The 2025 MLB season is almost upon us! With less than one week to go before the Cubs and Dodgers do battle in Tokyo, each team is gearing up for the long, annual 162-game grind.
Each day this week at Call To The Pen, we'll take a look at every team in every division and analyze their best and worst-case scenarios for the 2025 season. We've already looked at the AL East and NL East. Now, let's head to the middle of the country to size up the AL Central.
Chicago White Sox
Best-case scenario: The White Sox lost 121 games last season, so even the best-case scenario obviously isn’t going to be very good. It begins and ends with development.
The realistic development hopes center around two players. Catcher Kyle Teel came over from Boston as the prize in the Garrett Crochet trade. At 23, he projects to be major league-ready soon, and although he’s currently listed third on the team’s depth chart — behind Corey Lee and Matt Thais — do not take that seriously. The next catcher of note on the South Side will be Teel, and Opening Day could serve as his coronation.
Colson Montgomery is a 23-year-old system project who will eventually take over the starting shortstop job. Coming off a .214 batting average at Triple-A Charlotte, he’s got to show enough bat to justify that confidence, and the Sox apparently aren't fully persuaded yet. They sent him to minor league camp already. His return at some point this season, is, however, likely.
Jonathan Cannon, 24, got a 23-game rookie introduction in 2024 and went 5-10 with a 4.49 ERA. The Sox believe in Cannon enough to list him as the No. 1 starter on their spring depth chart; justifying that faith would be a big accomplishment.
Worst-case scenario: With few productive returnees to lean on, GM Chris Getz is counting on his youngsters to give White Sox fans hope. If Teel, Montgomery and/or Cannon falter, it will be hard in October to look back on 2025 as productive.
The supporting cast — Andrew Benintendi, Luis Robert Jr. and Andrew Vaughn — has plenty of injury history and no record of carrying their team. From a talent standpoint, Robert is the best of the lot, but he’s only once made more than 425 plate appearances in his five-season career.
Benintendi’s already sidelined by a spring training fracture that will have him out for several weeks into the start of the season. As for the rotation, veterans Martin Perez and Mike Clevinger are the support staff for Cannon. They went a combined 5-9 with a 5.00 ERA last season.
Most likely scenario: It would be hard to lose 100+ games in three successive seasons; the Sox lost 101 in 2023. But the White Sox established a franchise record at 303 defeats for the 2022-24 period, and they only need 82 losses to top that. In that sense, 2025 is all but guaranteed to be a record breaker for the South Siders.