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Do you see what I did with the headline there? “Substantial losses”? It could be about the White Sox’ revenue from their horrible 2024 season, or the number of losses they’ve suffered slash inflicted on their fans this summer. Safe to say that I’ve still got it after knee surgery.
The White Sox? Well, they’re winners of two in a row, but that doesn’t mean much in terms of whether they’ve got it. Other than that they could lose 30 in a row to balance things out, if only there were 30 more games in ‘24 for them to drop. As it is, they’re still on pace for 124 losses for the season after picking up consecutive dubs, which is two more than the current modern-day record the expansion Mets set in 1962. Leaving aside their chances of playing better than .500 ball the rest of the way to avoid infamy, let’s focus on the 2025 payroll thing.
Bob Nightengale had the original report tucked away in a story about the Rangers’ failure to repeat as World Series champions: his source says they’ve suffered “substantial losses in revenue” this season. Which, yeah. They weren’t exactly killing it in attendance in 2023, a season in which they lost 101 games, but they’re averaging 17,959 fans per game through 74 games, compared to last year’s 21,405, compared to 2022’s 24,704. While 2021’s attendance per game was lower, owing to COVID restrictions coming off of 2020’s fan-less, shortened season, Chicago ranked 14th in the majors in attendance per game and 13th overall, alongside franchises like the Red Sox, Mets, and Phillies. They’ve fallen all the way to 27th now, because they’re horrific in a way most of the people who could buy tickets have never even seen before. At least the ‘62 Mets had the expansion excuse. The White Sox are this way practically on purpose.
Now, this could be an opportunity to think that you’ve got to spend money to make money, but no. The 2024 White Sox are this much worse and unwatchable than the 2023 team in part because they cut nearly $60 million from their payroll after losing over 100 games, and the money they did spend went to players who were even worse hitters than the ones they replaced, on a team that was already the worst offensively. And those players, ones who were supposed to be able to field, at least, haven’t done very much of that, either, considering the team’s ranking 26th in Defensive Efficiency this year — that’s just the percentage of balls in play converted into outs, and they are bad at it, succeeding just 68 percent of the time.
How much worse could the 2025 White Sox be? It’s hard to imagine they’ll be worse than they are now, but being better is going to be difficult if they deal away or non-tender anyone who actually makes any money. Yoan Moncada has missed most of 2024 with injury, so ensuring the gaping hole he left in the lineup remains by paying him a $5 million buyout instead of his $25 million option for 2025 won’t fix anything besides not spending that other $20 million. Now, to be fair, Moncada hasn’t exactly been living up to his contract the past three years, either in performance or being healthy enough to play, but the White Sox picking up someone who could hit as well as Moncada has shown he’s able to when he’s right isn’t going to happen without an investment, either. This could work for them, however, if they can find an inexpensive option who can hit a bit, or at least as well as Moncada did while he was disappointing. Which won’t come free by any means, but won’t cost another $20 million, either. Still, it’s a move with little non-financial upside.
Andrew Benintendi is under contract through 2027, and has had the two worst seasons of his career during his first two White Sox campaigns. Maybe they can find a buyer for him, but it’d be a pure salary dump, and likely one where they don’t get out from under his whole deal. Which means that whatever they spend to replace Benintendi would be on top of whatever they pay to remove him. Luis Robert, at least, has one guaranteed season and an option for a second and third left: he has just $17 million guaranteed, but the options could put him to $65 million total, as they’re $20 million each. Of course, if Robert is healthy and playing well, $20 million isn’t a negative. He has not really been either of those things this season, but in the four years before that, he slugged .500 and posted a 125 OPS+, and he doesn’t give away runs with his glove. He’s someone who would be absolutely worth the risk for another team to acquire, and the White Sox might even get someone interesting back for it. Of course, he’ll also be just 27 next year, so he’s the player you’d most want to keep if you were actually interested in rebuilding in a timely fashion while giving the fans you do still have something to watch that wasn’t outright embarrassing. I think we know at this point that’s not Chicago’s play.
Other than those three players, it’s declining Max Stassi’s option, maybe, and non-tendering some arbitration-eligible players to replace them with league-minimum ones. The White Sox have an improving farm, sure, but it’s not ready to fill all of these holes yet, and lord, there are so many holes. All contained within a much deeper hole that they continue digging.
The White Sox were a bad team that fans lost interest in, that became a much worse team because of cutting payroll and poor transaction decisions on top of the existing bad things getting worse for them. The 2025 White Sox might be better if for no other reason than it’s difficult to imagine anyone repeating a season this bad, but they might not actually be better, or good, if so. Cutting payroll further, which in some cases not only removes the existing decent players and their upside from the team but also limits how much can be invested in their replacements, isn’t going to solve anything besides making the team unwatchable once more. Which certainly won’t fix these supposed catastrophic revenue drops. Maybe fielding a team that isn’t a punching bag for the rest of the league would help, but why would a notably cheap, corner-cutting owner like Jerry Reinsdorf want to try to do something like that when he could instead not?
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