The Chicago White Sox are going back to the playoffs for the first time since 2008.
The Chicago White Sox have clinched a berth in the 2020 Major League Baseball postseason! It will be their first time in the playoffs since they made it in 2008. It has been a long painful road to this point but we can comfortably say that they are one of the best teams in all of baseball. They legit have a chance to be a World Series contender for the next decade. They did it today with a big win over the Minnesota Twins and some help from the San Francisco Giants and Kansas City Royals last night.
How did we get here? Well, there was only a 60 game season thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic. That has made so many things very difficult on so many people but the White Sox are giving us fans a reason to smile during some hard times. We all wanted to see how they would play over 162 but we will have our time for that. There is no doubt they would be at the same level but we can wait for that next year. For now, the opportunity is there in front of them to take advantage of the current situation.
Before any of this virus stuff, the White Sox executed a rebuild flawlessly. They traded away just about every key piece they had to build their organizational depth from the ground up. They traded a Hall of Fame talent in Chris Sale to the Boston Red Sox for multiple prospects including Yoan Moncada and Michael Kopech. The very next day, they traded Adam Eaton to the Washington Nationals for a package that included Lucas Giolito, Reynaldo Lopez, and Dane Dunning.
There have been other big trades as well but they have also done a good job with free agents. Luis Robert was an international free agent signing as well as in-league free agent signings in Yasmani Grandal and Edwin Encarnacion. It has been a long time coming for this team but they are finally there.
They are in decent shape to hang onto their lead in the American League Central and potentially the top seed in the American League as a whole. We don’t know who their opponent will be yet and probably won’t for another two weeks. They are, however, officially in and it is great to see. This season has been so much fun to watch and it feels like something special might be brewing.