Comparing rebuilds: San Diego Padres vs. Chicago White Sox

We take a look at two teams who are on similar paths in the San Diego Padres and Chicago White Sox with both coming out of a long rebuild.

The word rebuild can have such a bad meaning in baseball, but that’s become the new norm for a lot of small, and even mid, market teams like the San Diego Padres and Chicago White Sox.

We’ve seen it work for teams like the Kansas City Royals and Houston Astros in recent years that have led to World Series titles.

The Padres and White Sox are hoping for similar returns as they each come out of their respective rebuilds.

With both teams hoping to turn the corner in 2020 and start contending, I thought it would be a fun exercise to compare the two rebuilds and see who did it better and who is setup to have more success.

All of this is obviously subjective and may even be a little biased seeing as I’m writing to a Padres fanbase.

But a lot has been made about these two teams and how they’ve gone about their respective rebuilds and the moves they’ve made.

For instance, last offseason these two teams where both looking to advance the rebuild process by signing Manny Machado.

San Diego obviously won the bidding, but after a disappointing 2019 season many people view that as a mistake for the Padres and believe that the White Sox are better for having missed out.

We’ll get into that a little bit more and look at some of the trades these two teams made to rebuild their farm system.