I agree roster going into the year was bad, but then again that is what I was expecting. White Sox’s farm system was not good enough to rebuild on the fly. I had no problem with trading Bummer. A good middle reliever is a luxury a rebuilding team can’t afford. My problem with the trade was they didn’t get much back in return. Their approach in that trade seemed to be more breadth (numbers) than depth (talent) in order to protect the farm system. So they took flyers on 2 MLB “ready” pitchers, a mediocre journeyman infielder and two farm system depth pieces. One of those depth pieces was former Illini Riley Gowens, who seemingly had a pretty decent year across two levels.
I don’t expect the roster to be any better next year. They are too far away to attempt much with free agency. They likely will and probably should just try to find reclamation projects like DeJong that they can flip at the deadline for prospects. And the farm system still isn’t great — especially with position players.
I think 6 of the top 9 prospects are pitchers, and your top non-pitcher had a pretty bad year. To further illustrate how system lacks depth, Ramos is #12 prospect, and hasn’t shown much since call up. I’m not saying he doesn’t have talent and won’t pan out, but doesn’t look like he’ll provide much punch next year.
So I’m not expecting much better next year. Hopefully players in minors show enough improvement to put them on the radar screen for contributions in 2026. They do have the makings of a good to very good rotation by then even if they trade Crochet. My main worry going forward is I don’t like what Getz has been getting back in return for trades. I thought he did OK with Cease trade, but haven’t been impressed since. In fairness though, when getting mostly minor leaguers in return, it does take a few years to see who won the trade. So maybe I’m wrong. Hopefully I’m wrong about next year being another difficult one too.