By now, it seems everyone has jumped on the White Sox hype train but me. It’s not easy being alone on my island as an overly cautious person who is hesitant to believe the Sox have truly blossomed into the AL Central leader. While I’ve gone out of my way to buy tickets to their games and proudly don Chicago gear, and last year I was one of the few optimists in spring, when the rubber finally hit the road this year I stood there waiting to smell burnt pavement.
In an effort to not let the hype train pass me by, I looked at the data to understand whether the Sox have gotten lucky or if they deserve to sit atop the weakest division in baseball.
First, I looked at pythagorean wins versus their actual wins. Scoring 364 runs and allowing 367 equals 39 Pythagorean wins, two fewer than their 41 wins as of June 25. A +2 differential hints that luck is helping the Sox slightly. This holds up against win differentials across the league from 2023-2025, where most teams exhibited no difference in actual wins and expected wins, or won one fewer game than expected.
Diving deeper, I created a model to predict the expected number of wins the Sox should have based on run differential, hard hit percentage, and wOBA league data from 2023-25. Run differential, hard-hit percentage and wOBA have gained a reputation for stripping out luck and focusing on the talent, and I wanted to put these to the test. I derived the following formula that explained nearly 90% of team wins from the last three seasons:
Predicted Wins = 67.05 + 14.10(RunDiff) + 63.56(wOBA) − 14.97(HardHit)
Based on the Sox’s 2026 team performance and the model, a +3 regression residual means the Sox should only have 38 wins under their belt. This aligns with their Pythagorean wins.
Finally, I isolated BABIP. The average BABIP from 2023-25 was .292 across all 30 teams. Thus far, Chicago’s .282 BABIP sits less than a full standard deviation below the average from the last three years, leading me to believe that hits haven’t been generated from fortune or misfortune. Simply put, the South Side’s hits are coming from the bats, not the fielders.
The Sox’s success sits between luck and talent. They have modestly outperformed expectations, but their BABIP suggests they’re not riding Lady Fortune’s coattails. The biggest source of Chicago’s luck is its own division. The AL Central holds the lowest win-Pythagorean win residual of -4.
Whether it’s luck or underperformance, the Sox have risen to the top of the weakest division in baseball. So while I’m still not ready to board the hype train, I’m more willing to buy a ticket for the 81-81 train.