PITTSBURGH -- Sometime over the past weekend, amid the collection of White Sox executives, scouts and analysts gathered in the Rate Field conference and learning center for the two days of the MLB Draft, someone likely expressed outright excitement about the team's odds for the upcoming draft lottery.
The White Sox are measurably better than a year before, but at 33-65 they're still easily the second-worst team in baseball, and the possibly historically bad Rockies are barred from picking in the top five for back-to-back drafts. That sets the Sox up well for an opportunity to load up their rebuild with the top-of-the-draft haul they never managed to successfully execute in their previous extended stay at the bottom of the league.
The only group standing athwart a drive for the No. 1 overall pick in 2026 is the White Sox clubhouse, whose members believe they've graduated beyond signs of improvement that aren't displayed in the standings.
"I feel like there is a lot more work to be done," said Kyle Teel. "I feel like there’s a lot left on the table."
"I think now is the time for us as a team to take that big step forward," said Jonathan Cannon, before he twirled seven innings of one-run ball Friday night. "The expectation is let's go win series, let's sweep series. When we're playing good, let's not beat ourselves in the last inning or something, which happened a little bit last year. I think we're all looking to win. We want to win and we know that we're capable of that."
It's the ethos of literally any professional sports team worth fielding, and it's especially necessary for that feeling to be in the building considering how much of the White Sox young talent core is currently developing in the majors. But it's striking how in a season where a mere regression to a normal worst-in-AL performance would register as improvement, and the trade deadline promises another purge of veteran role players -- or rotation stalwarts in Adrian Houser's case -- the Sox clubhouse is largely expressing urgency to see returns on what their years of suffering are supposed to building toward.
"We're in every game, it seems like," said Andrew Benintendi. "We're right there."
A shaky bullpen, an offense lacking power and thus quick-strike ability, infield defense that has quietly struggled at a level comparable to last year, and the more obvious concession that the youngest catcher pairing in the sport will have growing pains, all serve to explain why the White Sox get poor results when the margins are narrowed. But the logical next step for a team with an 8-22 record in one-run games and a run differential better than four MLB teams is the sense that more postgame handshake lines is the only way to show progress from here.
"No, in the sense that we left a lot of wins out there," said Will Venable when asked if he thinks he's done a good job thus far. "We're in the business of winning games and in that regard, we have a lot of room for improvement and that starts with me. I think there are some other areas where we did a nice job. But we're not satisfied with the results and that starts with me."
Venable has a triptych of key developmental points that he has been emphasizing outside of lamenting any individual game results.
Since spring, he has been harping on pre-pitch movements on defense, which his coaching staff regularly credits for Colson Montgomery and Chase Meidroth performing well in defensive metrics despite atypical shortstop profiles. He references a “race to two strikes” and catchers setting up in the middle of the zone early in counts, for a rotation heavy on young starters that feel they’ve advanced beyond realizing their stuff is good enough to be in the majors, and are diving into sequencing concepts. And more than anything, Venable has been harping upon crushing the fastballs that their more mature plate approaches have been coaxing out, with Edgar Quero letting loose on a grooved 3-1 heater Friday night in a 10-1 rout being an archetypal example.
"When I have good timing and I'm ready to hit the fastball, I can do that," Quero said. "I'm a little more aggressive, especially on the first or second pitch in the AB. Especially with the fastball, that's what I'm trying to do."
These are healthier watch points for the viewing public to track progress with than hoping an outgunned younger squad can play even .400 ball in the second half, especially since series against the Rays, Cubs and Phillies await them after they leave Pittsburgh. But there’s a much clearer way for the players to track their progress, and even if it’s not the way most anyone talks about this White Sox team, it’s worth relaying that they talk about getting closer to being a winning operation all the time.
"You could see kind of the skeleton of it around this time last year, a ton of trades happening, a lot of new guys coming in, and then during the offseason, like we get Teel, we get Meidroth, and so you see the core that's kind of building here, especially with the young catchers," Cannon said. "You're seeing guys coming through in those big situations now, being able to relax, step up when you need to, and come up with a big at-bat, the big out on the mound, big strikeout, whatever it is. Everyone wants to be that guy out there right now. So it's definitely good for the culture of our clubhouse. And I feel like that's come a long way, even from spring training, just with how together our team is right now."
