CHICAGO — It’s not every year the Chicago White Sox lose 100 games.
Well, before the last two seasons, that is. And now that I think about it, it also happened six years ago, back in the sanguine days of the previous rebuild when present losses equaled future wins.
But before losing 100 games three times in seven seasons, the White Sox, a middling franchise famous for its intermittent success, only lost 100 games in a season three times from 1901 through 2017.
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Listen, it’s hard to lose more than 60 percent of your games. Parity, luck, an inch here or there, an opposing pitcher still reeling from a night at The Lodge.
You can often win in life and baseball just by showing up, but the 2024 White Sox are making losing look easy. They lost 22 of their first 25 games to start the season, and they took Hawk Harrelson’s old instructions too literally as they didn’t stop now, boys.
Sunday, the Sox, who are now an impossibly bad 31-100, locked up the sixth triple-digit-loss season in their woebegone history with a 9-4 defeat at the hands of the Detroit Tigers. This marked the 15th straight series they lost, but let’s be clear: they’ve only won six series all year and just one since mid-May. They are 8-37 in the AL Central, with five of those wins coming against Cleveland, and they are 4-29 since the All-Star break. They’ve only won seven games in the last two months. And hey, let’s not forget the time they lost 21 straight games, which tied the AL record.
Chicago baseball history is rich with losing teams, but no one has done it better than the 2024 White Sox.
“We’ve been talking about it all year,” Sox left fielder Andrew Benintendi said. “I think it’s beating a dead horse at this point.”
That brings up the question: Could the 2024 Sox beat a team made up of nine dead horses? Someone smart set up that simulation for me.
“I think everyone in that locker room is aware of the record and how frustrating it is,” interim White Sox manager Grady Sizemore said. “Absolutely.”
Asking the White Sox about how bad they are doesn’t get much in the way of pithy quotes. There are no Paul Konerkos or A.J. Pierzynskis in that clubhouse, just a bunch of young guys, mercenaries and 4-A players. It’s not their fault. Well, the actual losses are, but the blame for the sad state of the franchise goes all the way to the top.
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As chairman Jerry Reinsdorf avoids the media, the players are left to give themselves credit for not getting crushed for the entire game every game.
“We’ve been staying at least competitive late in the games even when we’re down,” Benintendi said. “Earlier in the year, when we were down four or five runs in the seventh, it seemed like it was pretty much over. At least we’re trying to put ourselves in the position to potentially win or tie it. It’s happened more in the last two weeks than the rest of the season.”
Since manager Pedro Grifol was mercifully fired Aug. 8, the Sox are 3-11 and have been outscored 76-48. That’s what amounts to progress for a major-league team. Three wins in a fortnight is a real heater for this club.
Looking at numbers or just using the eye test, it’s not difficult to see why this team is so bad. None of the team’s hitters, even supposed star Luis Robert Jr., is even a league-average hitter this season, according to FanGraphs’ wRC+.
Benintendi, who is both one of the worst players in baseball and the highest-paid player (in terms of a free-agent contract) in Sox history, has even heated up, and his wRC+ is now up to 73, or 27 percent below the average big leaguer in a down offensive season. (Don’t ask about his defense.)
Andrew^2 pic.twitter.com/dird20Vmjk
— Chicago White Sox (@whitesox) August 25, 2024
My favorite nugget is that with Paul DeJong traded, former rebuild building block Yoán Moncada is third on the team in fWAR (0.3) among hitters, and he’s only played 11 games, the last coming April 9. I hear his latest injury rehab is picking back up in the minors, so maybe we’ll see him for the stretch run to 120 (losses).
With Erick Fedde gone, Garrett Crochet is the only pitcher having a good year and the team wanted to trade him at the deadline. Chris Flexen is second on the team in pitching WAR, and the Sox have lost his last 19 starts (he’s 0-9 with a 5.75 ERA in that span).
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Unlike last year’s train wreck that cost Kenny Williams and Rick Hahn their jobs, 100 losses were expected before the 2024 campaign began.
But credit to this group — from Reinsdorf to general manager Chris Getz to fired manager Grifol to the players — for surpassing expectations by accomplishing it with nearly a week left in August. Getz tried to stitch together a team that could lose 100 in a more dignified fashion than last year’s bunch and he failed in hilarious fashion.
Most Sox teams are forgettable, but this is one that will live forever.
Only three other teams had ever lost 100 games before September: the 1899 Cleveland Spiders, 1962 Mets and 2003 Tigers. The Sox are chasing the Tigers (119 losses) and Mets (120) to be considered the worst team in modern baseball history and they’re charging hard.
But before they get to 119, 120 or 121, the Sox have to get to 107 losses, which breaks the franchise record set by the 1970 Sox. That could happen before Labor Day. The 1970 club didn’t lose its 100th game until Sept. 25. The earliest any Sox team lost No. 100 was Sept. 19, 1932.
Late in the game Sunday, reporters in the press box were loudly going through the Spiders’ Baseball Reference page, but I think we’re setting our sights too high. It’s time to start doing some research on Charlie Brown’s baseball team as the one true comp for the 2024 White Sox.
To quote ol’ Charlie Brown: Good grief.
(Photo of Andrew Benintendi: Patrick Gorski / USA Today)
Jon Greenberg is a columnist for The Athletic based in Chicago. He was also the founding editor of The Athletic. Before that, he was a columnist for ESPN and the executive editor of Team Marketing Report. Follow Jon on Twitter @jon_greenberg
