27-03-2025
Most White Sox players happy to have an opportunity, but what will they do with it?
PHOENIX — Martín Pérez, Bryse Wilson, Bobby Dalbec, Mike Tauchman, Mike Clevinger (again), Josh Rojas, Austin Slater, Michael A. Taylor.
For a certain type of journeyman ballplayer, the kind of guy with a bat-and-glove bindle and a stubborn dream, the South Side of Chicago was a hot winter destination.
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'We were a very popular place to be in the offseason for free agents out there,' White Sox director of pitching Brian Bannister said the other day. 'Ones who are prioritizing service time, they wanted to be here.'
When you hear 'Chicago White Sox,' you might think of words like 'civic disaster,' 'league-wide punchline' or 'that team with the viral milkshake.' But for baseball players young and old, the ones in need of a new beginning or a last chance, the word you should associate with the Sox is 'opportunity.'
Don't count on a playoff share, but the Sox have at-bats and innings to spare this season.
'That's what we talked about since day one, just the legitimate opportunity everyone has to contribute to the club,' new Sox manager Will Venable said. 'Whether that means opening day or the summer, there is going to be opportunity here and a chance to make an impact.'
I'm not breaking any news here, but it's not going to be a very good season for the White Sox. Unless a miracle happens — they sign a dog who can play baseball or find a kid in the stands who can throw triple-digits — the Sox seem like a lock for their third consecutive 100-loss season.
Best-case scenario: They won't be historically bad. Worst-case scenario? Well, we saw that last season.
After going 41-121 in 2024 — breaking the 1962 Mets' modern-day record for losses — how many more games will the Sox win in 2025? How many more can they win with this Quadruple-A roster?
'I can confidently say we're going to win more games than we did last year,' White Sox general manager Chris Getz told me in a recent interview.
Not exactly a leap of faith. Last I checked, BetMGM had the Sox at 54.5 wins and Baseball Prospectus' PECOTA projections had them at 62. If the Sox don't lose 100 games, Getz should get executive of the year votes and Venable should ask for a contract extension.
Could 'Better than the Rockies' be the team's rallying cry?
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Getz has improved the front-office infrastructure and made a respectable managerial hire in Venable, but the roster screams 100-loss season. Maybe 110. The lineup is generally ranked last in baseball — and that's with Luis Robert Jr., who could get moved this season — and so it the pitching staff.
The Opening Day payroll looks to be south of $60 million (according to Spotrac) or about $15 million less than 20 years ago, when the 2005 White Sox came out of nowhere to win it all.
I could rant and rave about how bad the organization is and how Jerry Reinsdorf should sell the team, but you've heard that before and, well, maybe he's thinking about it.
There's no reason for fans to be optimistic about the big-league club, but when I visited Camelback Ranch at the end of spring training, I thought about the opportunities here for the players. A rebuilding team provides more jobs than the old Works Progress Administration. The problem is keeping those jobs. Last year, 63 ballplayers suited up for the Sox, a franchise record, breaking the previous mark of 56 set the year before.
Some players will start their major-league careers in a Sox uniform. Others will end theirs in one. They might as well add a revolving door to the clubhouse.
The Sox have already been hit with an array of spring-training injuries — major and minor — the kinds that will provide chances for other players to impress.
Promising young pitcher Drew Thorpe — acquired from San Diego in last spring's Dylan Cease deal — left last Thursday's minor-league start with elbow soreness and was quickly scheduled for Tommy John surgery. Thorpe was coming off surgery to shave down a bone spur in that right elbow last fall. He joins three other Sox pitchers who have already had arm surgeries this spring.
'Admitting that there's injuries in today's game with how hard everyone throws, there's going to be plenty of opportunities not only from the break of camp but throughout the season,' Bannister said shortly before the Thorpe news broke. 'And I think just letting everyone be aware that you are going to get to pitch, and you're going to get to compete and be productive for this team and have a really good year, it keeps everybody positive. Nobody feels like they're shut out of getting service time this year.'
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Sean Burke, drafted by the Sox in 2021, is probably the least-known Opening Day starter in the majors after appearing in four games last season. Shane Smith is the rare Rule 5 player who will get an immediate chance in the starting rotation. The White Sox announced that Smith made the opening day roster the way teams desperate for positive attention do nowadays, via a video on social media.
