I got scooped.
For the last month or so, I’ve been leisurely preparing for my return to The Sandbox, initially inspired by a simple question: for fans of Chicago’s professional sports teams, was 2024 the worst year in Chicago sports history?
It seemed this was a question capable of being answered definitively, and not just debated to no end on sports talk radio by Bob from Jefferson Park and Carl from Bridgeport. So I fired up my browser – a practice once known as “hitting the books.”
And the answer is, “yes.” If it feels like it’s been bad lately, that’s because it’s been really bad lately.
With apologies to the Fire and Sting and Hustle and Sky and various other Chicago sports franchises, I focused on the records of Chicago’s five major professional men’s sports teams for seasons that ended between 1970 to 2024 (adding the 2024-2025 regular season records through year-end for the Bears, Bulls and Blackhawks) and 2024 stands out as the worst year since 1970.[1] Chicago teams won a weighted 37.0 percent of the games they played in 2024 – comfortably “besting” 2000, when Chicago teams won 39.7 percent of the time.
Unfortunately, before I could make my case, Jon Greenberg of The Athletic stole my thunder. In a piece published December 30, 2024,[2] Greenberg drew the same conclusion about 2024, albeit using a slightly different methodology.[3] And he pointed out some of the other evidence that 2024 was truly pathetic: the White Sox set a major league record for losses (121) and endured a 21-game losing streak, the Blackhawks finished 31st of 32 NHL teams in 2023-24, and the Bears – flush with great expectations in September – lost 10 straight games (in every conceivable fashion) and finished 5-12. Oh, and all three teams fired their head coaches or manager mid-season, generally an indicator that things aren’t going real well.
So kudos, Jon Greenberg, you beat me to the punch. But all is not lost. Curiosity got the better of me, as usual, and one of the reasons I hadn’t simply dashed off a “2024 sucked most” blog post is that I wasn’t satisfied that “2024 sucked most” tells the whole story. Several other questions popped into my head. First, accepting that 2024 is the worst year since 1970, have the city’s fans ever endured a prolonged period as bad as the current period? Are things any better (or worse) if we focus on playoff performance and not regular season success? And, finally, is there light at the end of the tunnel?
I will acknowledge the possibility that I enjoy writing about Chicago sports more than you enjoy reading my writing about Chicago sports. For that reason, I’ll give you the Cliff’s Notes answers to the questions posed above. Read on, if you wish, but here goes:
- First, the five-year period that ended December 31, 2024 was the worst of the 11 five-year periods in Chicago professional sports since 1970.
- Second, viewing the Chicago sports scene through the lens of post-season performance doesn’t offer much consolation – in fact, 2023-2024 marked the first two-year span in my self-proclaimed Modern Era (1970-present) in which no Chicago team played in a single playoff game.
- Finally, in my view there’s light at the end of the tunnel … but it’s a long tunnel.
A Little Bit of History
During my lifetime, Chicago’s sports teams have been mostly mediocre (or worse), with occasional interludes of greatness. Put somewhat differently, for every Walter Payton, there have been a dozen Curtis Enises and Cedric Bensons. For every Michael Jordan, too many Leon Benbows and Rusty LaRues. And for every Ryne Sandberg or Frank Thomas, a seemingly endless parade of Hector Villanuevas and Wayne Nordhagens. This “mediocre-with-interludes-of-great” thesis came from my gut – a sense acquired over my 54 years or so as a very engaged fan.
As it turns out, the numbers back me up. In total, through 2024 Chicago teams have played 26,970 regular season games since 1970 and have won 13,449 of those games[4] — or 49.9 percent. That isn’t shocking, insofar as in every contest there is a winner and a loser (setting aside the occasional tie), so one would expect a professional team to win half of its games. Plus, professional leagues are specifically structured to promote parity through the imposition of mechanisms like salary caps and favoring the worst teams in setting the order of player drafts.
On the “interludes of great” side, beginning with the Bears’ Super Bowl win after the 1985 season (I was 20 years old before a Chicago sports franchise won a championship in my lifetime), Chicago teams have won 12 championships – a dozen parades in 55 years. In all, 218 teams have won championships in the four major sports since 1970, and Chicago teams have won 5.5 percent of those championships, or about 1 in 18. This seems like a fair share, with an acknowledgement that we mostly have the Bulls (six titles) and Blackhawks (three titles) to thank. Still, every team has won at least one championship during my lifetime – “which is nice,” to quote famous groundskeeper Carl Spackler.
