Before the 2021 season began, Braves fans were optimistic that their team would be able to put everything together and bring home a World Series title. They had spent the last three seasons falling short of their goal despite having talented rosters.
However, 2021 was an odd year for the Braves and it felt like that team would underachieve and not make the playoffs. Recently, Jay Cuda shared an image on X that tied the beginning of the 2021 Braves season to an unlikely team that just played against Atlanta.
Believe it or not, the 2024 Chicago White Sox has a parallel to how the season that won the Braves a World Series began.
After the first five games of the 2024 season, the White Sox are 1-4 with 28 hits, 11 walks, 19 walks allowed, six home runs, and a .329 slugging percentage.
through 5 games - the world series winning braves team compared to this year's white sox pic.twitter.com/kviUTa1sjV
— Jay Cuda (@JayCuda) April 3, 2024
The likelihood of matching those specific stats is very low and, interestingly, it happened. Obviously, these are cherry-picked to make a point but it's still interesting to see. The White Sox are not expecting to be very good this season so assuming they might go on to win a World Series is farfetched.
This is more of a surprising stat from the Atlanta Braves side than anything. To see one of the league's best offenses sit with a .329 slugging percentage is alarming. However, it's still early and they'll get it figured out sooner than later.
While I don't believe Chicago will go on to win a World Series title, many doubted the Braves would go on to win the World Series in 2021. It was understandable why they didn't take that seriously as the team struggled to reach the .500 mark during the first half. They finished the first half with 44 wins and 45 losses and lost their superstar outfielder Ronald Acuña Jr. to a season-ending injury.
Luckily, Alex Anthopoulos didn't give up on the team and went out and added four outfielders to give this team a chance at going all the way. They had a good offense and two great starters at the top of their rotation with Max Fried and Charlie Morton. However, they had to depend on youngsters like Ian Anderson and Huascar Ynoa to help get them through the back of the rotation.
Ynoa unfortunately missed a lot of time due to fracturing his hand by punching a dugout bench after a rough outing just two months into his debut with the Braves which was impressive.
Kyle Wright ended up being a big part of the Braves success in the World Series as well after not pitching most of the year. Wright pitched an inning in game two striking out the side and then picked up the Braves in game four after Dylan Lee couldn't record more than one out to start the game.
Wright gave the team 4.2 innings out of the bullpen and allowed one run on five hits with three walks and three strikeouts. The point here is that you never know who could help a team win during the postseason and that's why it's safe to assume the White Sox could find a way to get there despite the odds stacked against them.
Will the Chicago White Sox win the World Series? Probably not but it is interesting to see the similarities they have to a team that underperformed a bit but crossed the finish line in the end. The beautiful thing about baseball is you never know what could happen.