The Sox Still Stink

Excitedly, the baseball season is slowly approaching.  It cannot come soon enough.  Pitchers and catchers are reporting in the next couple of days if they have not already.  With that in my mind, let's delve into the rest of the AL Central shall we?

After having some success in the mid-2000s, the Chicago White Sox have slowly found their way to the basement of the AL Central.  Which is where everything Chicago should be.  I can't stand any of their sports teams.  You know, I do my best to cheer for teams from the same league/conference/division if the team I usually cheer for is not in the playoffs.  Mainly because it is great to see the league/conference/division you root for succeed.  With Chicago teams, not so much.  I am happy to see them all fail.

The White Sox have been a roller coaster of a team contending for the division one year only to take two steps back the next.  Sadly, though, they have won a World Series more recently than the Tigers in 2005.  Ever since then, they have been inconsistent at best.  There have been years where they have challenged for the division lead only to collapse at the end of the year.  There have also been years when they started in last place in the division and never left.

They have started to rebuild their team with acquisitions and through developing their prospects.  They have three prospects from their farm system (Matt Davidson, Erik Johnson, Marcus Semien) ready to contribute this season.  They signed Jose Abreu out of Cuba this off season and he will be an upgrade over the aging Paul Konerko.  The retooled offense is ready to keep the team in games, but their pitching staff is going to lose them games.  When the ace of your staff goes 11-14 in 2013, you know you're team is in trouble.  The positive you might find if you are an unfortunate fan of the White Sox is that the pitching staff is young and developing.

While they have a young pitching staff and a young team, unfortunately their farm system is not ready to go.  They have been drafting fairly well by all accounts, but they will need a lot of time to get big league ready.  Fans of the Sox are going to have to suffer through more years of basement dwelling before they are ready to compete again.  And hopefully, those of us who are not their fans, will get many more clips of a sad Hawk Harrelson.  Those sound bites are the best, are they not? 

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