Five Years At A Time
As I said above, it appears to me that Chicago sports fans just endured the worst five-year period since 1970, from a few different angles.
Winning percentage: On a weighted basis, Chicago teams won just 43.1 percent of their regular season games during the five-year period ending in 2024, barely edging out the period that ended in 2004, when they won 43.3 percent. For the curious,1990-94 was the winningest five-year period at a weighted 57.8% (thanks, Mike), and 2010-14 was second best at a weighted 54% (thanks, Blackhawks).
Plus-.500 seasons: A stretch of horrendous seasons by a single franchise (think Tim Floyd’s Bulls) can function as an anchor on the city’s collective performance over a given five-year period. So, I tracked another measure of respectability: seasons in which Chicago teams won more than 50 percent of their games. For comparison, the 1990-94 period saw Chicago teams finish better than .500 18 times. Sure, we all basked in the glow of the Bulls’ dominant run, but the other teams contributed a bunch of +.500 seasons in that five-year period, too. In contrast, in 2020-24 Chicago teams, collectively, finished better than .500 only seven times – the worst five-year period since 1970. That’s seven plus-.500 seasons in 25 opportunities, or 28%.
Recent playoff appearances. If it feels like it’s been a while, that’s because no Chicago team appeared in the playoffs in 2023 or 2024. Not one single, stinking playoff appearance across five teams (no, the NBA’s play-in thing doesn’t count, sorry). If this feels unprecedented, that’s because it is unprecedented. Going back to 1970, 2023-24 marked the only two-calendar-year period in which no Chicago team participated in the playoffs. Since 2000, only the 2000-2004 period was worse, with just four playoff appearances. The just-ended five-year period included six post-season appearances, but two (by the 2020 Cubs and White Sox) came thanks to MLB’s COVID-inspired expanded format. Honestly, I had forgotten those brief appearances.
To sum things up, not only was 2024 the worst season since 1970, but it’s hard to argue against the conclusion that it capped the worst five-year period since 1970 as well.
You Wanna Talk Playoffs?
I’m no statistician, but I suspect there is a strong correlation between regular season success and playoff success in professional sports. After all, the former is a condition to participation in the playoffs in any given season. Some sports fans, however, subscribe to the view that playoff success (or failure) defines franchises, and not regular season performance. So, I pondered, how have Chicago franchises fared in their frequency of reaching the playoffs, and how have they fared once in the playoffs?
- As noted earlier, not one single Chicago team made the playoffs in 2023 or 2024. There have been only five years since 1970 in which Chicago has suffered a citywide playoff shutout (1999, 2004, and 2019 being the others). These days, with expanded playoff formats, it’s no small feat for a city to miss the playoffs in all four major sports. In fact, the Blackhawks have made the playoffs 43 times since 1970, and the Bulls have made the playoffs 36 times. The Bears (19), Cubs (11), and White Sox (7) have been less frequent participants – but appearing in the NFL and MLB playoffs is far less difficult than was the case for most of the 55 years covered by my study.
- Perhaps a better measure of a team (or city’s) performance is found by comparing playoff appearances and the number of opportunities to appear in the playoffs. Focusing on the period since 2000 (to remove the years in which making the playoffs in the NBA and NHL was about as difficult as opening a box of cereal), every Chicago team has made the playoffs less frequently than expected. For example, the Bears have made the playoffs six times since 2000 – or 24 percent of the time, whereas the playoffs have included (on average) 39 percent of NFL teams each year. The Bears last appeared in the playoffs in 2020 (Doink! Doink!) and their “playoffs vs. expected playoffs” number since 2000 is minus 15 percent, the worst among the five teams. The White Sox are minus 11 percent (last appeared in 2021). The Hawks are minus 9 percent (last appeared in 2020). The Bulls are minus 9 percent (last appeared in 2022). And – best of the lot, thanks to Theo Epstein – the Cubs are minus 2 percent (last appeared in 2020). Bottom line, since 2000, no Chicago team has made the playoffs as often as the numbers would predict.
- Historically, when Chicago teams have made the playoffs, they’ve won at a higher clip than in the regular season, by a whisker. Chicago teams are 468-463 in playoff games since 1970, a .503 winning percentage.
