White Sox players embrace higher expectations after young core showed promise last season

CHICAGO (AP) — Colson Montgomery grew up in Indiana rooting for the Hoosiers and committed to play baseball for them before the Chicago White Sox made the slugging shortstop a first-round pick in the 2021 draft.

Fair to say, he’s inspired by the football team’s historic transformation under coach Curt Cignetti. In just two seasons, Indiana’s gone from doormat to national champion.

“Cignetti kind of summed it up,” Montgomery said Friday before the team kicked off its fan festival. “He said Indiana University football just won the national championship. It can be done.”

The White Sox believe they are poised to turn a corner. General manager Chris Getz said this week he expects the team to take “a meaningful step forward” after three straight 100-loss seasons.

The players echoed that on Friday, when the team kicked off its weekend fan festival.

“It’s great,” right-hander Davis Martin said. “I love the energy that we have and I think everyone in the clubhouse feels it. So the fact that it’s emanating outside the clubhouse into the community, into the city is great. But all of us know at the end of the day, wins matter. You’ve got to go win games.”

The White Sox haven’t done much of that in recent years. They made the playoffs in 2020 and 2021 with young stars like Tim Anderson and Luis Robert leading the way, only to unravel.

The White Sox are coming off back-to-back last-place finishes in the AL Central. They went 60-102 in manager Will Venable’s first season. But as bad as that sounds, they made a 19-game improvement over 2024, when they finished 41-121 and set a modern major league record for losses.

Last season, there were at least some promising developments. Right-hander Shane Smith made the All-Star team as a rookie, and Montgomery, catcher Kyle Teel and versatile infielder Chase Meidroth all showed potential after making their debuts.

“I think we use last year as a good foundation,” Smith said.

Montgomery belted 21 homers in 71 games. Teel, who hit .273 in 78 games, showed the potential to hit for power and average and the ability to keep runners at bay with his arm.

“It didn’t quite satisfy us,” Montgomery said. “It just made us (feel) like, OK, we think this is what we can do. And now, we just want to be able to sustain it for a 162-game season.”

It’s not just the young players the White Sox have returning. They also made a series of moves in the offseason, most notably signing Japanese slugger Munetaka Murakami and trading center fielder Luis Robert Jr. to the New York Mets. They acquired infielder Luisangel Acuña and minor league pitcher Truman Pauley in that deal.

The White Sox used some of the financial flexibility they got in the Robert deal to sign veteran reliever Seranthony Domínguez. He figures to close for them.

“It’s all going in the right direction,” right-hander Davis Martin said. “But at the end of the day, you’re in the big leagues, you’ve still got to do your job. I think there’s been plenty of times where teams get hyped up and they fall short of expectations. And I think for us we’re not really worried about anything except just going out and playing the game and seeing where we end up after nine innings.”

The fact that things appear headed in the right direction, that there is a building buzz, is a big change from a year ago. Maybe fans will show up. The White Sox were near the bottom in attendance last season at 1,445,738. Only Miami, Tampa Bay and the Athletics were worse.

“From the fans that I’ve spoken to, they feel it’s coming just as much as we do,” Smith said. “So I don’t think the convincing takes much. But people want to see wins. There’s only so many things you can say without wins. That’s what we want to do, too.”

___

AP MLB: https://apnews.com/mlb