https://allchgo.com/soxfest-state-of-the-white-sox-in-2025/

As for the bullpen, Szymborski said this is the worst group ZiPS has ever projected. .... Getting outs in the later innings is likely to be a significant challenge for Venable all season.

Is a similar trajectory possible for the White Sox? Probably not. As Dan Szymborski said on Fangraphs earlier this month, “I have very little faith that they’ve done anywhere near enough to put themselves in a position to be a good team in the future. I almost wonder if they need another record-breaking season to really turn around how the franchise is run.”

If there’s some reason for long-term hope, Will Venable seems like a smart hire as the new manager, and the farm system is still strong. They have six prospects in the top 100, one of just seven teams with at least five players ranked that high. The scary part is the Sox have been here before — young, dynamic talent was part of the reason for optimism about the ballclub just a few years ago, but now almost all of those players are gone, having ultimately failed to live up to the projections and the hype.

In all, 2025 will almost certainly be a better season, at least on paper, if only because it took remarkable misfortune to lose as many games as they did last season.

45 minutes ago, southsider2k5 said:

In all, 2025 will almost certainly be a better season, at least on paper, if only because it took remarkable misfortune to lose as many games as they did last season.

Irrefutable.

47 minutes ago, southsider2k5 said:

https://allchgo.com/soxfest-state-of-the-white-sox-in-2025/

 

 

 

 

 

 

Fangraphs would ratheer moan about Chris Getz than see his genius, which is so obvious to anyone with a clue.

I'm genuinely amazed how uninteresting and bad our bullpen pipeline and mlb talent is. few arms are even interesting. This has been a thing for 5 years, after they put crochet in there it's just been a lot of trash cycling through from AAA where a guy with an 9 ERA was our hope to be good in the majors. 

6 minutes ago, bmags said:

I'm genuinely amazed how uninteresting and bad our bullpen pipeline and mlb talent is. few arms are even interesting. This has been a thing for 5 years, after they put crochet in there it's just been a lot of trash cycling through from AAA where a guy with an 9 ERA was our hope to be good in the majors. 

Collect enough straws, and you can build a raft.

maybe.

4 minutes ago, JoeC said:

Collect enough straws, and you can build a raft.

maybe.

That's what has been surprising. Though last year they shot themselves in the foot by panic trashing their initially scouted group only to see that group recover and be decent while what they brought in was bad the rest of the year. Surprised they haven't tried more 'failed Starter' type to give em a shot in bullpen

The bullpen is going to be worse than last season?????!!!!!!

7 minutes ago, wegner said:

The bullpen is going to be worse than last season?????!!!!!!

There are still some guys with closing experience I wouldn't mind them taking a shot on, even if you have to offer a higher salary for one year or two years.

21 minutes ago, WestEddy said:

Irrefutable.

Maybe, but the most reprehensible person in sports is still the owner and the GM is still way in over his head. There isn’t one player that I can really get excited about. Bright side is the manager might be pretty good, my guess is they improve 10 games and finish 51-111 and for the first time in team history lose 100 or more games 3 years in a row.

7 minutes ago, Bob Sacamano said:

There are still some guys with closing experience I wouldn't mind them taking a shot on, even if you have to offer a higher salary for one year or two years.

However, Chris Getz spent a good amount of young assets acquiring several of these "relievers" in trades and they're out of 40 man roster spots. Adding someone you're taking a shot on, with any deal other than a NRI, requires you to drop someone that they either seem hesitant to drop or that they spent resources to acquire.

With the bullpen, they also would need a 26 man roster spot if the guy made the team, which could require them to move one of Getz's weird bullpen acquisitions out of the way.

Leasure was the biggest hyped up hope last year...that didn't last.

Nastrini as well.

Berroa had the raw stuff...but seems just as enigmatic as G.Santos.

And then Iriarte was yet another hyped Padres pitcher who hasn't proven much yet...and Thorpe has lost a lot of his original luster, too.

 

Edited January 27, 20251 yr by caulfield12

8 minutes ago, The Mighty Mite said:

Maybe, but the most reprehensible person in sports is still the owner and the GM is still way in over his head. There isn’t one player that I can really get excited about. Bright side is the manager might be pretty good, my guess is they improve 10 games and finish 51-111 and for the first time in team history lose 100 or more games 3 years in a row.

I was figuring 53-54 wins. I'm a little more excited about the rookies this year than I was for Nicky and DeJong last year. 

16 minutes ago, The Mighty Mite said:

Maybe, but the most reprehensible person in sports is still the owner and the GM is still way in over his head. There isn’t one player that I can really get excited about. Bright side is the manager might be pretty good, my guess is they improve 10 games and finish 51-111 and for the first time in team history lose 100 or more games 3 years in a row.

It seems to me this ownership is happy with the low payroll and the  losing team. With the low payroll the White Sox are going to be very profitable for the ownership.

