Extreme teams: White Sox and Yankees

New York won a case full of trophies in the Modern Era, but Chicago didn’t

Sep 29, 2023

The New York Yankees and the Chicago White Sox were the American League’s best teams at the dawn of baseball’s Modern Era.

Everybody knows how great the Yankees were in those early days. They took home the AL pennant in each of the era’s initial four seasons, 1961-1964, including a pair of world titles in ‘61 and ‘62. The Yanks won a four-year total of 408 regular-season games.

The White Sox failed to achieve similar fame in the early 1960s, though they did play remarkably well. They finished second to the Yanks in the 10-team league in 1963 and 1964, falling just one game short of the pennant in the latter season. Their four-year record of 363 wins trailed only New York.

That’s where their histories diverge.

The Yankees, despite occasional rocky patches, continued to rack up successes. They won another 11 AL crowns and seven world championships between 1965 and 2022.

The White Sox, on the other hand, qualified for the World Series only once in the first 62 years of the Modern Era (1961-2022). They took their sole American League pennant in 2005 and proceeded to win that year’s World Series.

This is the 15th (and final) installment of my every-Friday series of stories about the extreme performances by major-league franchises during the Modern Era. My rankings of the best and worst seasons for each ballclub are based on their team scores (TS), as plotted on a 100-point scale. (Click here to learn more about the TS formula.)

The series has proceeded through the alphabetical order of team nicknames, focusing on two clubs at a time. I began with the Angels and Astros in late June, and I’m wrapping up with the White Sox and Yankees. These were their extreme performances:

Best year for the White Sox: The nod, of course, goes to the franchise’s only world-championship squad of the Modern Era. The 2005 White Sox won 99 regular-season games, then sailed through the playoffs with an 11-1 record. They capped their triumphant year with a World Series sweep of the Houston Astros. First baseman Paul Konerko drilled 40 homers and drove home precisely 100 runs. Left fielder Scott Podsednik stole 59 bases. Starting pitcher Mark Buehrle went 16-8 with a 3.12 ERA.

Worst year for the White Sox: No team in the franchise’s 122-year history suffered more defeats than the 1970 Sox, who finished with a 56-106 mark, 42 games off the pace in the American League West. Shortstop Luis Aparicio, a future Hall of Famer, batted .313. Third baseman Bill Melton slugged 33 homers. And Tommy John led the pitching staff with 12 wins.

Best year for the Yankees: How to differentiate between all of New York’s championship teams? TS gives the advantage to 1998, when the Yankees ran up a team score of 96.123 points, the second-best figure in the Modern Era. (Only the 1984 Detroit Tigers scored higher.) The Yanks went 114-48 in ’98, then swept the World Series from the San Diego Padres. Shortstop Derek Jeter batted .324. First baseman Tino Martinez and right fielder Paul O’Neill had respective RBI totals of 123 and 116. Pitcher David Cone posted a 20-7 record, and colleague David Wells went 18-4.

Worst year for the Yankees: The franchise has endured only 10 losing seasons since 1961, with 1990 being the worst. The Yanks stumbled to a 67-95 record that year, finishing last in the seven-team American League East. Right fielder Jesse Barfield topped the club in homers (25) and runs batted in (78). Reliever Lee Guetterman led the pitching staff with 11 wins.

Look below for the 10 top and bottom seasons between 1961 and 2022 for the White Sox and Yankees. Similar rankings for all other Major League Baseball clubs can be found in the print edition of Baseball’s Best (and Worst) 2023 Yearbook.

Each team is listed below with the year in brackets, followed by regular-season win-loss record, postseason results (if any) in parentheses, margin between runs scored and allowed per game, and Modern Era percentile.

These are the postseason abbreviations: P indicates that a club made the playoffs, L means that it won a league championship, and W signifies that it won the World Series.

The Modern Era percentile is the share of all 1,656 major-league clubs from 1961 through 2022 that a given team outperformed, based on TS comparisons.

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Top 10 for White Sox (1961-2022)

1. White Sox [2005], 99-63 (WLP), plus-0.59 margin, 94.8% in era
2. White Sox [1994], 67-46, plus-1.19 margin, 91.1% in era
3. White Sox [1983], 99-63 (P), plus-0.93 margin, 90.8% in era
4. White Sox [1993], 94-68 (P), plus-0.69 margin, 89.6% in era
5. White Sox [2000], 95-67 (P), plus-0.86 margin, 88.0% in era
6. White Sox [1964], 98-64, plus-0.87 margin, 87.3% in era
7. White Sox [2020], 35-25 (P), plus-1.00 margin, 84.9% in era
8. White Sox [1963], 94-68, plus-0.86 margin, 84.0% in era
9. White Sox [2021], 93-69 (P), plus-0.99 margin, 81.1% in era
10. White Sox [1990], 94-68, plus-0.30 margin, 80.5% in era

Bottom 10 for White Sox (1961-2022)

1. White Sox [1970], 56-106, minus-1.17 margin, 3.3% in era
2. White Sox [1976], 64-97, minus-0.99 margin, 5.8% in era
3. White Sox [2017], 67-95, minus-0.70 margin, 12.1% in era
4. White Sox [2013], 63-99, minus-0.77 margin, 12.2% in era
5. White Sox [2018], 62-100, minus-1.19 margin, 14.0% in era
6. White Sox [2007], 72-90, minus-0.90 margin, 15.3% in era
7. White Sox [2015], 76-86, minus-0.49 margin, 16.1% in era
8. White Sox [1988], 71-90, minus-0.78 margin, 16.3% in era
9. White Sox [2014], 73-89, minus-0.60 margin, 17.8% in era
10. White Sox [1968], 67-95, minus-0.40 margin, 18.3% in era

Top 10 for Yankees (1961-2022)

1. Yankees [1998], 114-48 (WLP), plus-1.91 margin, 99.9% in era
2. Yankees [2009], 103-59 (WLP), plus-1.00 margin, 99.4% in era
3. Yankees [1961], 109-53 (WLP), plus-1.32 margin, 98.9% in era
4. Yankees [1962], 96-66 (WLP), plus-0.85 margin, 98.8% in era
5. Yankees [1999], 98-64 (WLP), plus-1.04 margin, 98.4% in era
6. Yankees [1976], 97-62 (LP), plus-0.97 margin, 97.6% in era
7. Yankees [1977], 100-62 (WLP), plus-1.11 margin, 97.0% in era
8. Yankees [1978], 100-63 (WLP), plus-0.94 margin, 96.0% in era
9. Yankees [1963], 104-57 (LP), plus-1.04 margin, 95.8% in era
10. Yankees [2003], 101-61 (LP), plus-0.99 margin, 95.3% in era

Bottom 10 for Yankees (1961-2022)

1. Yankees [1990], 67-95, minus-0.90 margin, 3.4% in era
2. Yankees [1991], 71-91, minus-0.64 margin, 12.4% in era
3. Yankees [1967], 72-90, minus-0.61 margin, 14.4% in era
4. Yankees [1989], 74-87, minus-0.58 margin, 21.5% in era
5. Yankees [1966], 70-89, minus-0.01 margin, 33.4% in era
6. Yankees [1992], 76-86, minus-0.08 margin, 36.0% in era
7. Yankees [1965], 77-85, plus-0.04 margin, 40.8% in era
8. Yankees [2016], 84-78, minus-0.14 margin, 45.3% in era
9. Yankees [2013], 85-77, minus-0.13 margin, 45.9% in era
10. Yankees [2014], 84-78, minus-0.19 margin, 46.9% in era

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