Can this current Chicago White Sox current core still win?

This rebuild has not turned out how Chicago White Sox fans had hoped and anticipated. Struggling players, repetitive problems, and front-office lies and failures have led this core astray. 

Tim Anderson, Luis Robert Jr, Yoan Moncada, Eloy Jimenez, Lucas Giolito, Michael Kopech, and Dylan Cease have made up the core of this team for a few years now.

While assembling this core, multiple parades were in the minds of many. They made the trades, acquired young talent, and developed them as best they could.

The last step is to lock up superstar talent to elevate the developed core. They either forgot that last, most crucial part of the rebuild or chose to ignore it and hoped for the best. 

There have been plenty of issues with the Chicago White Sox lately.

What’s done is done and the past can’t change. The momentum the young team was building, cut down by a sudden managerial change that ultimately changed the vibe, atmosphere, and team chemistry, has been laughed at throughout the MLB.

There may have been underlying problems before Tony La Russa but no one believes his presence made anything better.

So is that it? With the White Sox 12 games out of first in the worst division in baseball, is it over?

While 19 under .500 is not the prettiest, there still is a chance the front office does not have to retool and trade a core player or two to get back into contention. That chance only exists in an overly optimistic White Sox fan’s head but it exists nonetheless. 

The stars would have to align and most of the core players would have to do things they haven’t in their careers. Giolito, Cease, and Kopech need consistency, Jimenez and Robert Jr need to be healthy, and Anderson and Moncada need to channel their previous dominance. 

This core can only remain intact if all seven players accomplish those three goals. If a player fails to achieve the goal, they will be traded.

The likelihood of all seven reaching each goal is near impossible. It is possible but extremely unlikely. 

Even so, if each core player does what Sox fans want, leadership and chemistry remain an issue. Maybe winning carries the chemistry but it’s clear there is still a lack of leadership in the clubhouse and a captain or two is a crucial ingredient to the winning-team formula. 

The White Sox need to trade, acquire, develop, and assemble. Those are four oversimplified steps to the rebuilding blueprint the Sox were following.

They completed three of the four steps and didn’t finish the rebuild. There are a few names that fans could point fingers at, Jerry, Rick, and Kenny, but the experiment didn’t work. 

The best fans could hope for is the White Sox trading relievers this deadline and saving the core player trades for a new front office this offseason.