There’s nothing like the start of a new year to reflect on the previous year’s happenings and think: “Gee, things can only get better this year, right?” Unfortunately, it sure looks like White Sox fans are in for another year of miserable baseball in 2025.
A year after setting a modern-day MLB record for losses in a single season with 121, the White Sox are gearing up for a tough 2025 campaign. After trading away rotation stalwarts Erick Fedde and Garrett Crochet and allowing Chris Flexen to leave in free agency, Jonathan Cannon is the only starting pitcher remaining from the 2024 season.
Besides Luis Robert in centre field and Andrew Vaughn at first base, there’s not much pop in the order, and even Vaughn might be on his last legs with the team. However, the beginning of every major league season is a time of hope, so let’s take a look at some things White Sox fans might have to look forward to as the 2025 season begins.
Luis Robert plays 120+ games… but not for the Sox
When healthy, Robert is a force at the plate. He’s played more than 100 games just once in his career. That healthy 2023 campaign was impressive—145 games with 38 home runs, a .264/.315/.542 slash line, and a 4.9 WAR season.
Though Robert played only 100 games last season and hit the ball hard, his batted balls found fewer gaps. I expect Robert to rebound in 2025 and recapture his 2023 form. However, with the White Sox likely anchored to the AL Central basement, Robert should emerge as a prime trade candidate by summer as the team continues its roster rebuild.
Martín Pérez eats innings… and gets traded
Pérez joined the young White Sox rotation last week on a one-year $5 million contract. He now becomes the oldest pitcher in the rotation by about ten years but, more importantly, he also becomes a valuable innings-eater for the Sox.
Pérez has thrown over 110 innings every season since 2019 (again, not counting the 2020 season) and was an All-Star in 2022 with the Texas Rangers, where he threw nearly 200 innings and had his highest strikeout rate. His walk rate has been steady the last couple of seasons so I expect Pérez to continue avoiding putting runners on base with free passes.
If Pérez stays healthy and pitches effectively, he’s going to generate trade interest again this season, with the White Sox looking to recoup some prospects from a contender for their rebuild.
Jonathan Cannon becomes a serviceable starter
Cannon comes into this season as the only starting rotation holdover who threw more than 100 innings last season. In a lost season, he had stretches of competent pitching, but had the lowest strikeout rate amongst the starting staff. He has decent command of five pitches, including a sinker, which he threw 28% of the time in 2024.
If he can work on better locating some of his other pitches, like his sweeper and changeup, which had whiff rates of 28.2% and 26.9% respectively, he has a chance to outperform FanGraphs’ projections and provide some decent pitching for the White Sox in 2025.
Colson Montgomery becomes the long-term guy in the White Sox infield
This season for the Sox is all about seeing who they have in their pipeline that can contribute in the future. Colson Montgomery is the Sox’s top prospect and Baseball Prospectus #11 prospect in the minors overall. He’ll likely get an extended look during spring training but will start 2025 in AAA. If he can settle in at that level and regain the form he showed in the lower ranks of the minor leagues, I expect Montgomery to get a call-up to sometime in May or June.
Once he’s up on the major league roster, Montgomery is going to get his at-bats, and while he’ll likely struggle at the beginning of his tenure, he’ll get the much-needed reps in that will hopefully make him a part of the White Sox infield for a long time.
The White Sox are projected by FanGraphs’ ZiPS projections to win at least 20 more games in 2025 than in 2024. Normally, that’s an amazing improvement for a team but all it really tells us is that the Sox were absolutely terrible last year.
The best that Sox fans can hope for is that some of their players, including fan favourite Luis Robert, play well enough in the first half of the season that they get traded for some solid prospects the Sox can use to continue their rebuild. If the team turns in another miserable season, I expect calls for Jerry Reinsdorf to sell the team will only get louder.
Unfortunately, a miserable season may be what’s needed to not only overhaul the roster, but overhaul how the franchise is actually run.
Article by Jack Turek. Watch out for more Chicago White Sox content from Jack during the 2025 season.
Featured image of Luis Robert by Denis Poroy
