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Strong drafts vaulted White Sox to playoffs 25 years ago

As the 1993 Chicago White Sox showed, it can be done.

Building a young team through the draft and adding the right outside talent can produce a winning team, and the '93 Sox fit that bill.

The foundation started in 1987 with first-round draft pick Jack McDowell. Robin Ventura, Frank Thomas and Alex Fernandez were the White Sox's top picks the next three years, and success soon followed.

"You're going, 'OK, four years in a row and you have a 1 and 2 pitcher (McDowell and Fernandez) and then your corner guys (Thomas, Ventura) are both all-stars and MVP-type guys,'" McDowell said. "Pretty good core. You're not going to get much more of a young core than that."

Twenty-five years ago, McDowell, Ventura, Thomas and Fernandez led the Sox to a 94-68 record, good for a first-place finish in the AL West.

The White Sox were eliminated by the Toronto Blue Jays in the playoffs, 4-2.

"We had four great drafts in a row with guys that really panned out on the big-league level," said Thomas, the greatest hitter in franchise history and a 2014 Hall of Fane inductee. "That doesn't happen too often. We were all superstars in college and we came up right to the big leagues and played like big leaguers.

"The way they are doing it now is getting younger kids and putting them in the minors, getting them more seasoning."

The current Sox are following that blueprint, mainly because top prospects like Eloy Jimenez, Michael Kopech, Luis Robert, Blake Rutherford and Spencer Adams didn't play in college.

But if recent first-round picks like Nick Madrigal, Jake Burger, Zack Collins and next year's top draft choice - which is looking like No. 3 overall - meet expectations, the White Sox should finally start playing some meaningful games.

The Sox sure did 25 years ago, and much of that team reunited at Guaranteed Rate Field before Saturday afternoon's game against the Royals.

In addition to McDowell, Ventura, Thomas and Fernandez, the 1993 White Sox had Hall of Famer Tim Raines, Bo Jackson, Ellis Burks, Ozzie Guillen, Wilson Alvarez, Jason Bere and Roberto Hernandez.

Another Hall of Famer, Carlton Fisk, was released halfway through the season at the age of 45.

"It was a great year," said Bere, who finished second in AL Rookie of the Year voting in '93 after going 12-5 with a 3.47 ERA. "I look back now and unfortunately it just happened so fast. I don't think I was able to appreciate it while it was going on. I certainly do now.

"I was sort of like that kid who thinks, 'Oh, great, we go to the playoffs every year. This is how it's supposed to be.' I didn't realize that more goes into it than that."

The Sox lost to a loaded Blue Jays team in the playoffs.

In 1994, the AL and NL split into three divisions, the East, Central and West.

The White Sox were in first place in the AL Central with a 67-46 record when the strike hit on Aug. 11 and wiped out the remainder of the season.

"The pitching was a lot stronger (in 1994)," Thomas said. "You can't look back at it, but that was our hey day. In 1993 and 94, we should have clinched a championship. We didn't get it done. There were stars at every position and we didn't get it done. That's how competitive the AL was back then."

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