The South Side can’t escape its reputation in the national media — including the lazy and inaccurate assumption that the White Sox have and will always play second fiddle to the Cubs — no matter how well they play. On Tuesday morning, the latest in a long line of slights was revealed, as The Athletic released its MLB power rankings after the first month of the season; once again, the White Sox find themselves at the bottom of the barrel.
ESPN’s most recent MLB power rankings weren’t as disrespectful, but the Sox still occupied 29th place undeservingly.
The SSS staff has plenty to say about this … searching for the best corporate, polite word possible … interesting ranking.
Hannah Filippo
While their 13-17 record isn’t impressive, The Athletic placing Chicago beneath the Phillies and Mets, who just broke into double-digit wins after a ton of hype entering the season, and the Red Sox, who are facing backlash over recent coaching turnover and have just 12 wins, is a gross error in logic. The White Sox are nowhere near Philadelphia, who just dismissed manager Rob Thomson, and the Metropolitans, who are in the awkward position of explaining how more than $380 million in payroll keeps them underachieving by default. Did anyone bother to look at the standings before writing?
Records aside, the White Sox are a better team across the board than several teams ranked higher . Their collective .315 OBP and .377 SLG rank only eighth- and ninth-worst in MLB, which is solid progress compared to being in dead last two years ago. On the pitching front, the ERA (4.68), opponent batting average (.247), and WHIP (1.45) are more of a mixed bag, but there are still a handful of teams that are faring worse.
Finally, from an eye test, this team isn’t unwatchable. That’s a subjective standard that should really become a real metric, like how the Savannah Bananas have wacky rules like when a fan catches a foul ball, the batter is out. Perhaps it’s something like “average inning ignorance,” measuring the average inning fans stop watching. If such a metric existed, you can’t tell me that the Phillies and Mets would have a better average inning ignorance than the White Sox. The Good Guys are playing much better ball, but these critics would only know that if they actually watched any White Sox games.
David James
There are only three possible explanations for ranking the White Sox last in MLB as of April 28:
1. You’re lazy — It’s OK if you don’t want to watch the White Sox on your own time; brother, I get it! However, if your job includes contributing informed opinions while ranking all 30 MLB teams, then watching the White Sox is part of your job. Personally, I would be embarrassed if I got caught neglecting a fundamental piece of my job so flagrantly. The Athletic staff appears to have no such concerns. Must be nice!
2. You’re a (intellectual) coward — If I were a person who wrote about baseball on a national scale, I would try to challenge my audience’s preconceived notions whenever they were outdated or misguided. For example, if public perception of the White Sox has remained stuck in 2024 despite a complete roster overhaul in the intervening years, I would feel it was my duty to inform my readership. The Athletic staff, evidently, feels no such obligation. Given that, I would encourage Athletic subscribers to save their money and instead recite their baseball takes in a mirror for free.
3. You’re stupid — Maybe you just don’t know ball. That’d be fine, except you’re charging subscription fees based on knowing ball.
Lazy, cowardly, or stupid: pick one. It really is just that simple.
Brian O’Neill
The White Sox had a terrible first two series and have been playing roughly .500 ball ever since. When they’ve looked bad, they’ve looked terrible, and when they’ve won, they look like a .500 team. The team isn’t good, and any Sox fan will be the first to say we still suck, but: We don’t suck as much as the doyens at the Athletic “think.”
The Athletic has zero interest in reexamining its priors. In this, it is a perfect reflection of the once-great New York Times, to which it is attached: Presenting outdated conventional wisdom as if it is a revelation, deigning to talk to us with an inverted sense of noblesse oblige. Both The Athletic and The Times think they are forging a path of common sense. All they really represent is a future of spreadsheets and jackboots, relying on past glory to mask their present deliquescence.
Brett Ballantini
I won’t even get into the roots of theathletic, from the sockless penny loafer founders promising to “destroy newspaper sports sections” to the utterly fabricated and/or unverifiable subscription data it used to prop up its fallacious premises and empty promises with repeated helpings of venture capital gruel before The New York Times devoured the skittering site in an act of hubris or revenge.
Oh wait, I just did. I got yer deliquescence right here, at-letic.
Yeah, power rankings aren’t ever not dumb. And because I’m not paying $72 a year to read coverage of most every MLB club but the White Sox, I haven’t read the article attached to the bumblefuckery of a chart cited by Hannah above; I’ll merely assume that with SBN alum Grant Brisbee attached to it there is some manner of tongue tucked into cheek. (Although, what the hell is that Power Rankings tie between St. Louis and Boston, theathletic’s power-ranking-supercomputer must have been on the verge of core meltdown generating a tie to the 20th decimal place in the very first month of the season.)
Sorry, Toronto Blue Jays, you were one demolition derby catch of a fly ball away from a monumental World Series upset, but 30 games into 2026 you’re out of the POWER RANKINGS PLAYOFFS. Congratulations, Pittsburgh Pirates, before you swap away Paul Skenes and Konnor Griffin for wood shavings and kitty litter we’ll cram you into the POWER RANKINGS TOP FIVE with a bullet. And so sorry, Chicago White Sox, the roster you’ve slapped together with spit and dirt and pizza grease and Pope Leo leavings ain’t moving us, even with a scratch-off lottery ticket reveal of the MLB leader in home runs via windswept ruddy slugger Munetaka Murakami. Your fate one month in? No. 30, and that’s only because our vichy-bothsideser corporate overlords wouldn’t let us wedge the Memphis Redbirds or Chattanooga Lookouts into the Top 30.
Yeah, we all got clickbaited on this one. Ah, well. We’re just empty calories anyway … or so said stinkfooted company co-founder Alex Mather a decade ago.