- But we do have those 12 championships! That might satisfy the glass-half-full crowd, but the glass-half-empty crowd will (rightfully) point out that half of those 12 championships were won in an eight-year period by one team, which happened to luck into drafting a skinny two-guard who turned out to be the greatest basketball player to ever walk the Earth. But that counts, right? We were lucky to have that team, and that player, and those championships. And you cannot take them away. Ever.
So, Are We At The Bottom?
The true (and very hedgy) answer, of course, is who knows? Time will tell, and anything else is speculation. But speculation can be fun. And, of course, things could get worse.
To my eyes, I think Chicago’s professional sports teams (as a collective unit) hit bottom in 2024. But I also think we might linger here for another year or two. My eyes see two teams at rock bottom (the Blackhawks and White Sox) whose ascent will not be rapid, one team likely to regress a bit from its current state of mediocrity to downright abysmal before things improve (the Bulls), one team that so badly underperformed this past season that some modest ascent seems inevitable (the Bears), and one team (the 83-79 Cubs) for whom a modest ascent is predicted and should be all that is required to get Chicago back to the playoffs in 2025.
Then and Now
Because I am semi-retired, had no deadline, and am prone to traveling down sports-related rabbit holes, I set out to compare the current situation with the situation 25 years ago, when the city’s sports scene was in a similar spot.
There have been just three years since 1970 when Chicago teams have won fewer than 40 percent (weighted) of their regular season games: 1999, 2000, and 2024. After previously hitting bottom in that 1999-2000 period, things eventually improved, but slowly. After an initial jump to a 49.5 percent winning percentage fueled by a shocking Chicago Bears season in 2001, it took Chicago teams until 2005 to exceed the .500 mark collectively.
For fun, let’s review where things stood in 2000, team-by-team, and see how long it took for each to claw back to respectability, and contrast the prospects for each team circa 2000 and today.
Bulls. In 1999-2000, the Bulls were in the second year of the post-Jordan Jerry Krause/Tim Floyd Experience. They finished 17-65. Their leading scorer was Number 1 overall draft pick and Rookie of the Year Elton Brand (20.1 ppg), and the only other players who averaged in double figures were championship era holdover Toni Kukoc (18.0) and a rookie then known as Ron Artest (12.0). The rest of the roster included a raggedy collection of past-the-expiration-date role players from the six Bulls championship teams (Will Perdue, BJ Armstrong, Dickey Simpkins, and Randy Brown), among others. Fun fact: as if he hadn’t already alienated the fan base, Krause signed former Knick villain John Starks, who played in four games for the Bulls that season.
So Brand and the future Metta World Peace were on hand, which might be viewed as a decent start. Add a piece here and there and get rolling, right? Well, uh, no. In 2000-2001, the Bulls rolled out a roster that included a staggering 11 first or second-year players, including Brand, Artest, and rookies Marcus Fizer and Jamal Crawford. This squad managed to win two fewer games, finishing 15-67. Among the eight (!) rookies on the roster, the Bulls suited up a German (the unforgettable Dalibor Bagaric) and a Russian (the more forgettable Dragan Tarlac). Fred Hoiberg, with five years in the league, was the team’s most tenured player. But with all that young talent on hand, things could only improve, right?
Well, uh, not so much. Hellbent to make good on his proclamation that “organizations win championships” (as opposed to, you know, the greatest player of all time, a Hall-of-Fame coach, another NBA Top 50 All-Timer, and a bunch of really great role players), Krause decided that he’d had enough of Brand’s two seasons of 20 points and 10 rebounds per game and traded him for the rights to Tyson Chandler, a skinny 7-foot high schooler, the second overall pick in the draft. And, for good measure, Krause drafted another 7-foot high school center with the fourth overall pick in that same draft, the not-so-skinny Eddy Curry. Chandler and Curry made about as much sense together as mayonnaise and maple syrup. And Krause – likely realizing he would need someone to buy beer for Chandler and Curry – brought in erstwhile Bull Charles Oakley. Oak was so old that he had been sent out of town before the Bulls started winning championships. A shell-shocked Floyd was fired after a 4-21 start, and the team finished 21-61. In retrospect, this whole chapter in Bulls history is comedy gold.
