SWAP TILL THEY DROP
Sox need a total rebuild — a Cubs- style tanking — to return to relevance
Contrary to popular opinion, the worst thing for a sports fan is not allegiance to a bad team. It’s allegiance to a boring team, a circumstance that can lead to catatonia if a person isn’t careful. From there, it’s a slippery slope to a career in baseball analytics.
The White Sox are a boring team and have been for years. They have tried and tried to build on the fly, believing they can’t afford the public- relations hit that comes with a complete rebuild. I have news for them: Your image, one of stagnation, can’t get any worse.
A razing and a three- year rebuilding process are exactly what the Sox need, which means trading ace Chris Sale, Jose Quintana, Jose Abreu and Adam Eaton for as many stud minor- league players or draft picks as possible.
All this from a guy who questioned almost everything the Cubs did as they went through their rebuild. That might strike some of you as rich, but what can I say? It took me longer than most to understand that manipulating the system in what feels like unseemly ways is considered good business.
Nothing else has worked for the Sox. Might as well go the tanking route.
I’d like to think they tipped their hand on a rebuild when they hired Rick Renteria as manager after this past season. The Cubs had brought him in as their manager in 2014, when they were in the tail end of their rebuild, then conveniently jettisoned him after one season when Joe Maddon became available. The belief on both ends of town obviously is that Renteria’s strength is in working with young players.
The guess here is that many Sox fans would be open to three yearsplus of rebuilding pain, and not just because some of them seem to revel in their own suffering. If there’s the possibility of a prize on the other side, those fans might just go along with it. Some kicking and screaming could ensue, and that would be OK. There should be anger over getting to the point of a teardown, just as there was with the decades of futility that brought the Cubs to the point of losing on purpose to get high draft picks.
For years during that rebuild, Cubs fans followed the progress of the team’s hotshot prospects with a zeal that, in other spheres, would lead to restraining orders. The Sox need to create that kind of participatory anticipation and hope to hell that their vision comes true. The Cubs’ success rate on prospects surely has led the majors during Theo Epstein’s tenure. That’s baseball acumen with some luck thrown in.
We don’t know if Sox general manager Rick Hahn can have the same kind of impact, but it’s time to find out with the winter meetings starting Sunday. This isn’t the way the Sox have typically done business. Chairman Jerry Reinsdorf knows tanking isn’t good for business in the short term, and vice president Ken Williams always wants to win now. But if we’ve learned anything from the Sox over the last decade, it’s that throwing money at a free agent or two doesn’t work. Or at least it hasn’t worked the way the Sox have done it.
They have been to the postseason just once since winning the World Series in 2005. In those 11 seasons, their average record was 79- 83. The eyelids get heavy just typing that sentence.
I know I’m being almost cavalier about trading Sale, who is excellent. If it turns out the Sox didn’t get fair value after moving him, the franchise will never be able to live it down. But watching Sale be great and Quintana be very good hasn’t resulted in a winning product, which is the whole idea. Regardless of the approach the Sox take, there will be lots of empty seats next season at whatever they’re calling their ballpark now. What’s there to lose, besides a lot of games?
That’s putting a lot of faith in Hahn to identify prospects who can turn around the franchise’s fortunes. But what’s the alternative? Other teams in baseball already are emulating the Cubs’ approach to building an
operation that can succeed for years, not just for one season.
No one is complaining about the Sox’ 2005 title. It was a ton of fun. But there’s nothing wrong with wanting to be in contention regularly. Let’s find out if Hahn, assuming he’s really in charge, can build a foundation for enduring success.