Six weeks into the 2016 season,
the Chicago White Sox sure seemed like the team to beat in the American League.
They had a 22-10 record, Chris Sale was unstoppable, Adam Eaton was a crazy good maniac, and the team was on a roll. Five weeks later and the team is in
free-fall. They have lost 18 of their past 25 games and currently sit in 3rd
place in the AL Central, only a half game up on the 4th place
Tigers. In an attempt to stop the hemorrhaging, last Saturday they traded two
prospects to the San Diego Padres to acquire starting pitcher James Shields. On
its face, it seems like a pretty good trade for the South Siders. They trade
away a 26-year-old pitching prospect (who can barely be called a prospect any
more) and a crazy young shortstop prospect who may or may not develop (but
certainly won’t help the team win now) and get a proven veteran and innings
eater- while only paying half of his salary. As The Ringer wrote, it’s a deal that shows the White Sox are serious about competing this year.
Former White Sox G.M. has always
been a tinkerer. That’s just who he is has an Office Guy. Williams has had
success with that approach as the Pale Hose won a World Series in 2005 thanks
to a scrap heap of talent Williams had acquired over the past few prior
seasons. People love to shit on that ’05 White Sox team, but that’s wildly
offensive and diminishes the talent and proven on-field success the team had.
But I get why that ’05 team is generally dismissed, because it is not
replicable. No one would consider Mark Buehrle, Jon Garland, and Jose Contreras
amazing pitchers, but the White Sox struck lightning-in-a-bottle and those guys
led to a great rotation for one year.
I will always take the
Championship over any sort of regular season success or possible future
outcomes, but the 2005 World Series win has hurt the White Sox ever since. The
win justified and solidified Kenny Williams’ thinking and approach to baseball
and has led to most of the moves the White Sox have made in the past ten plus
years since. Kenny Williams, with the help of owner Jerry Reinsdorf, have
always taken the approach that you can purchase a great team versus building it
up from scratch. With Chris Sale as Exhibit A, the Pale Hose do not ALWAYS take
this approach, but they have shown time and time again that their farm system
is more useful as trade bait than as a way to build a franchise.
Since the White Sox won the World
Series they have traded for Jim Thome, Javier Vazquez, Ken Griffey Jr., Manny
Ramirez, Nick Swisher, Alex Rios, Jake Peavy, Jeff Samardzija, and Todd Frazier
and have traded away Gio Gonzalez (twice) and Daniel Hudson along with essentially
every player that has started a game for them. On paper, practically all of
those deals have either worked out in the White Sox favor or haven’t come back
to bite them (terribly hard) in the ass. The problem though, is after all of
these trades, the White Sox are in the same place that they started- outside of
the playoffs. Since 2005, the South Siders have been to the playoffs a grand
total of one time- in 2008 where they lost in the first round to the Tampa Bay
Rays. Since the Sox’s 90 win team in 2006, the team hasn’t won more than 85
games outside of that 2008 season. For all of Kenny Williams’s tinkering, the
White Sox have practically not had any success.
What’s even more frustrating is
seeing the success of Chicago’s other baseball team. GM Jed Hoyer and executive
Theo Epstein have created a juggernaut for the Chicago Cubs after years of
being bad and rebuilding. They’ve created a solid corps of incredible young
talent and only made big offseason moves once the team was ready to win. The
Cubs currently have the best record in baseball and certainly seem like the
team to beat not only this year, but in the years to come. Only time will tell
if the Cubs will win the World Series, but regardless, Hoyer and Epstein have
assembled a fun team that will at minimum be competitive in the near future.
They have not relied on luck, but rather skill and talent. Not long ago, the
Chicago Cubs were an atrocious team, but that was just a placeholder while
upper management got their dynasty ready.
Contrast that to the White Sox
who have just been atrocious yet still refuse to build up a farm system for the
future. The Cubs were bad, but collected young talent during that time frame to
get themselves back in contention. Whereas the White Sox have been bad, yet
attempted to continue to purchase veterans to maybe get good for the next year
(or guys like Manny and Griffey to sell jerseys). While I don’t have any proof
or statements to back this up, it certainly feels that the White Sox as an organization
believe that they always have to be competitive and have the appearance of
trying to win in order to attract fans and butts in the seats during home
games. While I’ll always remain a loyal White Sox fan, I know the South Siders
don’t have a huge loyal core the ways the Cubbies do. I think the organization
believes that they can never bottom out the way the Cubs did because they can’t
afford to lose any fans and always needs to try to gain new fans. The ironic
part is that the White Sox remains an organization that consistently loses
anyways.
I really hope James Shields adds a shot of adrenaline
to this White Sox team and that they win the AL Central and win a pennant.
Nothing would make me happier than to see the Pale Hose winning. But I know that
this trade is just a symptom of a larger issue. Kenny Williams and Jerry
Reinsdorf are still running the organization and still calling most, if not
all, of the shots. This 2016 White Sox team is still the same team that
Williams and Reinsdorf believe they can buy their way into Championship
contention. Maybe they eventually will stumble into it again the way they did
in 2005. Ultimately though, I wouldn’t mind an organizational overhaul and for
the team to take the approach that their Northern compatriots are taking. In
the end, that would be more fun.
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