Alas, the Bulls got back to the playoffs in 2005 under Scott Stiles. Shockingly, Chandler and Curry were still around, but neither had developed as Krause imagined nor would ever become anything remotely resembling a franchise player. Tellingly, exactly zero players on the 1999-2000 Bulls who were part of the 2004-2005 playoff team. And Curry and Chandler were discarded almost immediately after the Bulls started winning. Skiles could not sustain his initial success, and was canned 25 games into the 2007-08 season. But Skiles’ arrival did mark the start of a very good run for the Bulls – 10 playoff appearances in 11 years overall. And the core of that 2004-2005 team – rookies or second-year players like Kirk Hinrich, Luol Deng, and Ben Gordon – helped lead the Bulls back to respectability. Even then, the progress to the Rose-Noah-Thibodeau-led success later in the decade wasn’t linear. It included 164 games of Vinny Del Negro at the helm. Del Negro was perhaps the consummate Bulls head coach: 82-82 over those 164 games.
Which brings me to the 2024-25 Bulls, featuring veterans Zach Lavine, Nicola Vucevic, Coby White, Lonzo Ball, Patrick Williams, and Ayo Dosunmu, rookie Matas Buzelis, and a bunch of other misfit toys. To be fair, the Bulls have been occasionally competitive (they hovered near .500 much of the season until recently dropping to six below) and their head coach, Billy Donovan, has always struck me as perfectly competent. But I don’t expect this team to make the playoffs and I honestly don’t know if I see any player on the current roster developing into one of the multiple stars needed to elevate a modern NBA team to contender status. Nice role players? Sure – maybe even several. But the NBA is a star-driven league, and once they (please!) shed Zach Lavine in the coming weeks or months, the Bulls will be star-less.
For many years, the Bulls have been bad enough to miss the playoffs and good enough to miss out on drafting high-impact players. They have a protected Top 10 pick in the next draft – which is said to be deep in talent. That means if the pick lands in the Top 10, they keep it. If not, it belongs to the San Antonio Spurs. To guarantee a Top 10 pick (meaning a pick that cannot be jimmied out of the Top 10 by reason of the unfortunate bounce of ping pong balls during the draft lottery), the Bulls have to finish in the Bottom 6 of the NBA standings. Currently, they are not close to the Bottom 6. The Bulls might attempt to shed their best players to pile up losses to try to keep that pick, but it’s not always easy to win a race to the bottom in the NBA. Stay tuned, and get ready for some horrific basketball from the Bulls over the next four months or so.
With luck, we will never see a return to Krausefloydian depths of the late 1990s/early 2000s, but I think it’s likely the Bulls are on a descending path. I don’t expect another plus .500 season from the Bulls anytime soon. As currently constructed, the Bulls seem destined to rebuild before they field a team capable of a long playoff run. Sadly, I believe this team is further from championship contention than any Chicago team not owned by Jerry Reinsdorf.
The Sandbox Skinny: the Chicago Bulls have not bottomed out; expect them to shed players and stagger through the rest of the 2024-2025 season below .500; expect accelerated regression in 2025-2026 before they rebuild and return to playoffs (i.e., respectability) in 2027-2028.
Bears. In 2000, as a new century dawned, Head Coach Dick Jauron led the Bears to a 5-11 record in his second season, which followed a 6-10 record in 1999. But this team had some very useful pieces, particularly on the defensive side of the ball. Shockingly, they went 13-3 and returned to the playoffs in 2001. The core of that 2000 defense included Rookie of the Year Brian Urlacher, Mike Brown, Tony Parrish, Warrick Holdman, Rosie Colvin, and – not to be forgotten – dreadlocked return man and cornerback R.W. McQuarters. But the offense lagged. Former first-round pick Cade McNown started nine games in 2000, completing 55% of his passes for 1,646 yards, 8 touchdowns and 9 interceptions. McNown was traded after the season (along with a seventh-round pick) to the Dolphins for two sixth-round picks and a $25 Starbucks gift card. McNown never took another snap in an NFL game. One of the McCaskey nephews used the gift card.
The turnaround in 2001 was a credit to the defense, which returned essentially the same cast of characters from the 5-11 2000 season plus mammoth defensive lineman Ted Washington. The offense was turned over to the competent-if-not-spectacular Jim Miller, who handed off a lot to the competent-if-not-spectacular Anthony “A-Train” Thomas, who rushed for 1,183 yards and 7 TDs and edged out LaDainian Tomlinson for the NFL Offensive Rookie of the Year award. This was truly a magical turnaround. But maybe a mirage.
