Polling Place: Which of Jerry Reinsdorf’s teams is in worse shape, the Bulls or the White Sox?

If the results tell us anything, it’s that voters were, on the whole, unable to distinguish between one brand of awful and the other.

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San Diego Padres v Chicago White Sox

Denizens of Guaranteed Rate Field make their points of view clear late in the 2023 season.

Photo by Quinn Harris/Getty Images

Here’s a question for one of those fancy think tanks, or perhaps for a committee of Talmudic scholars:

Which of Jerry Reinsdorf’s teams is in sorrier shape, the Bulls or the White Sox?

That was topic No. 1 in this week’s “Polling Place,” your home for Sun-Times sports polls on the site formerly known as Twitter.

“The Sox have no TV contract beyond 2024, no stadium deal beyond 2029, won’t allow long-term contracts and are trying to emulate the Brooklyn Dodgers,” @oldy75 commented. “This is way worse than just being bad at basketball.”

“The Sox lost over 100 games in the middle of their ‘championship window,’ ” @HisSlyness44 wrote. “I say this is no contest.”

No further explanation was needed from @RonaldVoigt4, who replied with a meme of a bridge collapsing under the weight of a steam engine.

We also asked if the Sox should trade pitcher Dylan Cease while his value is relatively high. This was a popular idea.

Last, we asked about unbeaten college football teams in weekend conference championship games. Which one of them is likeliest to lose?

On to the polls:

Poll No. 1: Which of Jerry Reinsdorf’s teams is in worse shape?

Upshot: If the results tell us anything, it’s that voters were, on the whole, unable to distinguish between one brand of awful and the other. The Bulls are going nowhere with the same old core of Zach LaVine, DeMar DeRozan and Nikola Vucevic. The Sox are only beginning to pick up the pieces from their latest disaster. How did we get so lucky?

Poll No. 2: Should the White Sox trade pitcher Dylan Cease while his value is relatively high?

Upshot: “I’d love to see him head back north,” offered @KurtisArndt in a sly reference to Cease’s origins in the Cubs organization. Bottom line is — as you can plainly see — fans are just fine with seeing Cease go. And if Cease has any idea what’s good for him, he’s just fine with it, too.

Poll No. 3: Which unbeaten college football team is most likely to lose its conference championship game?

Upshot: According to the point spreads, the easy answer is Washington, which entered Friday night’s Pac-12 title game as a significant underdog. In Saturday’s action, Florida State, facing a QB crisis, could be in real trouble, and Georgia has to tangle with Alabama. And then there’s Michigan, which almost certainly could wear its helmets backward and still outscore Iowa. But we only kid the Hawkeyes … sort of.

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