Two Years After 121 Losses, the White Sox Are in the Playoffs. Here Is Where That Ranks.
Published on October 4th, 2026Written By: Dave Manuel
Two years ago the Chicago White Sox were the worst team of baseball's modern era. They lost 121 games. This October they swept the Astros in the Wild Card round and are playing in the Division Series. That got me wondering where their climb actually ranks, so I lined it up against the greatest worst-to-first turnarounds in sports history, from the 1914 Braves to Leicester City.
In 2024 the White Sox went 41-121, the most losses by any team in baseball's modern era. In 2025 they lost 102. In 2026 they went 84-78, earned a wild card, and swept the Houston Astros in the Wild Card Series. They are the first team in Major League history to reach the postseason after three straight 100-loss seasons.
Nobody saw it coming. Before the season, FanGraphs gave them about a 1 percent chance of making the playoffs, and projections had them winning somewhere in the high 60s. Instead, a young lineup built around Munetaka Murakami, signed as a free agent, along with Miguel Vargas and Colson Montgomery, carried them into October under Will Venable, in his second season as manager. Venable had been Bruce Bochy's associate manager in Texas in 2023, when the Rangers made a turnaround of their own.
So where does that rank? To answer it properly you have to line it up against the other great climbs out of the basement, in baseball and beyond.
The Great Turnarounds
The original. The 1914 Braves were in last place on the Fourth of July and finished the season as champions, sweeping a Philadelphia Athletics team that was supposed to be untouchable. Two years earlier they had lost 101 games. Every turnaround story in baseball still gets measured against this one.
The Mets had never had a winning season. They lost 101 games in 1967, improved to 73 wins in 1968, and then won 100 and beat a heavily favoured Orioles team in the World Series. Two seasons from 100 losses to a championship.
The 1990 Twins finished dead last in the AL West at 74-88. A year later they won 95 games and beat Atlanta in one of the greatest World Series ever played, going the full seven. No team before them had won it all one season after finishing last.
The team the Twins beat was just as remarkable. Atlanta lost 97 games in both 1989 and 1990, then won 94 behind Tom Glavine, Steve Avery and the NL MVP, Terry Pendleton. Both World Series teams that year had finished last the season before, which had never happened.
The cautionary tale. The Giants gained 31 wins in one season and finished 103-59, and it was not enough. Atlanta won 104, and in the last year before the wild card, finishing second meant going home.
The Rams went 4-12 in 1998. Then their starting quarterback was hurt in the preseason, Kurt Warner, a former grocery-store stock clerk, took over, and the Rams went 13-3 and won the Super Bowl. Football has had faster turnarounds on paper, but none with a better story.
The closest comparison to the White Sox. Detroit lost 119 games in 2003, an American League record at the time, and three years later won 95 and the pennant. The climb took three seasons. The White Sox did theirs in two.
Boston won 24 games in 2006-07. Then they traded for Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen, won 66, and beat the Lakers in the Finals. The 42-win jump is the largest single-season improvement in NBA history. It is also proof that the fastest way out of the basement is to buy your way out.
The Rays had never had a winning season. They went 66-96 in 2007, the worst record in baseball, and then won 97 games and the American League pennant before losing to the Phillies. The 31-win gain is tied for the biggest single-season jump on this list.
The greatest upset in the history of sports betting. Leicester spent much of 2014-15 at the bottom of the table and only escaped relegation with a late run. A season later they won the league, and the bookmakers who had priced them at 5000-1 paid out on one of the most famous longshots ever written.
The fastest turnaround of all happened inside a single season. On January 3, 2019, the Blues had the worst record in the NHL. They went on one of the great runs in hockey history, made the playoffs, and beat Boston in Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Final.
Texas lost 102 games in 2021 and Arizona lost 110. Two years later they met in the World Series, and Texas won its first title. The bars here are Arizona's; the Rangers went from 60 wins to 68 to 90. It was the fastest combined climb from 100 losses to a World Series matchup the sport had seen, and one of the coaches on that Texas staff, Will Venable, went on to manage the White Sox.
Where the White Sox Rank
Measured by a single season, the White Sox are not the biggest jump in baseball. Their gains came in two steps, 19 wins and then 24. But measured by how deep the hole was and how quickly they climbed out of it, they belong at the very top of the list.
| Team | Low point | Two seasons later | Gain |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2026 White Sox | 41 wins | 84 wins | +43 |
| 1969 Mets | 61 wins | 100 wins | +39 |
| 2008 Rays | 61 wins | 97 wins | +36 |
| 2023 Diamondbacks | 52 wins | 84 wins | +32 |
| 2023 Rangers | 60 wins | 90 wins | +30 |
| 2006 Tigers | 43 wins | 71 wins | +28 |
Among the famous turnarounds in this article, nobody gained more wins over two seasons than the White Sox. The Tigers started from almost the same depth, 43 wins, and needed a third season to reach the playoffs. The White Sox needed two, starting from fewer wins than anyone on the list.
What the Turnarounds Have in Common
Young players break out at the same time. The 1991 Braves had Glavine and Avery, the 2008 Rays had Evan Longoria, and the White Sox had a lineup full of players reaching their peak together. A turnaround is usually a rebuild that matures all at once.
One big outside addition changes the math. Terry Pendleton in Atlanta, Garnett and Allen in Boston, Murakami in Chicago. Very few teams climb out of the basement without at least one player brought in from outside.
The market almost never sees it coming. Leicester were 5000-1. The White Sox were given about a 1 percent chance. The betting market and the projection models are built on last season, and the great turnarounds are, by definition, the seasons that do not look like the last one.
Not every turnaround ends in a parade. The 1993 Giants won 103 games and missed the playoffs. The 1991 Braves and 2008 Rays lost the World Series. Climbing out of the basement is the hard part. Finishing the job is a different question.
One Last Word
At the time of writing, the White Sox are in the American League Division Series against Cleveland, the team that beat them for the division in the final days of the season. However far they go from here, they have already done something no team in the history of the sport had done. Two years ago they were the worst team of the modern era. This October they were playing for a pennant, and that is a sentence nobody in Chicago would have believed in the summer of 2024.
About these numbers: win totals and results come from the leagues and published season records. The two-season gains are our own arithmetic on those records and compare only the turnarounds featured in this article. The White Sox preseason playoff odds are the FanGraphs projection. Leicester City figures are league points rather than wins.
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