In true Bears fashion, that 13-3 team lost to the Eagles in the divisional round of the playoffs at home, and then finished 4-12 in 2002, and 7-9 in 2003. Exit Dick Jauron, enter Lovie Smith. By 2006, Lovie had returned the Bears to 13-3 and taken them to the Super Bowl, with several of the same defensive stars.
Can we expect an eight-game improvement from 2024 to 2025 for the Chicago Bears – a la the Jauron/Urlacher group in 2000 to 2001. Probably not, but it’s possible in the modern NFL. I won’t wallow in the misery of another disappointing season and yet another coaching hire by an organization that has distinguished itself as being terrible at hiring coaches. We cross our fingers and hope for the best.
But if 2024 did not go as planned, it showed me that the team might have found a quarterback who can – if protected and coached well – take the team to the playoffs on a regular basis. Caleb Williams survived playing a full season behind one of the worst offensive lines in franchise history, which itself is somewhat remarkable in that (a) the team has had plenty of bad offensive lines, and (b) the team is Generally Managed by a former offensive lineman. Am I ready to say the artisans at the Pro Football Hall of Fame should start chiseling away at Williams’ bust? Of course not. But between watching Williams in college and at times this season, I’m in – something I could never say for Justin Fields.
This team has holes, for sure. But it also has a core of solid NFL players. We’ll have to see who survives the coaching change, and who gets cast aside. Just three years ago, the Bears roster was pretty much torn down to the studs. I don’t think that will happen again – or that it needs to happen again at every position. The defense has players who will survive the coming purge – maybe none who are the second coming of Brian Urlacher or Peanut Tillman, but players who will suit up in the playoffs for the Bears someday.
For reasons that defy logic and historical performance, I am optimistic when it comes to the Bears. Looking ahead, I predict the Bears will be the second of the five Chicago to post a better-than-.500 regular season record from this point forward. I also believe – and this depends a lot on the quarterback – that they have a shorter path to sustained competitiveness (say, a run of three or more consecutive playoff appearances) than any other Chicago team. The depth of the NFC North gives me pause in saying all that, but the Bears were 1-5 against their divisional rivals this season and easily could have been 3-3 or even 4-2. I’m ready to label the entire 2024 season as the Eberflus/Waldron Regression and move on.
The Sandbox Skinny: the Bears have bottomed out; the Beloved get back to plus-.500 in 2025 and return to the playoffs following the 2026 season.
White Sox. Where have you gone, Jerry Manuel? It is somewhat incredible that 2000 was a historically bad one for Chicago teams, yet Manuel led the White Sox to a 95-67 record and won their division (where they were promptly swept 3-0 by the Mariners in the playoffs). Without the Sox overperforming the .500 mark by 14 games, 2000 would have been dangerously close (by just four wins) to being the worst on record since 1970. In fact, the Sox 2000 season marked the first of seven straight in which they finished .500 or better. The 2000 team’s offense was absolutely loaded. The South Siders had five players exceed 20 home runs and 90 RBI – Frank Thomas (43 and 143), Magglio Ordonez (32 and 126), Jose Valentin (25 and 92), Carlos Lee (24 and 92), and Paul Konerko (21 and 97). Heck, even Ray Durham finished with 17 HR, 75 RBI and 25 stolen bases. The White Sox’ started pitching was pedestrian; Mike Sirotka, Jim Parque, James Baldwin, and Cal Eldred each won at least 10 games with very mediocre ERAs, benefiting greatly from the Sox lineup. The bullpen, however, was above average, anchored by Keith Foulke, Bob Howry, and the obligatory crafty lefty, Kelly Wunsch. The 2000 season was a temporary high-water mark for the Sox – they slid to 83 and 81 wins in 2001 and 2002 before regaining momentum that led them to their World Series win in 2005 under Ozzie Guillen.
It is obvious the 2024 White Sox bear little resemblance to the 2000 squad.
That the 2024 team lost an MLB record 121 games is more impressive when you recall that the 2022 Sox won 93 games (and made the playoffs) and that even the 2023 team finished .500. It’s hard to imagine a steeper, faster descent for a professional franchise. (The Bulls enjoyed a similar crash post-Jordan, but that a was a deliberate act of self-immolation.)