State of the White Sox?

15 minutes ago, WestEddy said:

I was figuring 53-54 wins. I'm a little more excited about the rookies this year than I was for Nicky and DeJong last year. 

If/when we see them...if it's more of the Josh Rojas Show the first half, there's going to be a number of disappointed fans who wanted to see youngsters get the majority of playing time tuning out until Teel Quero Montgomery are up.

And then they have yet to close the books on Fletcher/DeLoach/Julks...who most fans have kinda already given up on.

Which then leaves the pending Luis Robert Trade as the primary means of generating interest the first half.

That's depressing enough, yet the last remaining hope before the 2026 draft to really infection some more life into the franchise.

Edited January 27, 20251 yr by caulfield12

6 minutes ago, caulfield12 said:

If/when we see them...if it's more of the Josh Rojas Show the first half, there's going to be a number of disappointed fans who wanted to see youngsters get the majority of playing time tuning out until Teel Quero Montgomery are up.

And then they have yet to close the books on Fletcher/DeLoach/Julks...who most fans have kinda already given up on.

Which then leaves the pending Luis Robert Trade as the primary means of generating interest the first half.

That's depressing yet enough, yet the last remaining hope before the 2026 draft to really infection some more life into the franchise.

There's 2B, 3B, SS, DH and a spot on the bench for infielders. Rojas can only take up one of those. Coming into ST last year, I was kind of numb, like watching replacement players during a strike. 

12 minutes ago, WBWSF said:

It seems to me this ownership is happy with the low payroll and the  losing team. With the low payroll the White Sox are going to be very profitable for the ownership.

The funny thing is that it took from 2020 until 2025 for the Sox to have a revenue year over 2020.  They have also put up paper losses in every season since 2020.

The team lost 27 games last year where it took a lead into the 7th inning or later remember. That's pretty hard to beat but if any franchise can do it, it will be these guys. 

7 minutes ago, Lip Man 1 said:

The team lost 27 games last year where it took a lead into the 7th inning or later remember. That's pretty hard to beat but if any franchise can do it, it will be these guys. 

They could improve on that number but take a lead into the 7th fewer times.

26 minutes ago, WBWSF said:

It seems to me this ownership is happy with the low payroll and the  losing team. With the low payroll the White Sox are going to be very profitable for the ownership.

Dude why do you keep repeating this same statement like it’s new 

I watched about 8 total innings last year, and I expect that number to be significantly lower in 2025. 

Go Go White Sox! 

 

 

This seems about appropriate for the Sox

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The bullpen projection is probably going to be a text book case on why spending on the bullpen doesn't provide value. I'm willing to bet they find a way to find servicable pen pieces and end up with a bullpen that's not ranked last. That's not a high bar, but it also goes to show you can probably just keep sending bodies out there until you find enough pieces to make the bullpen servicable.

4 minutes ago, mac9001 said:

The bullpen projection is probably going to be a text book case on why spending on the bullpen doesn't provide value. I'm willing to bet they find a way to find servicable pen pieces and end up with a bullpen that's not ranked last. That's not a high bar, but it also goes to show you can probably just keep sending bodies out there until you find enough pieces to make the bullpen servicable.

Well - i'm with you that spending shouldn't equal a great bullpen. There's been plenty of examples of that in mlb in last many years.

But ZIPs doesn't necessarily favor that, anyway. It's been a really big scouting/pitching development issue for the sox since a while. Hahn didn't just pay a bunch for bullpen because that's the only stuff JR would let him pay for, though that is about 50% of it, but also because we just were not getting enough out of our own farm. Big time prospects like kopech/crochet and bummer kept them afloat. But just terrible success imo.

This should be something that we can see change quickly though, always plenty of decent bullpen arms prop up for a year on waivers/cheap fa.

22 minutes ago, bmags said:

Well - i'm with you that spending shouldn't equal a great bullpen. There's been plenty of examples of that in mlb in last many years.

But ZIPs doesn't necessarily favor that, anyway. It's been a really big scouting/pitching development issue for the sox since a while. Hahn didn't just pay a bunch for bullpen because that's the only stuff JR would let him pay for, though that is about 50% of it, but also because we just were not getting enough out of our own farm. Big time prospects like kopech/crochet and bummer kept them afloat. But just terrible success imo.

This should be something that we can see change quickly though, always plenty of decent bullpen arms prop up for a year on waivers/cheap fa.

Other than Benintendi, the last big FA adds were Hendriks Kimbrel Graveman and Joe Kelly.

Mr. Meat and Potatoes was the last significant investment into the rotation...limited to three years and no longer. 

With even Tier B starting pitching off the list and the majority of young core players locked into extensions...it was the only "affordable" place to add unless they extended Vaughn Madrigal Cease Kopech...maybe Lopez.