The Chicago White Sox squad, over the past two seasons, has arguably been the most disappointing in all of baseball. In the late 2010s, the White Sox front office was able to assemble a nice young core to take them to great heights to begin 2020s, and for a while it looked like the team was going to make good on its potential. But after making the playoffs in 2020 and 2021, the White Sox scuffled to a .500 record in 2022 and then fell off quite remarkably in 2023, winning just 61 games.
However, Mike Soroka, the White Sox's newly-acquired starting pitcher from the Atlanta Braves, has high hopes for his new ballclub in 2024. In fact, Soroka thinks that the White Sox can exceed expectations in a similar way to how the Braves were able to break through in 2018, winning 90 games and the NL East division crown after four poor seasons.
“I feel like we’re in a situation a bit like the Braves in about 2018. That was the year when I don’t think they were expected to even come close to making the playoffs, ended up winning the division that year. You had a lot of guys who had something to prove and a lot of guys who feel like they have more to give to this game,” Soroka said, per The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Indeed, the Braves did not look like the world-beater they have eventually become in the years following that fateful 2018 season from 2014 to 2017. Similar to the White Sox, Atlanta endured a rough patch, winning an average of 71.5 games during that span.
2018 was the year Mike Soroka broke through in the big leagues, and he pitched in five games during the Braves' remarkable turnaround season. Soroka broke out in 2019, even making the All-Star team, but has since encountered a plethora of injuries that has limited him to a grand total of nine starts over the past four seasons.
Could Soroka help the White Sox return to their 2021 form? If the 26-year old is healthy, then he has the chance to be a top-tier starter for a team that many are counting out in the aftermath of their putrid 2023 campaign.
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