It was also likely the last time for the foreseeable future we’ll see a player enter Cooperstown with a White Sox cap adorned on his plaque.

Despite a lack of team success for the better part of the team’s history, the Sox are far from deficient when it comes to inductees in the Baseball Hall of Fame. 12 different players have gone into the Hall of Fame with the White Sox as their primary team (this is including Carlton Fisk, who has a Red Sox logo on his cap but whose primary team is listed as the White Sox), tied for the seventh most all-time.

In fact, since the first Hall of Fame class in 1936, the White Sox have never gone more than 14 years between Hall of Fame inductees, with Thomas breaking the latest streak after 14 years between him and Fisk.

That said, after Thomas, finding the next White Sox Hall of Famer is an incredibly difficult exercise.

There are plenty of players who have or will enter soon who spent some of their careers with the White Sox, mind you. Tim Raines had four successful seasons in Chicago, and Jim Thome will likely join him in his first year of eligibility next year. But logos for the Expos and Indians will likely don those two caps.

So, who is the next White Sox inductee? That’s pretty tough to figure out.

The recently retired

The only two players from recent White Sox history who will generate any sort of Hall of Fame discussion are Paul Konerko and Mark Buehrle, and, unfortunately, both likely fell short of Hall of Fame-worthy careers by varying degrees.

Both are incredibly beloved on the South side, and that’s perfectly fine. Statues, number retirements, all that is great! Konerko and Buehrle are White Sox legends, but that doesn’t necessarily make them baseball legends.

When guys like Fred McGriff, Larry Walker, Mike Mussina, and Curt Schilling are having trouble sniffing 50 percent of the vote, Konerko and Buehrle just aren’t going to cut it.

The recently traded

The most obvious candidate for next White Sox Hall of Famer until about six weeks ago was Chris Sale, and even then, it still might be!

Sale spent the first seven years of his career with the White Sox, tossing 1,110 innings, won 74 games with a 3.00 ERA while accumulating 31.1 WAR. The path to him entering the Hall as a member of the White Sox is tricky, however.

Step 1: Become a Hall of Famer. This one’s easy. While Sale has been stellar through his first seven seasons, it will take a lot more before we start buying tickets to Cooperstown.

Step 2: Bounce around. It’s safe to say if Sale spends more than seven years in Boston, that’ll wind up where he’s most remembered.

Step 3: Don’t be too good for Boston (or wherever he plays after Boston). Randy Johnson played 10 years in Seattle and eight in Arizona, but he wore a Diamondbacks hat in his plaque because, as good as he was for the Mariners, Johnson won four straight Cy Young awards and a World Series in Arizona. That stuff matters. If Sale only plays a few years in Boston but rips off some Cy Young seasons and a World Series or two, it’s game over.

So, yeah, a lot needs to happen. But the chances of Sale wearing a White Sox hat at his 2032 Hall of Fame ceremony are still there.

The current roster

It’s safe to say if someone on the White Sox as currently constructed winds up in Cooperstown it will take quite a bit of A) luck and B) time.

There’s Jose Quintana, of course, and there’s at least one alternate reality out there where he spends the rest of his career with the White Sox. He’d have to become a Hall of Famer, of course (I’m going to stop pointing that out for the duration of this article, because you get it).

Tim Anderson, Yoan Moncada, Lucas Giolito, Michael Kopech, Reynaldo Lopez, etc., etc., you get it. If one of these guys becomes a Hall of Famer, it won’t be until, say, 2037 at the earliest. A 23-year drought!

The actual answer

The next player to enter the Hall of Fame with a White Sox cap on his plaque will be Minnie Minoso. Some how, some way, Minoso, who died in 2015, will be elected to the Hall of Fame. And it will be long overdue.

Despite a worthy resume, not to mention his significant cultural impact to the game as the first black Cuban to play in the majors and the first black player in White Sox history, Minoso never garnered more than 21.1 percent of the vote from the BBWAA ballot before falling off the ballot after the 1999 cycle.

The most recent opportunity the Hall had to elect him was in 2014 when the Golden Era committee failed to elect any of its 10 candidates. Minoso garnered eight votes from the 16-person committee.