Ninety-three wins to the all-time worst record in MLB history in two years is quite a feat of ignominy. As for light at the end of the tunnel? It’s hard to see much light at 35th and Shields. A staggering 25 position players and 32 pitchers suited up for the South Siders last season. Many were dealt for prospects during the course of the season, and their best pitcher (Garrett Crochet) was liberated this off-season. In theory, the Sox should have lots and lots of prospects. Former uber-prospect Luis Robert remains (he of the 38 HR and 80 RBI last season). But beyond Robert and a handful of others, the names of the other players the Sox will roll out on Opening Day 2025 are mostly unrecognizable. I’ll go out on a limb here: they won’t be very good.
The Sandbox Skinny: almost definitionally, the White Sox have bottomed out – they’ll hang out at the bottom for a little while. I don’t see this team returning to .500 or the playoffs until 2028, at the earliest – and even that takes some faith that the law of averages works its magic and that a handful of the many prospects they’ve acquired become solid major league players.
Blackhawks. In 1999-2000, the Blackhawks won 33 games, got 12 into overtime, and missed the playoffs under Lorne Molleken and Bob Pulford. Tony “Bones” Amonte led the team with 43 goals, and the roster was littered with a collection of serviceable veterans (Amonte, Alexei Zhamnov, captain Doug Gilmour), promising younger players (Steve Sullivan, Eric Daze, and Bryan McCabe), and amusing relics (Bob Probert, Dave Manson, and Eddie Olczyk). The following year’s team – known in the annals as The Alpo Suhonen Experience – was worse, with much of the same crew. Suhonen was plucked out of Finland by Pulford, the team’s on-again-off-again GM, coached the team for one year, and then was gifted a one-way ticket to Helsinki, never to stand behind an NHL bench again.
The Hawks rebounded nicely in 2001-02 and made the playoffs, coached by Brian Sutter, with much of the same core from 2000. But by 2002-03, they were out of the playoffs again. In fact, between the 1999-2000 and 2008-2009 seasons, 2001-02 marked the only playoff appearance. Until very recently, that period was by far the worst stretch in modern franchise history. In addition to Molleken, Pulford, Suhonen, and Sutter, the team also employed Trent Yawney and Denis Savard behind the bench before finally turning to Joel Quenneville four games into the 2008-09 season. The Hawks made the playoffs in Q’s first year, won a Stanley Cup in his second, and didn’t miss the playoffs again until 2017-18. The core of the Hawks three Stanley Cup team first arrived on the scene in 2005-06, when Duncan Keith (81 games), Brent Seabrook (69), Patrick Sharp (50), Dustin Byfuglien (25), and even Corey Crawford (3) donned the best sweater in the NHL.
Which brings us to our 2024-2025 Chicago Blackhawks. I feel safe in saying this franchise has bottomed out (31st of 32 two years running, and currently 32nd out of 32 ). Despite surrounding teenage center Connor Bedard with seemingly competent veteran scorers, the team has regressed. Head coach Luke Richardson was canned, and former Rockford boss Anders Erickson is now keeping the seat warm for the next Q. Time will tell, but folks in the know seem to think the Hawks have a wave of young talent coming. On January 13, The Athletic published a list of the 139 top prospects under 23 years old, and the Blackhawks had nine players on the list (and a couple of highly touted prospects who were too old or just missed the list who are already on the NHL roster). In theory at least, the Hawks have positioned themselves for a return to respectability, if not greatness. But who knows? Is there a Toews or a Kane or Keith or Seabrook or Hossa on that list of nine? A Hjalmarsson or Shaw, even? Or are we talking about role players like Burish and Eager and Bickell? We’ll see. The volume is impressive, however. The “experts” who rank players for a living seem to like them some Blackhawks. So there’s hope.
The Sandbox Skinny: This team is at the bottom as I write these words. It won’t get worse (will it?). Using the last glorious run as a guide, I project this arc for the Blackhawks: balance of 2025 sees increasing youth movement and a period of lump-taking; 2025-26 sees arrival of 8-10 “future core” guys (think 2005-06 as a comp) and a significant stride forward; with a free agent acquisition or two, we can dream of a return to the playoffs in 2026-27. Beyond that, this should be a group that can have a playoff run for many years – if the experts know are right.
