21. Chicago White Sox (41.0°)

2023 change: -4.1° (once-promising rebuild devolved into 101-loss debacle)
10-year change: -15.5° since 2014
Franchise peak: 122.0° in 1919 (the team that will live in infamy)
Franchise nadir: 16.6° in 1950 (after the Black Sox scandal broke in 1920, the ChiSox didn't finish above third place again until 1957)

The White Sox have been stuck in the 30s and 40s ever since cooling down from their 2005 World Series championship. Things warmed up during the very brief resurgence of 2020 and 2021, but that netted just two playoff wins. And now, once again, the temperature is dropping. Chicago and its new baseball honcho, Chris Getz, have three years to avoid falling below freezing for the first time this century.

 

https://www.espn.com/mlb/insider/story/_/id/39235505/mlb-ranking-all-30-teams-franchise-temperatures-2024

Cubs were 12th, fwiw

Edited January 6, 20242 yr by caulfield12

Yay. Ahead of the Orioles even.

Somehow.  

How many different ways can we be told this franchise sucks 95% of the time? 

 

10 hours ago, Texsox said:

How many different ways can we be told this franchise sucks 95% of the time? 

 

The biggest surprise here is that we were only behind about 70% of the league, as opposed to 90-95%.

It certainly feels as of today that it's only the A's, Rockies and Pirates, and two of those three at least have much nicer/newer stadiums (A's will have a totally new facility) and the other has some of the most strangely faithful and undemanding fans in baseball if you look at their overall franchise direction and lack of results/performance since 2007 on the field.  But especially Kris Bryant and getting rid of Arenado, for example.  Fan favorite Blackmon on his last legs.   Bud Black a solid manager but hardly more than average/decent.

 

Could have just as easily have imagined Jeff Passan doing a guest podcast performance with Rockies, PIrates or Mariners fans and saying almost the exact same things.