Today marks the end of our AL Central preview series. The Chicago White Sox may have drawn first pick in the draft lottery, but their 60 wins were only good for the final entrant here. Unlike previous years, though, the White Sox are full of young, interesting hitters. While they aren’t likely to set the world on fire, a few breaking out could have the team pushing .500 like last year’s something or other Athletics.
Projected Record and Team Summary
Yet again, the project systems agree here: the Chicago White Sox are likely to be
pretty poor again this year. PECOTA projects a 68-94 record, while the Depth Charts have them at 69-93. Both are sizable improvements from the 2025 squad that went 60-102,, their third straight season with at least 100 losses. Much of that improvement comes from a new, exciting lineup of youngsters with the potential to be pretty solid instead of a group of veteran placeholders plus Luis Robert.
That’s right, after three years of talking about it, the White Sox finally bit the bullet and traded Robert; in return, they got Luisangel Acuna and a low-minors pitching prospect for their mercurial superstar. They also made a shocking strike for NPB star free agent Munetaka Murakami when the rest of MLB decided they actually didn’t want the 26 year old who averaged about 35 HRs per season the last 6 years in Japan. Instead of the huge payday he was expected for, Murakami settled for 2 years with the White Sox to hopefully prove he can hit major league pitching, too. That’s a boon for Chicago.
The Sox also made a few other trades, most notably bringing in Jordan Hicks and David Sandlin in a salary dump from Boston. Otherwise, they spent the winter making marginal improvements in free agency and on the waiver wire. Seranthony Dominguez, Austin Hays, Sean Newcomb, and Erick Fedde are fine veterans to add to a young team and Anthony Kay is an interesting import from overseas. None are likely to impact the team like Murakami should, but they add some much-needed stability to an otherwise unproven team.
Greatest Strength: Young Offense
Don’t look now, but the White Sox had a downright respectable offense in the second half last year. An emphasis on young bats in the draft and in trade returns has mostly panned out. Chase Meidroth, Colson Montgomery, Kyle Teel, Luisangel Acuna, and Edgar Quero are all players with club control that have a role on a winning team. Montgomery and Teel in particular look like full time starters, as the rookie shortstop hit 21 HRs over 71 games and the rookie catcher posted a .786 OPS after his June 6 debut. They then went and added the best power hitter in the NPB, 26 year old Munetaka Murakami, on a two year deal after his market failed to develop. We’ll see how prescient concerns about his whiff rates really are this season. Plus, Braden Montgomery, a power hitting college outfielder from the 2024 draft class, is poised for a quick ascent through the upper minors if Chicago so chooses.
The rest of the lineup isn’t particularly special. Chicago has done a nice job of acquiring former top prospects who have struggled for cheap, like Curtis Mead or Miguel Vargas, so their bench has a surprising amount of upside. At the same time, Lenyn Sosa, Austin Hays, and Andrew Benintendi are veteran roster filler. The best case scenario for these guys is a minor trade at the deadline, hopefully clearing a roster spot for a prospect at the same time. Otherwise, their job is to not be horrible and try to show the rookies the ropes as they matriculate up from the minors. This is almost certainly a few pieces short of a good lineup, but there’s enough here to be very, very interesting.
Greatest Weakness: Starting Pitching
If you had to squint to see an offensive core, you’ll be looking even harder for the pitching staff. The major league roster is about 8 arms short of competent. The starting rotation has little ceiling or depth, as Rule 5-breakout Shane Smith was the only starter under a 4.00 ERA last year. Chicago did backfill with some veteran SPs, Erick Fedde and Anthony Kay, but that’s about it. Davis Martin is a fourth year MLB starter who doesn’t get enough strikeouts to offset his walks and his hard contact and Sean Burke had a 4.59 ERA as a starting pitcher. As a team, the White Sox struggled with walks and home runs, an unenviable combo, and did very little to remedy that.
The bullpen isn’t in much better shape. Seranthony Dominguez, Jordan Hicks, and Jordan Leasure are solid bullpen arms, but at this point in their careers profile a few pegs lower in the totem pole than closer and main setup arms for a contender would. Otherwise, the bullpen should have a lot of moving parts aside from Jedixson Paez, a depth starter Chicago nabbed from Boston in the Rule 5 draft. When prospects like Noah Schultz, Hagan Smith, and Nick Sandlin are ready, expect them to push some of the current starters into the bullpen. Until that happens, this is a pretty uninspiring group.
X-Factor: Munetaka Murakami and Noah Schultz
Sometimes the X-Factor decision is easier than others. Picking Murakami here is one of those: I’m not sure there’s another player in the division, or maybe all of the majors, with a wider range of outcomes and expectations. Murakami started the winter as an international superstar and a top free agent but found shockingly little interest from American teams after a strikeout-heavy performance in the NPB. Of course, he also hit 22 home runs in 56 games, 5thmost in the league despite playing less than half the season.
After almost every team declined to pursue him in earnest, the White Sox swooped in with a 2 year, $34M contract. Murakami reportedly has struggled with velocity, but he didn’t see much of it overseas and has hit for plenty of power in Spring Training so far. The ceiling here is something like Kyle Schwarber or Giancarlo Stanton, where huge power and a good batting eye cover for some serious contact issues. If the strikeouts become untenable, the whole profile could collapse to something like 2021 Keston Hiura. We won’t know until we know, but adding this much upside for only $17M a year is very smart for a team with no pressure to win this year.
There were a lot of candidates for the second name here, but I chose Noah Schultz because the White Sox desperately need some pitching. In 2025, their best pitcher was Rule 5 pick Shane Smith, and while breakouts from the Rule 5 are always a boon, it isn’t a good sign if your best pitcher has a 3.81 ERA. Schutlz is a candidate to debut this year and add immediate upside to Chicago’s staff. As a 6’10 lefty, the Randy Johnson comparisons are inevitable and unfair, but Schultz is no slouch. His 70-grade slider leads the way of a strikeout-heavy profile and he can get up to 98 MPH on his heater. He can get out of sync and rack up a lot of walks, but the stuff is irrefutable. He still needs some refining in the minors before they unleash him on the league. Once he proves himself against AAA hitters and shows some command development, he’ll be an exciting arm for Chicago to build around.
For the first time in a while, the Chicago White Sox are an interesting baseball team. The makings of an offensive core are in place; an unsuspecting pitcher is liable to get burned if they try to sleepwalk their way through Chase Meidroth, Colson Montgomery, and Munetaka Murakmi gauntlet in the first inning. The pitching is still in tough shape outside of All-Star Shane Smith, but help is on the way from Hagan Smith and Noah Schultz. It’s a shallow roster, to be sure, but there’s enough good players that Chicago posting a solid season and becoming more irritant than pushover should no longer feel like a surprise.
