Chicago White Sox's window already looks to be wide open
After three long years in a rebuild, the White Sox were expected to be good this season.
How good was the great unknown.
"I think we talked at the end of last season about timing," Sox general manager Rick Hahn said Friday. "Obviously, it's a subject that came up a few times over the last several years, about how long this was all going to take."
Sitting in first place in the American League Central with 16 games left on the schedule, the White Sox are not only a virtual lock to make the playoffs, they have a stacked offense capable of making noise deep into October.
It's fairly safe to say the time is now for the Sox to begin a run of success.
"At the end of last season, I think I told you all that in our estimations we were getting ready to enter that next stage, and that is going from the early stages of the rebuild and talent accumulation and now going into that next stage of bringing it all together and hopefully augmenting it and hopefully watching them grow and ideally be ready to win, which was that third stage," Hahn said.
It has all come together rather quickly in the shortened 2020 season, and it is looking like the White Sox already have moved into the third stage.
Heading into Friday night's game against the Tigers at Guaranteed Rate Field, the Sox had the fifth-best record (27-16) in the major leagues and the AL's best offense.
They have a strong MVP candidate in Jose Abreu, Cy Young Award candidate in Lucas Giolito and Rookie of the Year candidate in Luis Robert. They also have Tim Anderson, who is making a strong bid to win his second straight batting title.
Hahn likes where the White Sox are at, all the way around. He also remains cautious.
"Certainly, it seemingly only lasting a matter of months or so before we found ourselves in a position to compete for a championships is a real good result for us all," the GM said. "But it doesn't change the fact that we know our work's not done, we haven't won anything yet and that really the goal was to put ourselves in a position to win repeatedly and do this on an annual basis.
"There's still work to be done to get to that level, even if this potential middle stage is moving along as quickly as we probably would've hoped it would."
Hahn is likely feeling extra satisfied, considering he failed to assemble a winning team in his first seven seasons as general manager.
Ditto for Rick Renteria, who managed rebuilding teams his first three years while going 201-284.
"Ricky was sitting there for 162 (games) over the last three years and before that as bench coach for a year when we were transitioning to this," Hahn said. "He had to bear the brunt of a lot of criticism and a lot of difficult personnel choices to make on a nightly basis, just given the way the roster was crafted through the rebuild.
"Now that we're starting to get toward the good times, or starting to get to the early stages of this next stage, I hope that he's getting the opportunity more to sort of savor and enjoy it, which is tough to do on this type of schedule.
"But at some point, maybe it won't be until after this year's over, I hope he's able to sort of look back and take some satisfaction in showing that he wasn't a guy who was just here to sort of be the caretaker through the rebuild and then not necessarily a guy who could get us to that next step.
"I still fully believe he's capable of getting us to that next step."