CHICAGO — What do you do following an MLB-record 121-loss season? That was the question facing the White Sox heading into 2025.
The 2024 Chicago White Sox resembled a train wreck more than a baseball team, as poor performance, managerial ineptitude and lack of talent combined to put together the worst season in the history of baseball. At this time last year, Chicago was chasing baseball infamy as the season neared its conclusion.
But one year later, a lot has changed on the South Side, and for the first time in a while, the White Sox seem to have found something that had been missing: a clear direction for their future.
When White Sox general manager Chris Getz spoke to Yahoo Sports last season, in the early stages of the team’s rebuild, he preached patience as the Sox began what would be a long road of losing. Not only that, but he also acknowledged that several things would need to go his team’s way as they overhauled rosters in the big leagues and minor leagues and rebuilt the front office.
A little more than a year later, it looks like those changes are starting to yield results.
“Just looking at where we were a year ago to where we are now, as we’re wrapping up the season, how they’re playing in the second half, there are certainly more positives than there were [in the] second half last year or any part of last year,” Getz told Yahoo Sports this week. “You look at overall development of players, I think that’s credit to [manager] Will [Venable] and the staff. But also, beyond that, underneath it all, just some of the processes that we’ve established and improved and the confidence we have.”
After a tumultuous 2024, there’s a feeling of positivity around the White Sox for the first time in a while. But getting to this point was a long process, and the organization has only begun to turn the corner.
‘We’re all going to be in the big leagues together’
Last season was about completely resetting in Chicago. First, the Sox needed a do-over in terms of their roster construction. Only a handful of players who finished last season with the Sox are currently on the team’s active roster, with the notable names being veterans Andrew Benentendi, Korey Lee and Miguel Vargas. At last summer’s deadline, the team traded away many established players, including Erick Fedde, Michael Kopech, Tommy Pham and Eloy Jímenez.
What those veterans left behind was plenty of opportunity for Chicago’s young players to make names for themselves. This year, while rolling out one of the youngest rosters in Major League Baseball on a nightly basis, the White Sox have been searching for the core members of their next good team.
Case in point: One of the final moves of the Sox’s roster tear-down was trading likely AL Cy Young finalist Garrett Crochet to the Boston Red Sox in December. The return from that deal included catcher Kyle Teel, infielder Chase Meidroth, reliever Wikelman Gonzalez and top prospect Braden Montgomery, all of whom have made an immediate impact this season, with Meidroth, Teel and Gonzalez already in the big leagues.
But the organization’s biggest developmental win this year has been shortstop Colson Montgomery. Montgomery, the White Sox’s 2021 first-round draft pick, came into this season as one of MLB’s top prospects, and then he struggled mightily at Triple-A to begin the year. In April, he was sent to the team’s Arizona complex to completely overhaul his swing.
Dealing with major struggles so close to the big leagues and facing a front office made up of different leaders than those who drafted him, it was natural for doubt to creep in — even for a top prospect.
“That’s definitely a question that you ask yourself as a player: ‘Do they still value you the same?’” Montgomery told Yahoo Sports. “I never once had a disbelief or didn’t believe that they believed in me or anything like that, just because of the conversations we’ve always had. … Even with the years that I didn’t play the best, they still told me, ‘It’s fine. We still believe in you. You’re still going to be a huge part of this organization when you get to the big leagues.’”
That boost of confidence turned out to be exactly what the 23-year-old needed, and once he was called up in July, he quickly showed his immense potential. Entering Wednesday, Montgomery has 18 homers and a .796 OPS in 61 games, showing that he could be the centerpiece for the White Sox moving forward.
Following in Montgomery’s wake are several other player development success stories. Infielder Lenyn Sosa would probably fly under the radar for most baseball fans, but the 25-year-old has quietly put together a career year, hitting .262 with 20 homers and 70 RBI. The team has also been able to develop two catchers in the big leagues in Teel and Edgar Quero, who have shown their strengths defensively and at the plate. Then there’s second baseman Meidroth, who has recorded a .347 on-base percentage and 13 stolen bases.
“I played with a majority of the guys in Double-A and Triple-A, so I think it was really cool to get that chemistry with those guys,” Montgomery said of the players around him. “One of the biggest things was me and Chase, the chemistry for the guys up the middle, playing with each other in spring training and then in Charlotte.
