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The Chicago White Sox, despite having the league's top home run hitter Munetaka Murakami, continue to be disrespected in national media rankings. Recent power rankings place them at the bottom, reinforcing a long-standing bias against the team.
Despite having the league-leading home run hitter in Munetaka Murakami, the South Siders still get no respect. | (Geoff Stellfox/Getty Images)
The South Side canât escape its reputation in the national media â including the lazy and inaccurate assumption that the White Sox have and will always play second fiddle to the Cubs â 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.
ESPNâs most recent MLB power rankings werenât 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 isnât 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 , 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 , 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?
The Chicago White Sox are ranked low due to persistent biases and assumptions about their performance compared to the Cubs, despite having strong players like Munetaka Murakami.
Munetaka Murakami is the league-leading home run hitter for the Chicago White Sox.
The Athletic's MLB power rankings placed the White Sox at the bottom, reflecting a long-standing bias against the team.
The White Sox consistently rank lower than the Cubs in national media rankings, despite their performance on the field.
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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 isnât unwatchable. Thatâs 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 itâs something like âaverage inning ignorance,â measuring the average inning fans stop watching. If such a metric existed, you canât 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:
Youâre lazy â Itâs OK if you donât 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!
Youâre a (intellectual) coward â If I were a person who wrote about baseball on a national scale, I would try to challenge my audienceâs 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.
Youâre stupid â Maybe you just donât know ball. Thatâd be fine, except youâre charging subscription fees based on knowing ball.
Lazy, cowardly, or stupid: pick one. It really is just that simple.
Brian OâNeill
The White Sox had a terrible first two series and have been playing roughly .500 ball ever since. When theyâve looked bad, theyâve looked terrible, and when theyâve won, they look like a .500 team. The team isnât good, and any Sox fan will be the first to say we still suck, but: We donât suck as much as the doyens at the Athletic âthink.â
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 wonât even get into the roots of theathletic, from the sockless penny loafer founders promising to âdestroy newspaper sports sectionsâ 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 arenât ever not dumb. And because Iâm not paying $72 a year to read coverage of most every MLB club but the White Sox, I havenât read the article attached to the bumblefuckery of a chart cited by Hannah above; Iâll 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, theathleticâs 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 youâre out of the POWER RANKINGS PLAYOFFS. Congratulations, Pittsburgh Pirates, before you swap away Paul Skenes and Konnor Griffin for wood shavings and kitty litter weâll cram you into the POWER RANKINGS TOP FIVE with a bullet. And so sorry, Chicago White Sox, the roster youâve slapped together with spit and dirt and pizza grease and Pope Leo leavings ainât 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 thatâs only because our vichy-bothsideser corporate overlords wouldnât let us wedge the Memphis Redbirds or Chattanooga Lookouts into the Top 30.
Yeah, we all got clickbaited on this one. Ah, well. Weâre just empty calories anyway ⊠or so said stinkfooted company co-founder Alex Mather a decade ago.