Regardless of the year, Jan. 1 always provides a sense of relief for a baseball writer, if only because "last year" and "last season" now mean the same thing. "This past season" can be put back into storage.
For the White Sox, the fact that 2024 can be referred to in the past tense in all regards sheds an even bigger load, albeit temporarily. There wasn't much of a point in putting together any year-end lists because the year never really evolved. April happened, and then five more Aprils followed. Occasional news of import occurred -- a Pedro Grifol firing here, an Erick Fedde trade there -- but no storylines went underappreciated. Anything positive was visited and revisited time and time again, if only because everything else was dreadful, boring, or dreadfully boring.
There's just only so comfort to be taken from the calendar when the roster isn't any more talented. The immediate picture is actually less talented since the Garrett Crochet trade. The hopes for better are purely speculative, whether due to probability (some players have to beat their projections, right?) or vibes (a more emotionally resonant manager in Will Venable, or finally retiring hopes for Yoán Moncada and Eloy Jiménez). It might be highly unlikely that 2025 will be just as bad as 2024, or otherwise more teams would lose 120 games. The real question is whether 2025 will be meaningfully better. A 50-win season won't draw the same kind of attention, but that just means it's far easier to ignore.
That all said, Happy New Year! And enjoy the six weeks of rhetorical relaxing before reality returns. Regular programming resumes Thursday with an irregularly long post to make up for it.
