Since the 2008 season that ended in an ALDS loss to the Tampa Bay Rays, the White Sox have been mired in mediocrity. This period of time pretty much went from the 2009 season up until the 2017 season when the rebuild began. With the rebuild has come many ups and downs (mostly downs) and quite a bit of painful baseball. We’ve seen players that have given us hope and promise during these dark times, such as Timmy and Jose Abreu. However, we’ve also had plenty of filler players that shouldn’t even be on our roster or any other major league team for that matter.
With many random and obscure players coming in and out of the South Side like a revolving door for what seems like forever, I decided to create two starting lineups consisting of these misfits to reminisce and hopefully look back at someday when/if this rebuild pans out the way we all hope. I chose players from 2005-2018 since 2005 was the peak of our relevancy. I also weighted my picks more heavily towards the beginning of this time period to eliminate some recency bias. After making my selections, I even created a hypothetical batting order for each team and I was actually somewhat pleased with the results (I got fancy and tried to go lefty/righty as much as I could). I named one team the Toledo Tongue Punchers and the other team the Salt Lake City 69ers (@ MiLB take notes because these could be some good minor league team names).
Without further ado, I’d like to introduce to you your 2019 Toledo Tongue Punchers!
CF Jerry Owens
SS Alex Cintron
1B Jerry Sands
DH Rymer Liriano
RF Kosuke Fukudome
3B Brent Morel
LF Blake Tekotte
C Adrian Nieto
2B Brent Lillibridge
SP Dylan Axelrod
RP Ehrin Wassermann
I had to give some love to Kosuke Fukudome; it really does seem wild that we had him at some point. How we never turned Blake Tekotte into a Tecate sponsorship is also beyond me.
And here are your Salt Lake City 69ers:
CF Jacob May
3B Jeff Keppinger
1B Mark Kotsay
C Ramon Castro
SS Jayson Nix
DH Wilson Betemit
LF Andy Gonzalez
2B Danny Richar
RF Luis Terrero
SP Clayton Richard
RP David Riske
Some may say that it was risky of me to give the ball to David Riske at the end of the game, but sometimes you’ve gotta just roll with what you’ve got. Jayson Nix was also one of my favorite obscure players back in the day, so I had to give him the nod at short.
Now we can let you decide… Who are you taking? The Tongue Punchers or the 69ers? Let us know in our polls on the ChiSox Weekly Twitter page. Who knows, maybe these teams exist far away in an Indy League somewhere.
Featured Photo: David Banks/Getty Images North America
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