Brett Ballantini has written about baseball, basketball and sometimes hockey for the NBA, MLB, NHL, and Slam, Hoop, Sporting News, the Athletic, Sports Illustrated, South Side Hit Pen, Sox Populi, SB Nation and others. He was CSN Chicago’s Blackhawks beat writer when their 49-year Stanley Cup drought ended in 2009-10, and moved to the White Sox beat after that. Brett has run South Side Sox since 2018.
The White Sox, all 60 wins of them now, offered catnip to the masses in a rousing finale win at Washington, 8-0, punctuated by an early flurry of offense including three homers and a perfect game chase from Shane Smith that lasted 5 1/3 innings.
But let this finish not cloud your eyes, for this is a team that needed an improvement of 19 wins to reach a level most professional organizations would deem utterly bereft and horrible. We are to celebrate the heartiness of 60 wins and bypass the obvious cancers still remaining:
- A season purportedly on the upswing yet not even settling in better than 2023 (61-101) despite having significantly better players (20.6 WAR vs. 11.7)
- A position player roster unbearably inadequate, qualifying as the 14th-worst in White Sox history per team WAR (8.2 heading into today and due to tick up a sneeze)
- Just two solid players on the roster in Coslon Montgomery and Kyle Teel. Both, sadly, may have scares still to come, Colson as a player who looked more ready for DFA votes than ROY ones over the first half of the season, Teel a catcher learning as he goes and perhaps without a true position going forward
- A young core full of hope, which is fun to watch but doesn’t win games. Edgar Quero is a solid player who put up an average season with no power; Lenyn Sosa did not overwhelm offensively to the degree you can overlook his stone glove; Chase Meidroth a feisty player nonetheless projecting as average; Miguel Vargas entering his age-26 season with 1,000 at-bats under his belt, a .350 slugging percentage and an unprintable on-base; Luis Robert Jr., coming back for some reason beyond a tax write-off of $20 million
- A system that will yield no bats of note in 2026. None. Yes, much of the hitting talent that might have been supplementing in 2026 is already in the big leagues. Next wave? Maybe 2027, maybe never.
- A rotation with unyielding holes, whether for reasonable factors (injury) or other (inadequate drafting and signings). Shane Smith is our ace. Anyone else you feel good about? No, REALLY good about!
- Pitching prospects thicker than those on the hitting side, but none with 2026 readiness at the moment, beyond a true stretch in Shane Murphy or the question-markings of Grant Taylor or Drew Thorpe
- Lost seasons for Noah Schultz and Hagen Smith, entering the year as the No. 1-2 players in all the system. Neither could find the plate, or stay healthy. Smith righted himself over 10 innings in the Southern League playoffs, if you think that check won’t bounce; Schultz was promoted to Charlotte, for some reason, where he both festered and failed
- No spending for 2026, and with 2027 labor unrest on the horizon, none to come
There are bright spots beyond what is acknowledged above, if you squint real hard and try to get past all of the punctuation: A likely (possible?) No. 1 overall pick in a better draft year than 2025, a woefully weak top of the AL Central that feeds the fever dream that the 2026 Sox can compete for the top.
But it’s probably best that some others here tell that story. I’m beat.
