Brady's Spin: What Has Happened to the Blue Jays and White Sox is Just Plain Sad

The Chicago White Sox are in the throws of a deep rebuild and the Toronto Blue Jays look like they could be headed for one at this year's trade deadline. What's disappointing about that is that the two organizations seemingly did everything right, and it still hasn't worked.

Toronto Blue Jays shortstop Bo Bichette (11) reacts after being called out on strikes San Francisco Giants during the eighth inning at Oracle Park on July 9. / Neville E. Guard-USA TODAY Sports

Heading into the second half of the season, the Chicago White Sox and Toronto Blue Jays are two of the most disappointing teams in baseball.

The White Sox are the legitimate worst team in baseball at 27-71, now mired in a deep rebuild that will likely take years to come out of. The Blue Jays are better, at 44-52, but they are still in last place in the American League East, and appear set to blow up their roster at the looming trade deadline.

What's frustrating is not just that these teams are bad, what's frustrating is that they seemingly followed the blueprint to get good, and it still hasn't worked out.

Take the Blue Jays: They did everything that we as fans or media pundits expect teams to do. They drafted and developed well. They signed Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and turned him into a multi-time All-Star. They drafted Bo Bichette and did the same with him. They drafted Cavan Biggio who was supposed to be a star while also developing a Cy Young-caliber pitcher in Alex Manoah. They had homegrown bullpen arms like All-Star closer Jordan Romano in his prime as well.

Beyond that, they went and spent big on the free agent market, inking George Springer, Kevin Gausman and Chris Bassitt to big-money deals. They even added a bounceback candidate in Yusei Kikuchi, who has turned into a nice piece of the rotation.

Unfortunately, it hasn't worked for Toronto. The team made the playoffs in 2020, 2022 and 2023 and failed to win a playoff game in any of those years. Manoah is now injured after a major regression, Biggio has been traded and Bichette has had a terrible year. The once wide-open Jays window appears shut, and they could trade multiple pieces at the this years deadline and then have to deal with Bichette and Guerrero, who are free agents after 2025.

With regards to the White Sox, they also did seemingly everything right, only to have it all backfire on them. After their last rebuild in 2016, they acquired premium young talent like Yoan Moncada and Michael Kopech. They got Dylan Cease and Lucas Giolito in trades too. They signed Luis Robert Jr. and Eloy Jimenez to early deals, which were seen as genius moves at the time. Furthermore, they brought in Yasmani Grandal, Liam Hendriks, Lance Lynn, Joe Kelly and Dallas Keuchel, who were established veterans over the years.

The White Sox made the playoffs in 2020 and 2021 but ultimately floundered in 2022 and 2023, and then have now embarked on another rebuild. They traded away Giolito, Lynn, Kelly, Reynaldo Lopez and others in 2023. This year, they traded Cease and appear primed to gut the roster even more.

As teams look to find ways to rebuild organizations, the Blue Jays and White Sox are seemingly two that did it right, but it hasn't worked anyways.

Moral of the story? Baseball is hard.

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