The White Sox have an exciting young core — but development isn’t linear, and regression is guaranteed to hit somewhere.
There are many different stages of a rebuild. There’s the fire sale, rock bottom, the slow climb, and — if everything breaks right — the eventual peak that results in a championship window.
Things don’t always follow the blueprint. But that’s the idea.
Right now, the Chicago White Sox are somewhere between rock bottom and the ascent. The second half of the 2025 season and the promising debuts from a number of rookies gave fans a real sense that better days are ahead.
That said, progress at this stage is precarious.
White Sox fans are anxious to watch a winner, and that restlessness can distort expectations. For as refreshing as 2025 felt, Chicago still finished with the worst record in the American League and the second-worst record in baseball at 60–102.
I think we sometime forget how far a way from contention that still is.
So banking on another 19-win jump in 2026 — like the one we saw from 2024 to 2025 — would be naive.
This is where a little caution is needed. Development is not linear. The rookies who flashed in 2025 are not guaranteed to take another step next season. Some of 2025’s breakout players won’t continue their trajectory — they’ll level off or even regress.
That’s an idea fans are blind to before every season: regression.
As we look ahead and try to set realistic expectations for the 2026 White Sox, it’s vital to acknowledge that regression will hit a few key players.
Colson Montgomery hit 21 home runs after the All-Star break and finished with an .840 OPS. Are we really expecting that pace over 162 games? Are we penciling him in for 35–40 homers as a 24-year-old shortstop?
That’s MVP-level production. Even 30 homers is an ambitious bar right now.
Kyle Teel also had a strong second half, finishing with a .786 OPS, 11 doubles, and eight homers. If you project another leap from Teel on offensive output, you’re talking about a catcher posting an .800+ OPS with maybe 15 home runs? That would easily make him one of the most valuable backstops in baseball. That outcome is more plausible than Montgomery’s HR surge continuing at the same rate, but even still, it’s asking a lot.
And this applies across the roster.
We assume Chase Meidroth, Edgar Quero, Miguel Vargas, and Lenyn Sosa will all take steps forward from their 2025 marks. That won’t happen. Some will improve, some will plateau, and some will slide backward.
I’m confident Shane Smith is a long-term piece in the rotation. But that doesn’t mean he’s guaranteed another jump from his already All-Star caliber play in 2025.
This is the nature of baseball. White Sox fans learned this the hard way during the last rebuild.
Every time Yoán Moncada flashed greatness, the next season sent him spiraling backward. Every time Eloy Jiménez looked poised for a 40-homer campaign, injuries or plate-discipline issues derailed him. Even Luis Robert Jr. — the most talented player in the organization — has never been able to stack year-over-year improvement the way his tools suggest he should.
If development were linear, Robert would be in the MVP race every season.
That’s why I’m urging caution for 2026. It’s also why I will always advocate for adding real talent in free agency rather than counting on every internal option to develop perfectly.
I believe in Kyle Teel most of all. His underlying metrics suggest he legitimately could take another step. But I’m less sold on some of the others. Good swing decisions and taking walks are critical for young hitters — and those weaknesses have long held back players like Jiménez and Robert. Will Montgomery and Sosa improve in those areas? That will determine their trajectory.
Will Edgar Quero improve his launch angle and start driving the ball with more consistent authority? That’s another major development checkpoint.
I still think a 70-win season would be a massive step forward for the 2026 White Sox. That should be the goal: reach 70 wins, evaluate what you have, and make informed decisions for the future.
But if expectations balloon beyond that — if fans assume every young player will keep rising without a backward step — the fickle nature of baseball is going to leave a lot of people both humbled and disappointed.