On May 9, 2016, the White Sox beat the Rangers to improve their record to 23-10. A season that we went into without a lot of optimism seemed like it might be turning into a pleasant surprise. At 13 games up, you could arguably go .500 the rest of the way and make the playoffs.
That didn’t happen. The season fell apart, almost immediately. By the end of June the White Sox were worse than .500, and a tentative, struggling era was over.
Coming out of that disappointment, over two days in December the Sox traded Chris Sale and Adam Eaton, and received Yoán Moncada, Michael Kopech, Lucas Giolito, Dane Dunning, and Reynaldo López.