The Chicago White Sox are in the middle of an abysmal year. With about a month and a half to go before the season is over, they are already looking ahead to the future.
The Sox were massive sellers at the 2023 MLB Trade Deadline. That means that the team looks wildly different than it did a few weeks ago and that is okay.
2024 is a year that is going to be bad but Rick Hahn seems to think that they are going to contend again. If he is right, it would be a miracle.
It would also mean that these three players really stepped up big and played to their potential again:
1. Dylan Cease
Dylan Cease is having a good year but not a great year for the White Sox.
Dylan Cease was one of Major League Baseball's three best pitchers in 2022. On a very mediocre White Sox team, he came in second place for the American League Cy Young.
It took an incredible comeback season from Justin Verlander to keep Cease from winning this thing. Well, in 2023 he has been good but he hasn't been great.
The White Sox need Cease to be great in 2024 if they are going to compete. If he gets back to being elite, it will be proof that coming down from 2022 and this bad year brought him down a little bit.
We always knew that Dylan Cease had the talent to be a very good pitcher but now it is time for him to continue being elite year after year. If he does that, the White Sox will have a true ace in a year that they are trying to win.