There's undoubtedly no need for us to further pound this message home for Chicago White Sox fans, but things have gone just about as badly as they can this season for the Southsiders.
With just a handful of weeks left in the regular season, the Sox currently sport a win-loss record of 52-80, good for fourth place in the AL Central. With terrible records both at home and on the road, along with one of the worst run differentials (-133) in the league, all hope is just about gone.
To further the seemingly unending pain, MLB Pipeline recently released its latest round of farm system rankings.
Out of the 30 organizations in Major League Baseball, the White Sox came in 20th place in these rankings. Finishing near the bottom of the league in this list is just another slap in the face for an organization that seems to be poorly built from top to bottom.
The Chicago White Sox don't have a very good farm system at all.
Back in 2017, the White Sox were No. 1 on this list at mid-season. To see such a dramatic fall-off without any significant playoff successes along the way is just embarrassing.
Trading away top prospects (or having them graduate when they become consistent big leaguers) to bring aboard big league talent for postseason runs is one thing, but to experience no deep playoff runs while the farm system completely fell off the map is a hard pill to swallow.
If there's any positive spin to this story, it's the fact that the White Sox did bring aboard some intriguing prospects at this year's deadline, primarily in the Lucas Giolito trade with the Angels.
While Colson Montgomery is the team's top prospect (No. 17 in the game), newcomers Edgar Quero (No. 3 in the system, 86 overall), Jake Eder (No. 5 in the system), Nick Nastrini (No. 6) and Ky Bush (No. 9) all give the organization some semblance of hope down the line, as they are each pegged to be top-shelf talents once they reach the big leagues.
This is without mentioning Jacob Gonzalez, the club's first-overall pick in this year's MLB Draft. His ETA is not listed until 2026, but he has already shot up the prospect list and currently sits in the No. 4 spot per MLB.com's latest rankings.
Sure, if you look hard enough, there is hope for the future of the Chicago White Sox. However, it seems that all we've seen lately is knockout punch after knockout punch.