Cubs. In 2000, the Chicago Cubs were smack in the middle of the Sammy Sosa Era – an era of many homeruns and kisses blown to the dugout camera, and not a lot of success as a team. Sammy hit 63 dingers in 1999 for Jim Riggleman, and the Cubs won 67 games. He hit 50 dingers for Don Baylor in 2000, and the Cubs won 65 games. Sammy hit 64 dingers for Baylor in 2001, and the team improved dramatically, winning 88 games (but missed the playoffs). And the Samster hit 49 more homers for Baylor, Rene Lachemann, and Bruce Kimm in 2002, only to see the club win just 67 games. In 2003, Dusty Baker arrived and led the Cubs to their only playoff performance at his command, which ended in a soul-crushing seven-game loss to the Marlins in the NLCS. Dusty eventually yielded to Lou Piniella in 2007, and he promptly led the Cubs to back-to-back playoff appearances in which they were swept 3-0 in the first round. So post-2000 the Cubs returned to respectability immediately in Year 1 of Don Baylor’s tenure (88 wins), but returned to sub-mediocrity immediately thereafter, and then alternated between playoff-contending respectability and putrid over the next several years.
The 2000 Cubs improved by 23 games in 2001. Don’t expect a 23-game improvement from the 2025 Cubs, but even modest improvement should be enough for the Cubs to break Chicago’s playoff drought. Poking around, prognosticators seem to agree. On paper, the Cubs seem poised to field a better-than-average lineup (helped by the acquisition of outfielder Kyle Tucker from the Astros) and return a better-than-average starting pitching rotation. This team was built a little differently than the World Series winner in 2016, which was substantially more homegrown (Bryant, Baez, Contreras, Happ, Schwarber, Almora). The current edition of the Cubs was built largely through trades and free agent acquisition.
Unless he re-signs a long-term deal, Tucker will spend one year on the North Side, so 2025 feels a little like a “now or never” year. In a best-case scenario, Tucker flourishes, loves playing at Wrigley, signs a long-term deal to stay with the Cubs, and anchors the lineup for the rest of the decade. But best-case scenarios only occasionally come to fruition.
The Sandbox Skinny: The Cubs – the city’s only team that could stake a claim to having been respectable in 2024 – will return to the playoffs in 2025. Given the fact that the Los Angeles Dodgers apparently are playing in another economic universe than everyone else, I don’t expect any of us will need to worry about attending a parade in November. As for the future, the Cubs should remain respectable, if not world-beating, for several years.
The Final Word
In June 2010, after giving up five home runs in a game, former Cubs ace Carlos Zambrano famously said: “We sucks.” He could have been speaking of Chicago sports in 2024: indeed, “we sucks.” And we will probably sucks for a little longer. You can see rays of light in the form of the Kyle Tuckers, Justin Steeles, Caleb Williams, and Connor Bedards. But keep an even keel and a flashlight on hand: given how bad things are and could soon be for the White Sox and Bulls, it could be dark for a bit.
[1] For the Blackhawks and Bulls – teams whose regular seasons have always spanned two calendar years – I assigned the record to the year the season ended. For example, a 1971-72 season result is counted in 1972. For the Bears, I count the record in the year the season started, notwithstanding that NFL teams typically now play one regular season game in early January given the extension of the season to 17 games. Thus, the Bears record in 2023 was 7-10, even though the last game took place in January 2024. I started with 1970 because I was five years old and cannot really claim to have been a fan before I entered kindergarten. Plus, the Bulls first played in 1967-68, so the 1970-2024 period gives us a 55-year sample size that covers all five teams.
[2] See https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/6015785/2024/12/30/chicago-sports-2024-worst-year-modern-history/.
[3] Greenberg seems to have used actual calendar year wins/losses, thereby splitting the Bulls and Blackhawks wins and losses in each regular season between the two years. As explained in note 1, my analysis counted wins and games played in the year in which the season ended (or, in the case of later-year football seasons, the year in which all but one of the regular season games was played). Also, my winning percentage numbers were calculated on a weighted basis. Because baseball teams have historically played about twice as many regular season games as NBA and NHL teams, and about five times as many as NFL teams. To account for this discrepancy, I used the NBA/NHL “about-80 game” season as the norm and weighted the teams’ wins and games played accordingly. Weighting the win and games played totals gives proper credit for excellent Bears’ seasons and reduces the outsized impact of an especially good or bad baseball season.
[4] I counted ties as one-half a win. Hockey did away with ties many years ago, but an “overtime loss” occurs after a game is tied in regulation time, so it was counted as a tie.