Minoso’s next opportunity will come when the Golden Days committee votes again in 2020 (the Hall recently altered its Veterans Committee standards), and unless those panels come to their senses sometime soon, the next time we see a Hall of Famer come from the White Sox is likely far, far away.

Lead Photo Credit: Rob Grabowski-USA TODAY Sports

Since Quintana is the best player on the trade market, and the return for him would likely vault the White Sox to having the best farm system in the game, so normally this would make for five-alarm top billing news if we were not already a month into uninterrupted Quintana trade chatter, intense demand for his services wasn’t essentially guaranteed, and all momentum to move the more time-sensitive, less valuable veteran pieces on their roster had dissipated.

While Hahn cleaned up with two blockbuster deals at the Winter Meetings, Cee Angi argues that expectation for similar returns indicative of an extreme seller’s market might have stalled progress over the last month, as teams have waited out the slow-moving free agent crop and looked for other options rather than pay massive prices for the Sox talent.

A Quintana deal is all the Sox need to have a top system and make their teardown look like a successful venture, but wringing value out of David Robertson, Todd Frazier, Nate Jones, Jose Abreu and more could be the difference between a great system and a generational one, with a young core so strong and deep that a sizable contending window is nigh-inevitable, even with payroll constraints.

2. Even talking about the trade market feels like needlessly loading up on vegetables when the White Sox announced the far more grabbing news that they are giving away a Hawk Harrelson alarm clock on May 13 of next season.

⏰ pic.twitter.com/12xq5unXI9

— Chicago White Sox (@whitesox) January 17, 2017

Besides being ingenious on its own, the positive response to it reveals that Hawk’s character and exclamations are still innately charming and unique, it’s his declining energy for the less flashy yet necessary aspects of play-by-play work that have dragged at his work and public perception. The man himself cannot be reduced into an alarm clock, but a way to preserve Hawk the character, and de-emphasize Hawk the pre-game notes preparer, and Hawk the sabermetric analyst, could provide more enjoyment for everyone. There is also a 1917 uniform night on the promotional schedule, which should got smoothly provided the things are actually comfortable to wear this time. But so far, there is no mention of a Uncle Rick Queso Fundido giveaway, which makes this all seem like a big tease.

Rick Renteria is showing us how to make his famous queso fundido! Stay tuned for the full video

3. I’m not going to waste time being curmudgeonly about the Michael Kopech video…

First day of max velocity throws for @MichaelKopech5 …. Is 110mph good?

…by asking whether the pitch he threw was actually a strike, pointing out that his running crow hop max throw exercise does not translate directly to an actual in-game delivery, or belaboring the point that we already know that Kopech throws very hard, and that real enthusiasm should be reserved for progress with his changeup, improved command and falling walk totals.

But the rebuild will be long, dark and full of terrors. Exciting dispatches from the minor league will be very brief interruptions from the daily drudgery of a big league roster in transition, and Sox fans should indulge in stupid joy of raw tools while they can. What else is there to do?

4. Not at all thematically related to the concept of lost prospect promise, the White Sox agreed to a minor league deal with Cory Luebke. The 31-year-old left-hander and former supplemental round pick had an excellent rookie season in 2011, posting a 3.08 DRA in 139.2 innings between the bullpen and the rotation in San Diego. Since then, he’s had two Tommy John surgeries and countless complications around and in between them. Luebke dominated for the Pirates Triple-A affiliate in 2016, striking out 29 in 18.1 innings, and then was completely dominated in turn once he was called up, allowing a 9.35 ERA in 8.2 innings with a 123 cFIP.

The health record is abysmal and the stuff is obviously going to be diminished, but this a prototypical rebuild flier. It’s a worthy use of the Sox time.

5. Tim Raines’ last shot at the Hall of Fame gets announced this afternoon. Per the Hall of Fame tracker of the great Ryan Thibodaux, Raines is at 88.6 percent of the vote among public ballots, which puts him at good but far from certain levels, considering the expected drop that comes from anonymous voters.

Raines will likely go in as a Montreal Expo, as he spent his prime there, but he gave the White Sox five good years, and should be remembered among their successful investments in a past-their-prime veteran. He hit .283/.375/.407 and stole 143 bases on the South Side. His best year at the plate came during the Sox best season of the decade, as he hit .306/.401/.480 in 1993. Not bad for a speed player in his 30s.