Chicago White Sox 2025 preview
Some team previews are more fun to write than others. Some are torturous and I dread getting to that team on my list. The Chicago White Sox are a team that I absolutely dreaded writing about and I’m sure that fans are dreading this upcoming season even more.
The White Sox were 41-121 last season, finishing 51.5 games behind the Guardians and 41 games behind the fourth-place Twins. In 124 seasons of White Sox baseball, 2023 and 2024 represent the first back-to-back 100-loss seasons and two of the six in franchise history. Last year’s team used a record-high 63 players and fired Pedro Grifol after a 28-89 start to the year before Grady Sizemore finished 13-32.
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Sizemore did not get the job, as Will Venable was named the new manager on Halloween. He has ample playing experience and was the right-hand man to Bruce Bochy in Texas the last two seasons after serving as Alex Cora’s bench coach for two seasons.
On paper and in the betting markets, this looks like another miserable season for Chicago. The debut of top prospect Colson Montgomery is easily the biggest thing to look forward to, though he, too, had a rough 2024 with an 88 wRC+ in the minor leagues, batting .214 with a .381 SLG.
While I don’t expect the White Sox to top the record that they just set with the most losses in MLB history, I see no reason to believe they can avoid 100 losses again.
2025 Chicago White Sox Odds
(odds from DraftKings as of Feb. 25)
World Series: +50000
AL Pennant: +20000
AL Central: +25000
Win Total: 53.5 (-110/-110)
Make Playoffs: Yes +4000 / No -20000
Chicago White Sox Preview: Offense
Name a category and the White Sox were probably the worst in baseball or very close to it. Runs scored? Yep. They had 507, nearly 100 fewer than any other team. Batting average? Yep. At .221, the Mariners were the closest at .224 and they struck out 3% more often. On-base percentage? Yep. By 32 points. Slugging percentage? Yep. By 26 points. wOBA? Yep. wRC+? Yep. Defensive Runs Saved? Yep, by 23 runs. For good measure, they were also 29th in Outs Above Average, Statcast’s primary fielding metric.
With statistics that bad, bright spots are few and far between. The only hitters with a wRC+ of 100 or higher (so league average or better) were Yoan Moncada, who had 45 plate appearances and played 12 games, and Tommy Pham. Neither guy is on this year’s roster. The closest everyday player was Andrew Vaughn, who posted a .246/.297/.402 slash and a 97 wRC+. Paul DeJong, also no longer on the team, posted a 97 wRC+ before he was traded.
So, is there hope for somebody to emerge as a better option? Maybe. Luis Robert Jr. has been a productive hitter before and the White Sox are hoping for that because he’s their best trade chip. He only batted .224/.278/.379 with an 84 wRC+ last season. He had three above average offensive seasons prior to that, including a 128 wRC+ in 2023 over a full season with 38 homers.
Free agent Mike Tauchman is a solid hitter and there’s hope for Vaughn and Andrew Benintendi to be a bit better than they were. The bench is projected to be made up of nothing but free agents, including guys with past track records like Brandon Drury, Matt Thaiss, and Michael A. Taylor. At least there might be more professional-caliber plate appearances.
But, on the whole, this offense looks bad. Montgomery is a 22-year-old with decent power, but he struck out 28.6% of the time in Triple-A. He does walk a good amount, which is something that the White Sox were lacking last season.
You’re not asking for miracles with a win total of 53.5, so any upgrades on offense could be beneficial.
Chicago White Sox Preview: Pitching
There weren’t a lot of bright spots on the pitching side either. The White Sox were 28th in ERA at 4.67 and 28th in FIP at 4.56. They had the highest BB% in the league at 10.3% and paired that with the 22nd-ranked K%, but now Garrett Crochet is gone and he was the team’s K% standout and one of the better arms in the BB% department.
Oh, and Erick Fedde is gone, too. And so is Tanner Banks. Even Chris Flexen is gone, so the top returnee in fWAR is Jonathan Cannon, who had a 4.49 ERA with a 4.37 xERA and a 4.65 FIP in 124.1 innings. Crochet and Fedde combined for 7.3 fWAR. The rest of the pitching staff combined for 2.5 fWAR and Flexen, who had a 4.95 ERA with a 4.80 FIP was worth 1.3 of it. Banks was the top reliever with 0.9.
Chicago used 17 different starting pitchers last season. Cannon and Davis Martin are the only guys back that made at least 10 starts. Davis Thorpe made nine with a 5.48 ERA and a 5.87 FIP. Nick Nastrini had an ERA over 7.00 in 35.2 innings. Mike Clevinger is back after making four starts with a 6.75 ERA last season.
Martin Perez will be the de facto leader of the staff after signing a one-year deal for $3.5 million with an option for 2026. Unfortunately, he’s coming off of a season in which he had a 4.53 ERA with a 5.38 xERA and a 4.90 FIP, which is how you end up being the main free agent signed by the White Sox. Chicago will hope that he’s good enough to spin for a prospect at the Trade Deadline.
I kind of like Cannon, though he doesn’t miss a lot of bats and this won’t be a good defensive team. Perez and Martin are not guys that excite me at all. Sean Burke (no relation) misses a lot of bats, but he may end up with a reliever profile due to his poor control and command. He’s walked nearly five batters per nine innings with a 1.4 HR/9 in the minors. Bryse Wilson gets another crack at starting, but he has a 5.37 ERA with a 5.31 FIP in that role over 239.2 MLB innings.
This is one of the worst starting staffs I’ve ever seen. And there are a lot of guys that will carry high walk rates and get to that 100-pitch threshold quickly, putting a ton of strain on a hodgepodge relief corps where not a single pitcher is projected to have an ERA under 4.00. Just an atrocious staff all the way around.
Chicago White Sox Player to Watch
SS Colson Montgomery
Montgomery really limped his way through Triple-A last season, as his 64-game stat line in 2023 looks like the exception and not the norm. The 23-year-old was drafted 22nd overall in 2021 with a huge signing bonus to keep him from going to college. There are a lot of really raw tools here and the plate discipline looks promising coupled with a high Pull%.
What really concerns me from last season, along with the big K% spike, is that he had an 85.8 mph average exit velocity in Triple-A with a 34.2% Hard Hit%. Those are not the numbers you’d like to see from a top prospect. He did walk and strike out a lot, so he hit in a lot of deep counts. That can cut down on contact authority because of the need to protect with two strikes, but it also means he didn’t take advantage in favorable counts. He’ll debut this season, but I think it could be ugly.
Chicago White Sox Season Win Total Odds & Prediction
And “ugly” will be the theme of this season for the White Sox. This is an objectively awful baseball team once again. Without Crochet and Fedde, this rotation is going to take a massive tumble and the guys in this bullpen with some promise, like Michael Kopech, Banks, and John Brebbia, are all gone. And guys that had a track record weren’t very good last season.
Maybe a new coaching staff will help get some more production out of certain guys, but this is a terrible roster. There are Triple-A rosters that might be on par or better than this team. I’m still not sure I can bet on the White Sox to lose 109+ games given that low win total of 53.5, but I am appalled that an MLB roster can look this bad. This win total line is 10 games lower than last season’s when I published this, though that was before the Dylan Cease trade to San Diego.
Lean: Under 53.5
