After a long, cold winter in the baseball hinterland, spring training is finally here. The snap and pop of batting practice and bullpen sessions fill the Arizona air as the Chicago White Sox gear up for their 2025 campaign.
The bad news is that the White Sox are coming off a historically bad season in 2024. The good news is that there’s nowhere to go but up for this team.
What happened in 2024?
If you’re a baseball fan and were unaware of what the White Sox 2024 season was like, I’d like to congratulate you. You saved yourself a lot of time by ignoring historic baseball futility.
If you did happen to pay attention to the White Sox last year, I sincerely hope that someone is developing a “Severance”-like treatment that immediately severs any White Sox memories of the 2024 season from your brain.
The White Sox set a major league record by losing 121 games in a single season in 2024. They had a league-worst run differential (-306) and scored the least runs per game of any team in MLB.
The White Sox finished at the bottom of MLB across all major offensive categories.
According to Baseball Reference, they had the worst Wins Above Average by position for almost every position on the field. Their offense was historically inept.
The lone bright spot amidst the darkness of 2024 was the White Sox starting pitching staff. Although still in the bottom half of MLB, White Sox starters accumulated 9.2 WAR in 2024 according to FanGraphs’ WAR leaderboards, which was higher than the Milwaukee Brewers’ and Cleveland Guardians’ starting staffs, both playoff teams.
Unfortunately, almost everyone from the 2024 staff is now gone. Innings leader Chris Flexen left as a free-agent and signed with the Chicago Cubs earlier this month. Erick Fedde was traded mid-season to the St. Louis Cardinals as part of a three-team trade that resulted in the White Sox receiving a couple minor leaguers and Miguel Vargas from the Los Angeles Dodgers.
And Garrett Crochet, the best overall starter on the staff, was traded this past offseason to the Boston Red Sox in exchange for four prospects, including Kyle Teel, the 49th best prospect in baseball according to FanGraphs.
That leaves Jonathan Cannon, Sean Burke, and Davis Martin as the lone holdovers on the starting staff from 2024, and those guys don’t exactly inspire confidence. All 3 of these guys were drafted by the White Sox, so the team is likely going to send these guys out to the mound for as many starts as possible just to see what they have and if there’s anything the team can build around or trade away for more prospects.
Cannon, who finished last season with a 1.9 WAR (not great but good enough to be the third highest WAR leader on the team) has the highest upside of the holdovers. Burke threw the ball well in his limited innings at the end of last season, and the OOPSY projection system likes him a lot more than other systems. If he can back up Cannon as a decent home-grown guy in the rotation, the Sox have to consider that a success.
Big Offseason News
As mentioned above, the White Sox’s biggest move was trading away Garrett Crochet in December for a bevy of prospects from the Boston Red Sox. The two best prospects of that bunch are catcher Kyle Teel and Wikelman Gonzalez, a pitcher with good stuff but terrible command.
Teel projects to be in the majors next season, but depending on the performances of current catchers Korey Lee and Matt Thaiss, we could see Teel on the roster after the trade deadline.
Martín Pérez and Bryse Wilson were also signed this offseason to fill out the rotation. Pérez projects as a solid veteran inning-eater and Wilson should serve as a serviceable fifth starter in the rotation. He’s only thrown over 100 innings twice in his career and has spent most of his career as a reliever with some stretches of starting for the Brewers and Pirates in his previous stops.
The White Sox will likely give Wilson some good run as a starter before a potential move to the bullpen if Noah Schultz or Hagen Smith, two of the best pitching prospects in the White Sox farm system, get called up later in the season.
The White Sox also signed some other guys! Mike Tauchmann made the move from the North Side of Chicago to the South Side, Josh Rojas left damp Seattle for cold Chicago to play second base, and Miguel Vargas, part of the trade package in last season’s Michael Kopech deal, is slotted in at third base.
The rest of the White Sox’s offseason signings were bench guys over 30 or re-treads signed to minor league deals, like Mike Clevinger and Joey Gallo.
One to Watch
I went back and forth over whether to write about a prospect here or someone already on the major league roster. The White Sox roster doesn’t exactly inspire confidence, so I went with who I thought was at one point and could still be the most exciting player to take the field at Rate Stadium this year.
That player is Luis Robert, Jr. Although he’s coming off a bad 2024 season, Robert is not far removed from slugging 38 homers and receiving MVP votes in 2023. To have a bounce-back season, Robert will need to stay healthy and find his groove at the plate. The new OOPSY projection system is pretty high on Robert, projecting him for a 3.8 WAR, 30 homers and 94 RBIs.
With two club options in 2026 and 2027, there’s a high likelihood Robert gets traded away by the deadline for more prospects that can help the White Sox rebuild. Robert is still relatively young, and if he can find the form that made him a nearly 5 WAR player back in 2023, contenders at the deadline will come knocking at the door.
It’s unfortunate that my “One to Watch” is a fan favourite who has entranced White Sox fans since he joined the Major League roster in 2020.
Robert still has the chance to become a steady impact player, but I don’t think it will be for the White Sox.
Until the July trade deadline rolls around, White Sox fans should watch all they can of Luis Robert, Jr. and hope he can find his groove and provide some joy on the baseball diamond until he inevitably ends up wearing a new uniform for some team’s playoff push.
Reasons for Optimism
Well, the White Sox sure as hell can’t be as bad in 2025 as they were in 2024! FanGraphs’ 2025 ZiPS projection pegs the White Sox for a 61-win season, which is still bad by many metrics but a drastic improvement from last season.
Besides positive regression of the overall record, the White Sox have some solid prospects in their farm system that could get some major playing time this season. Colson Montgomery, the number four prospect in the White Sox farm system, is a solid player who looks like he’ll get a lot of playing time at shortstop. Additionally, Kyle Teel is a catcher prospect worth paying attention to.
The top reasons for optimism, however, are pitchers Noah Schultz and Hagen Smith. Both have just gotten an inning of work so far this spring training, but Smith struck out three in his outing, and neither have allowed a run so far. Smith is more likely to debut at the major league level this season, while Schultz will follow in 2026 after developing a few more pitches in his arsenal.
2025 Prediction
I feel bad that all my reasons for optimism above mean that White Sox fans will have to wait until 2026 for any reason to get excited about most of the major leaguers that run out onto the field at Rate Field.
However, I don’t think that this 2025 season will be complete doom and gloom. I think the White Sox will absolutely lose a lot of games this year, definitely over 90. But if Sox fans stick around and watch some games in the later months of the summer and into September, they’ll get a chance to see some of the young players in the system that will hopefully be making an impact for the White Sox for many seasons to come.
Jack’s 2025 White Sox Prediction: 59-103.
