Can the White Sox go from worst-ever to bad to respectable? That’s the plan

PHOENIX — On the next-to-last day of White Sox spring training, a sort-of familiar face returned to the clubhouse at Camelback Ranch.

Reese McGuire signed a one-year deal with the club earlier in the day, which was a bit of a surprise since the team was already pretty well-stocked at catcher. But with Kyle Teel on the mend from a WBC leg injury, the team decided to part ways with backup Korey Lee and bring back McGuire to pair, for now, with Edgar Quero.

The last time McGuire, who played for the Cubs last season, was on the South Side was 2022, also known as the beginning of the end. Only two other players are still around from that team: Davis Martin and Lenyn Sosa. McGuire noted that he also saw his former manager, Tony La Russa, walking around the complex.

In 2022, McGuire joined a team coming off a playoff appearance. Now, he’s suiting for a team with bold designs of not losing 100 games.

Yes, a lot has changed for the Sox in four years. Well, except that La Russa is still here.

But the Sox seem serious about changing their bumbling ways and embracing a new, brighter, consistent future.

For instance, in the hallway of the team’s spring training facility, they took down the giant-sized photos of yesteryear, from World Series heroics to President Obama posing with the team in the White House.

In their place are a lot of close-up action shots of current Sox players with blurred backgrounds that look like the kind of garish photographs you see at art festivals in Chicago. Some, like a photo of new Sox slugger Munetaka Murakami running the bases, are clearly photoshopped. (It was hung up before he played a Cactus League game.)

The message is clear.

The past is the past, for good and bad.

The future is enticing. Hello, Roch Cholowsky!

But is the Sox’s present interesting enough to hold our attention this season?

“I mean, this is a group to be excited about,” infielder Chase Meidroth said at his locker while we watched St. John’s-Kansas in the NCAA Tournament. (He’s a Darryn Peterson believer too.)

Though the team finished with a 60-102 record, there was an oft-faint, occasionally loud Sox buzz emanating from 35th and Shields late last season as the misery of recent seasons gave way to the optimism of youth. Colson Montgomery hit some booming home runs, Shane Smith made the All-Star Game as a Rule 5 guy, and young players like Meidroth, Teel and Quero showed that maybe the team has a chance to be something other than a punchline before Justin Ishbia takes over.

A surprisingly positive offseason saw the team add intriguing new faces like Murakami, the Japanese home run champ, and a more reliable bullpen led by closer Seranthony Domínguez. Rather than just adding guys to flip later, White Sox general manager Chris Getz seems to be building a competitive team, if not, quite yet, a winning one.

“Last year, it was kind of an opportunity to be on the team,” second-year Sox manager Will Venable said. “Now it’s, hey, you got to fight for your at-bats here. Hopefully, it brings even more out of the group and we’ll get the best version of everybody.”

That’s the plan, anyway.

“Last year, we got a lot of excitement after the second half, and we came into this season with a lot of new pieces that can help us win a lot of baseball games,” third baseman Miguel Vargas said.

The signing of Murakami was surprising because he was expected to get a lot of money in free agency. There were enough questions about his boom-or-bust bat that he wound up signing a two-year, $34 million deal that both his agent and Getz described as a prove-it deal to make more money down the road, presumably for a different team.

But he’s here now and his bat is loud and, well, we know the Sox, for as much as they’re trying to change, are still enamored with big ol’ home run hitters. Who isn’t? Murakami’s teammates were thrilled to see his signing, along with some of the other ones. It showed that things were changing for the better. It wasn’t just about finding diamonds in the rough or giving prospects at-bats.

“Seeing those moves, it’s like, OK, yeah, we’re coming to win,” Meidroth said. “I think a lot of the guys felt that energy.”

Going into last season, the energy emanating from the end of spring training was not to tie or set a major-league record for losses, like the 2024 team did. Individual players sought to start big-league careers and presumably to keep them going.

No one epitomized that more than Smith, who found out he made his first big-league team as a Rule 5 starter at the end of spring. Now, he’s the team’s recently announced Opening Day starter.

Smith said he felt, at times, he was playing with “house money” last season, and that freedom allowed him to excel with his opportunity. Now he finds himself as an established big-league pitcher who will throw the first White Sox pitch of the 2026 season.

“Last year, to make the team was a feeling in itself, realizing your dreams coming true and all that amazing stuff,” he said. “But to be chosen by your (coaching) staff to start the year for the guys is something I don’t take lightly.”

Smith will take the bump Thursday afternoon in Milwaukee with the future uncertain and the present more exciting than it has been in years. Can the Sox win enough games to be presentable in 2026? That’s the goal. For a team that has resided in the mucky depths of baseball hell in recent years, respectability would equal success.

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