played 60 games that year but they still had High Hopes based on everything I said about their team so far the lineup in 2020 was pretty scary along with their rotation where the average age of their starting pitcher that season was only 26 years old Jose abreu's 19 home runs 60 RBIs and 317 batting average made him the American League MVP while Dallas kaikel and Lucas giolito both finished top 10 in American League Cy Young voting Chicago finished one game behind the twins with a 35 and 25 record in the division this was good enough to make the postseason where they got eliminated by the AOS Champion Oakland A's in the the first round though the team didn't do much damage in the postseason that year the young guys got some more experience under their belt and 2021 was the year that many fans expected them to break out but it was going to be under a new manager because in October 2020 the team announced they were hiring Hall of Famer Tony larussa to lead the team which was met with some mixed reactions at the time the stars were aligned for the team to be very good in 2021 and that they were the Sox finished 93 and 69 and won the AL Central While new free agent signing Lance Lynn and former draft pick Carlos Rodan both finished top 5 in Al Cy Young voting the White Sox fielded four All-Stars That season the two guys I mentioned along with reliever Liam Hendricks who was in the first year of his record-breaking three-year 54 million dollar deal with Chicago and Tim Anderson a little fun fact I just want to mention is this was the first time in the White Sox 121 year history they made the postseason in consecutive years which is wild when you really think about it the White Sox were set to face the 95 win Astros in the ALDS while they were underdogs in this series some people viewed them as the dark horse in the postseason since they were still clearly a young team on the rise and they just finished a very successful regular season unfortunately the team lost in four games but the season overall could still be viewed as a great one for the franchise they took a massive step forward in the rebuilding process bands were finally invested in the team the moves the front office made throughout the years were starting to pay off and all the years of pain and suffering were starting to look like it was worth it and this is where everything started to go wrong heading into 2022 the White Sox were projected by pretty much everyone to win the division once again while winning over 90 games you still got your original core of Jose Abreu and Tim Anderson yasmani grandal was behind the dish once again and although they dealt with injuries the young players with potential to be Stars such as yoan mancada Eloy Jimenez and Luis Robert were still in the lineup despite dealing with injuries over the years on the pitching side cease and giolito were sitting atop the rotation with Johnny Cueto joining the squad Lance Lin was back after his great 2021 season and Michael kopeck was finally getting consistent in things after dealing with his own injury problems while homegrown All-Star Carlos Rodan left for San Francisco if there was one year since 2009 that the Chicago White Sox had real potential to not even win or make the World Series but at least get to the second round of the playoffs it was this season but instead for 162 games the fans had to watch a laughable display of mediocrity as the White Sox became one of the most underachieving teams we've seen in the past 10 years it was almost like this team was allergic to being over 500 because any time they were starting to build on their winning record they suddenly forgot how to play baseball for example they started the 2022 season 6 and 2 and followed it up with an eight-game losing streak after hovering around 500 all the way until August they finally looked like they were turning a corner after winning five in a row to improve to 61 and 56. they followed this up by losing 10 out of their next 12. and finally after getting to 76 and 71 in mid-september they responded with another eight-game losing streak they finished the year 81 and 81 11 games behind the Guardians for first in the division and of course miss the postseason entirely and it was really the three losing stretches that I mentioned that made the difference if you take the two eight game losing streaks plus the stretch they lost 10 out of 12. that's a 2 and 26 record if they would have simply went 500 during this stretch they would have again been 93 and 69 they would have won the division by one game and who knows maybe they could have made it a little run in the postseason instead White Sox fans walked away from another season with a feeling they're all too familiar with but what actually went wrong this year Well Dylan sees finished second in American League Cy Young voting after an incredible season and as far as living up to expectations go him and Jose Abreu were the only players that did in 99 games yasmani grandal batted 202 with five home runs in 104 games Joan mancata about a 212 with 12 home runs Luis Robert batted 284 and Eloy Jimenez bet at 295 but both guys played in less than 100 games after dealing with some more injuries Jose Abreu was the only player that played over 138 games in this line he was one of the few that actually pulled some weight as he batted 304 with 15 home runs and 75 RBIs Tim Anderson batted 301 but just like everyone else he was injured and played in less than half the games based on MLB team stats for That season Chicago was 22nd in home runs and 29th in walks and below the league average in rbi's stolen bases and slugging percentage and were top 10 in guys left on base most of the team pitching stats were around League average but this is largely due to Dylan cease's amazing season where he carried the pitching staff as nobody else really had any numbers that jump out at you on top of that Tony Larusso was widely considered the worst manager in all of baseball as fans chanted fire Tony several times throughout the year he left the team during the season due to health issues and then retired for good once the season concluded while 2022 was disappointing 2023 was the year they could bounce back and the front office felt like the team was still good enough to contend Jose Abreu decided to leave for Houston while the White Sox added Andrew benintendi for five years 75 million dollars and Mike Clevenger for one year with 12 million with still enough talent to be a playoff team the 2023 White Sox have been embarrassing starting the year 9 and 21 barely above the Royals for last in the division and the third worst record in all of baseball while already having a 10-game losing streak during this season injuries are still killing their roster while the players on the field are barely producing at all as of two days ago the lowest ERA for a starting pitcher in this rotation is a 4.15 while one player in the current lineup is batting over 260. the other day Luis Robert who at one point was supposed to be a star player on this team got benched for not running out of ground ball that he would have been safe on had he just hustled that same series fans were chanting for ownership to sell the team a caller on a Chicago radio station went on a six minute rant on how pathetic this franchise is while the hosts of the show just sat there taking it all in and agreeing with every word that the fans said looking back at the White Sox top prospects yawan mancada never really came close to the expectations he had while well the same could be said for Luis Robert Eloy Jimenez Lucas giolito and Michael kopeck Yes mani grandal and Dallas kaiko were both extremely overpaid while not producing nearly enough to be worth the money they got while Tim Anderson and Jose Abreu were really the only ones to be a consistently good piece of this rebuild Dylan sees could definitely be on that list as well but right now it's looking like he just had one really good season besides Tim Anderson the best draft picks who didn't get injured or leave the team are Andrew Vaughn and Jake Berger who at this point have just been good role players what once looked like an amazing rebuild that could launch the White Sox to the top of the league became two good years after a decade of suffering that has ended with them being right back at the bottom with the combination of injuries poor management inconsistency and lack of living up to potential the Chicago White Sox will be known for the next few years as the franchise that failed their decade-long rebuild and put their entire fan base through hell with absolutely nothing to show for it but that wraps up this video please comment your thoughts down below I'm always curious to see what you guys have to say like the video If you enjoyed And subscribe to the channel if you're new thank you for watching and as always I'll see you guys in the next one