From Rule 5 pick to making the Opening Day roster. Congrats, Shane!
— Chicago White Sox (@whitesox) March 20, 2025
Smith, 24, was undrafted out of Wake Forest in 2022 after Tommy John surgery and signed with the Brewers. He got up to Triple A last season but was left unprotected in the Rule 5 draft. The White Sox are the kind of team that can take a chance on him.
'It means a lot to me,' he said of making the club. 'It means everything to me and my family and the journey that I've been on over the last couple of years. It's everything.'
Everyone on the Sox is playing for something: a first chance, a second look, a last gasp.
I talked with shortstop Chase Meidroth, who was acquired from Boston in the Garrett Crochet trade. Meidroth, 23, looked like he was going to start the season with the White Sox, but instead he'll begin in Charlotte. But as long as he's healthy and hitting, he'll be up before it gets warm in Chicago. He said the atmosphere in camp was light despite the competition for jobs.
'I feel like we've got like a brotherhood building in here,' he said. 'A lot of the older guys in here have set a good example for the younger guys. So it's been fun learning from a lot of the guys that have done it for a while and competing and growing and kind of like molding myself.'
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Across the way from Meidroth in the clubhouse was 30-year-old Andrew Benintendi, the recipient of the largest free-agent contract in White Sox history. He's guaranteed a job and he's making around $17 million, but he's playing for pride. He was a negative WAR player last season with a .229/.289/.396 slash line, though he did hit 20 homers. The opportunity is there for him to turn it around and show he's still a valuable player.
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'Another year going out and trying to be better than I was last year,' he said last week. 'Last year was a very down year for me. I'm just trying to overall be better, win more games and have more of an impact.'
The better he plays, the better the chance the Sox have of dealing him for prospects. The same with Robert and any of the veterans they've signed to club-friendly deals. The rebuild wheel keeps spinning.
The promise of the future is down on the farm, which is again highly touted. That means we're back to the days of breathless reporting about minor-league exploits. Left-handed pitchers Hagen Smith and Noah Schultz are the White Sox's future but probably not the present.
'I have tasked our group to get them mirroring the major-league routine,' Getz told me recently. 'But really, it's more like '26 and '27, knowing that it's going to take time for them to adapt to that. But also it lines up in a way where we can support it on the position player front as well.'
White Sox fans don't live in Birmingham, though. So why watch this team? I'm guessing that won't be a question for a large chunk of their fandom.
The Sox drew 1.38 million to their park last season, the lowest total since 1999. And if fans aren't going in person, they might have a tough time watching on TV given their new cable channel's impasse with Comcast. How many fans will pay a la carte to watch this team? This year, the organization is celebrating the 125th anniversary of the franchise instead of just focusing on the 20th for the 2005 team that is the lone standard bearer for modern success on the South Side. The '05 team will be around plenty, though, with Mark Buehrle getting a statue.
The Sox are just dandy at honoring the past. Their problem is always winning in the present.
The team sold the future during the last rebuild. It's hard to peddle hope again so soon, especially with Reinsdorf still prominently involved.
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'You know, we certainly sympathize with our fan base that was really frustrated with the product last year and where things currently stand,' Getz said last week. 'But we are making strides. We are determined to get this right, and we will get this right.'
The last time we saw the Sox in Chicago, fans were booing them for winning. They had an opportunity to set the modern MLB loss record in their final home series against the putrid Angels, so of course that's when the Sox pulled off only their third series sweep of the season. You couldn't blame the long-suffering fans for wanting to see history. You go to games to see something you've never seen before, and no living person had ever seen a major-league team lose its 121st game in a season until the Sox did it in Detroit.
'All I know is that we ended the season strong,' Benintendi said with a smile. 'That's all I remember. I think we won like five out of the last six or something like that. So, yeah, we needed another 100 games after that.'
Of course, not even Benintendi wanted 100 more games from the White Sox last September. But as it turns out, the team again has 162 to play.
A new season often brings the promise of better days. For a franchise that needed a late surge to win 41 games, the Sox know the opportunity is there to win at least 42.
(Photo of Shane Smith: Rick Scuteri / Imagn Images)