“It’s just something that’s been brewing for a while, and we just had to stay patient. Every single one of us. We’ve had to tell each other — we’re all going to be in the big leagues together. There’s this plan, and we all kind of envision it with ourselves and being able to come up here. You’ve seen some of our come-back wins and things like that. I feel like as a young group, seeing a young team do that is pretty special, and I think it’s just going to keep getting better.”
Looking ahead to 2026, the White Sox have even more talent on the way, with top prospects Noah Schultz, Hagan Smith and Braden Montgomery all knocking on the door of the big leagues.
[Get more Chicago news: White Sox team feed]
Finding the manager for the future
Across the various phases of a rebuild, a manager is a crucial part of a team’s success. Sometimes, the impact of the manager shows up most on the field. Sometimes, the manager’s most important role is messaging to the fan base and shaping public perception of the organization. In either case, having a manager who can work with the front office in a collaborative way is crucial.
That’s because the manager is also the GM’s partner and sounding board as they navigate building a successful team. So after Getz retooled his front office last year, the next step was finding his running mate for the future.
Enter Will Venable.
After former manager Pedro Grifol was fired last August amid a 21-game losing streak, Getz began a new search for the right man for the job. Venable had been a top candidate for several managerial positions since his playing days ended, and many in the industry believed he would be the Rangers’ manager once Bruce Bochy retired. But after Bochy decided to extend his time in Texas, the White Sox saw an opportunity to land their guy.
With Venable having worked underneath several successful skippers in Joe Maddon, Alex Cora and Bochy, the 42-year-old seemed like the perfect candidate to lead Chicago’s turnaround.
“You recognize that partnership and what it’s going to mean and the communication style — just how he was going to go about his business, how I wanted to go about my business,” Venable said of teaming up with Getz. “Everything up front, knowing, you know, that we’re on the same page mostly. But then, obviously, working through a season, things come up, and then you really get a feel for how you guys work through problems together.”
Now, with their general manager and manager in place, the White Sox are hoping for organizational alignment and clear communication between the front office and the clubhouse for the long haul.
“From the beginning, I’ve been extremely confident that we’re going to be able to do the things that we need to do to progress and move this organization forward,” Venable said. “I’ve seen that in everything that we’ve done with our player acquisition, the way that our young players are progressing and our contributions from our veteran guys, and things internally that we’re doing to continue to build our infrastructure.”
What lies ahead for the White Sox?
As Year 2 of this White Sox rebuild comes to an end, the evaluation phase of the season is already underway. The Sox, 57-95 entering Wednesday, are on pace to lose more than 100 games this season, which is a far cry from the sustained success that most GMs aspire to. But going from 121 losses to about 100 is still progress, and the eye test shows that this team is slowly but surely heading in the right direction.
Beyond the record, there are signs of gradual improvement to be found in other areas. The White Sox rank eighth in MLB in runs scored since the All-Star break, something to hang their hats on going into the offseason. They started September with a six-game winning streak and recently won series against the Tigers and Rays. Looking ahead, the White Sox see a return to winning seasons on the not-too-distant horizon.
“Getting more efficient, getting more confident and continuing to find different competitive advantages,” Getz said of the organization’s next steps. “I think it is something that will elevate us from 101 to 201, so to speak.”
Since the beginning of last season, a common theme throughout the White Sox organization has been building a strong foundation and culture. The belief is that if assembled correctly and in sync from the top down, Chicago can be a well-oiled machine able to produce at a high level, from the draft to scouting to player development.
“I think that we’ve got a much stronger foundation … [and] you’re finding ways to continue to move this thing even just another level,” Getz said. “I feel like we’ve got a lot of good people here that are not necessarily similar — because we’ve got a diversity of backgrounds and thoughts and influences — but we also know that we’re working toward a common goal. But that common goal is really just the continual kind of improvement, finding ways to get better.”
From those in the front office to the players on the field, Venable sees collective progress in a direction everyone can feel good about.
“These guys have done a great job building the foundation of our culture and how we go about our business every single day,” Venable said. “How they hold each other accountable to those things and just our way of doing business.
“Every day, we get an opportunity to continue to grow and protect that. How these guys continue to show up every day and fight through injuries and compete and go out there and work hard for each other certainly matters. And [it’s] something that we’re looking at to continue to do to finish strong.”