The Chicago White Sox and Chicago Cubs are not in the same division or even the same league so nothing they do really affects each other. However, inner-city rivalry does exist within the organizations and they want to be better than one another. That is healthy.
Early in the off-season, it seemed as if the Chicago Cubs were going to steal the show in terms of adding to their team and improving for 2023. Well, that started off nicely for them but things have taken a turn.
The Cubs were in on everyone. Carlos Correa, Xander Bogaerts, Trea Turner, Dansby Swanson, Kodai Senga, Cody Bellinger, you name it. Well, they landed Bellinger and that would be a nice signing if he was a part of a larger group.
They failed on almost everyone else as Swanson is the only aforementioned name that doesn’t have a home yet. If the Cubs don’t land him, they will be having a significantly worse off-season than the White Sox.
The Chicago White Sox are having a better off-season than the Chicago Cubs.
The White Sox have signed Mike Clevinger and Andrew Benintendi (who they signed on Friday). The Cubs got Cody Bellinger and Jameson Taillon. Each landed a pitcher and an outfielder. Taillon had a better 2022 than Clevinger but has never reached the ceiling that Clevinger has.
Bellinger won an MVP three years ago but has basically been horrible ever since. You can say that his ceiling is higher than Benintendi’s but it is hard to think he will ever get there again. Lately, Benintendi has been better. Even if Clevinger never gets to where he was again either, he should be better than Taillon.
The word all off-season is that the White Sox aren’t doing anything. Well, all of a sudden they are looking much better than they were going into the off-season. Neither team is really set to go (at least we don’t think so) but the White Sox took a step ahead with the Benintendi signing.
Both teams lost their most consistent players this off-season too. Jose Abreu is headed to the Houston Astros and Willson Contreras is going to the St. Louis Cardinals. That is a miss for both organizations.
As of Friday, you can expect the White Sox to be the better team in 2023. It was looking like the Cubs might jump them with some big moves but most of the good ones are already gone. We will see what happens with Swanson.
It has been frustrating to be a White Sox fan lately but don’t count out positive regression in 2023. If that happens, this team might actually be really good. Again, we shall see.