3 bad players you forgot were on the White Sox in 2023
This has been one of the worst seasons in the history of the Chicago White Sox. Pretty much from April on, they have been a disaster of an organization. There has been a ton of losing and there are lots of different reasons for the losing.
So far this season, they have fired Rick Hahn and Kenny Williams which has changed the entire dynamic of their front office. In their place, they have hired Chris Getz to replace both of them.
They have also traded away a ton of players. Lucas Giolito, Reynaldo Lopez, Lance Lynn, Joe Kelly, Kendall Graveman, and Jake Burger were all sent away. That is a lot of roster reconstruction for the sake of bringing in some prospects.
There have also been some players who were cut because they were just straight-up bad. These are the three bad players that you forgot were on the White Sox in 2023:
1. Jake Diekman
Jake Diekman's time with the Chicago White Sox did not go well.
Jake Diekman was the one trade acquisition in 2022 when the White Sox were trying to win the AL Central. Rick Hahn was a bad general manager so it makes sense that he'd make a move like this. Obviously, it didn't help them win.
Diekman came into 2023 looking to bounce back after being horrible in 2022 and he was even worse. Eventually, things got so bad for him that the White Sox cut him. He was then claimed by the Tampa Bay Rays where things started to get better for him.
His ERA with the White Sox was 7.94 and it is 2.40 with the Rays. The White Sox clearly have no idea what they are doing with their players. Right when he left, the Rays helped him look like Jake Diekman again. It is honestly sad to think about.
You don't have to dislike Diekman for not playing well with the White Sox. The way his 2023 season has made it clear that it wasn't his fault. His time with the team feels so long ago that it is easy to forget it ever happened at this point.
2. Hanser Alberto
The 2023 Chicago White Sox had Hanser Albert on their team for a while.
Every MLB team has their spring training hero. This is someone that comes to spring training not expecting to make the team that does in the end. Most of the time, this player dominates in spring and convinces people that he is going to carry it into the regular season.
For the White Sox in 2023, that player is Hanser Alberto. At this point of the season, some folks may have even forgotten that he was on the Sox at all. There is a chance that he was so bad that people try to forget he was ever there.
For one, you might remember when he injured Tim Anderson and he missed some time only to come back and be a shell of himself. Anderson has started to hit better again but it hasn’t been the same since before that injury.
In 2023, he was so bad and his stats reflect it. Not a single other team picked him up once the White Sox let him go and he is still a free agent. In 30 games this year, he slashed .220/.261/.390 with an OPS of .652. He hit three home runs as well with 16 RBI and 11 runs scored in those 30 games as well.
On June 2nd, he was designated for assignment. Again, Alberto didn’t play well but he got to live out a part of another year in MLB. We’ll see what happens to him after year 8 in the league.
3. Jose Ruiz
The Chicago White Sox couldn't get rid of Jose Ruiz fast enough.
Like Jake Diekman, Jose Ruiz was a bad reliever during most of his time with the team. He tried hard to make it work but halfway through the 2023 season, the Sox had enough of him. The fanbase was pretty ready to move on as well.
Ruiz, like Diekman and unlike Alberto, was able to latch onto another team. He is currently a member of the Arizona Diamondbacks and has been pretty much since he left Chicago.
Ruiz was on a couple of very good White Sox teams (2020,2021) so he knows how to stay cool in a playoff race which is what the D-Backs are in.
Coming into the year, there was hope that Ruiz was going to be really good because of the fact that he was awesome with Team Venezuela at the World Baseball Classic. Unfortunately, he got back to his old ways with the Sox once the MLB season started.
With the White Sox, Ruiz had a 22.09. With the Diamondbacks, it is at 4.43. Obviously, those four appearances with the Sox early on made it clear that he didn’t have it going well. Of course, this kind of stuff continues to happen to this organization. Players leave and thrive elsewhere.
He isn’t quite as good as Diekman right now but he is better than before the trade. Again, it was only four games for him before they pulled the plug so it is easy to forget it ever happened.
dark. Next. The 15 worst contracts in Chicago White Sox history