Teams normally have high expectations after winning a World Championship, but after the 2005 White Sox won 99 games and went 11-1 in the playoffs 2006 wasn't supposed to turn out this way.  Not after retaining number one slugger Paul Konerko for another 5 years.  Not after trading for a proven left-handed RBI machine like Jim Thome.  Things are supposed to turn out better when you add a 5th starter like Javier Vazquez to a staff that already contained pitchers who hurled back-to-back-to-back-to-back complete games in the ALCS.  This team wasn't supposed to finish in third place and out of the playoffs.  Not after winning the World Series and undoubtedly becoming a better team (on paper of course) in the offseason.

And, there's no plausible explanation for why the White Sox did something this year that they have done every other season in their history.  They failed the make the postseason for two consecutive years.

Sox fans knew that defending a title wasn't going to be easy.  They knew the division and league would be stronger and that everything would have to go right.  For the most part, things didn't turn out so bad.  The team remained one of the healthiest in the majors all season, with only one starting pitcher landing on the 15-day DL once all season.  Thome and Joe Crede have missed action here and there due to back problems, and there have been scattered other injuries to Scott Podsednik and Tadahito Iguchi.  But Chicago can't compare its infirmary with Minnesota (Fransisco Liriano, Torri Hunter, Brad Radke), or New York (Gary Sheffield, Hideki Matsui, Chen Ming Wang).   

Serveral players, including Jermaine Dye, had excellent offensive years, yet the White Sox couldn't make the playoffs 

Vazquez turned out to be a superior fifth starter to Orlando Hernandez.  Rob Mackowiak and Alex Cintron lived up to the hype as great bench players.  And other question marks turned out to be afterthoughts.  Could Jon Garland win 17-18 games again?  Check.  Could Bobby Jenks save 40 games?  Check.  Could Thome be an MVP candidate?  Check.  Could this finally be the year Crede hits over .280 with 30 home runs?  Check.  Add to the mix that Jermaine Dye would exceed everybody's expectations and hit .320+ with 40 home runs, Brian Anderson would play an errorless centerfield while hitting above .290 in the second half, Jose Contreras would start the season 7-0, and AJ Pierzynski would have better offensive numbers than in 2005, and Sox fans everywhere are scratching their heads.

Oh yeah, and the team had seven All-Stars representing the American League.  They led the Major Leagues in home runs and runs scored.  And their .312 batting average with runners in scoring position dominated everybody.  How can a team with so many things going right have so many things go wrong?

The numbers don't add up.  Third place?  

Some things that did contribute to this underachieving season:  Mark Buehrle.  Whether he was injured, tired, or whatever the excuse, the White Sox couldn't count on him to be their stopper.  Joey Cora, former second sacker and current third base coach, was responsible for too many runners thrown out at home.  Freddy Garcia only pitched when he felt like it, Juan Uribe seemed to lack concentration on routine defensive plays, Ozzie Guillen shuffled the lineup at inopportune times, and Kenny Williams did not get a good defensive fourth outfielder to platoon for Anderson and Podsednik, leaving infielders Mackowiak and Pablo Ozuna to misplay fly balls on a daily basis.

The good things should have far outweighed the bad, but for some reason they didn't, and I can't explain why.  Saying that their extended 2005 season resulted in fatigue for 2006, and their lackluster play is the result is bogus.  The Sox only played 12 extra games last season, remember?  The number of additional starts made by starting pitchers was minimal.  Chalking this failure up to a lack of chemistry resulting from trading Aaron Rowand to Philadelphia is another ignorant mistake.  Thome, the player Chicago got in return for Rowand, is known around the league as one of the most clubhouse-friendly players to have on a team, and his .290/42 hr/106 RBI/107 runs easily dwarf's Rowand's .262/12/47/59.  Thome's stats are better than both players he technically replaced, Carl Everett and Frank Thomas, too.  How the Pale Hose would have fared without Thome's monstrous bat, I can only fathom, would be at least ten games worse. 

Anybody who would un-do the Thome trade either hates the White Sox or is clueless about baseball

And somehow, this all takes us back to a third-place team with two MVP candidates, seven All-Stars, the saves leader, and reining Manager of the Year.  The team that, despite having so many things work in their favor, somehow managed to have gone 30-38 so far in the second half and become just the second non-Marlins team in the last ten years to win the World Series and miss the playoffs the following season.  I couldn't tell you how it all happened either.