Introducing the brand-new 2025 White Sox!

If only

This is a fantasy. It would be a fantasy in most cases, but it is assuredly so until you-know-who goes off to the Great Tax Shelter in the Sky. That’s because it’s a good and innovative idea, and good and/or innovative ideas are foreign to the Chicago White Sox.

Naytheless, on we go.

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LET US BEGIN THE REBIRTH

This plan calls for a 2025 team with no veterans whatsoever, with every player under team control for at minimum three years. But we have to start further up the line.

We have to assume that by some miracle there is either new ownership of the White Sox after this season or Jerry Reinsdorf is visited by the ghosts of baseball past, present and future and has an epiphany. Either way, there will suddenly be a whole new front office — entirely new on both the baseball and business sides — led by a general manager from far outside the organization, untainted by any White Sox ties of any kind and so attuned to modern baseball that even before hiring a new manager he creates a large new research department, bringing in the best R&D people from teams like Tampa Bay and Milwaukee and companies from Apple to (Popeye’s) Chicken. Naturally, the new GM will cover the gamut, from analytical scouting to analytical play, from game prep to season prep, from statistics to kinesiology, covering every aspect of baseball to infinity and beyond.

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Next up comes hiring a new manager, who will bring in an entirely new coaching staff. Entirely. A couple of rules — no one who has ever had anything to do with the White Sox organization, and none of the usual retreads.

Because, as you will see, there will be a very young roster, the need is for someone who relates well to young, developing players. The ideal would be a successful college coach, one who hasn’t had the recruiting advantages of the big name baseball schools. My first choice was Mitch Hannahs, long-time successful coach at relatively small-school (and northern, far from most baseball powers) Indiana State, who just took his team to the NCAA regional finals and got edged by national No. 2 Kentucky, but just a few days ago Hannahs took the coaching job at South Florida, so it will have to be someone else — preferably someone who has never even heard of Tony La Russa.

LET’S MOVE ON TO THE TEAM ITSELF

The 2025 roster will have one basic rule: No players who aren’t under team control for at least three more years — that is, through 2028, preferably longer. That’s right — all rookies or very early career players unless the new owner or epiphanized Reinsdorf brings in a true star on a long-term contract as a veteran stabilizer (that’s last is a joke, since there aren’t enough ghosts in all the Christmas Carols in the world to get Reinsdorf to spend the needed money, epiphany or not).

Will such a team be good in 2025? Of course not, but not much worse than what’s it’s doomed to be now. And it could set up an excellent future of players who have learned to really become a team together, on and off the field, so no more running into each other or letting popups just drop.

The White Sox are well on the way to getting there. Most of the current team will be available at the trade deadline, and they should be tough (but not ridiculous) negotiators. That means taking a good haul of prospects for stars Luis Robert Jr. and Garrett Crochet, a decent return for Erick Fedde and Michael Kopech, and whatever they can get for the rentals as well as Andrew Vaughn and Gavin Sheets (Sheets would fit the three-year rule if not traded, anyway).

Andrew Benintendi is sunk cost, so he gets dumped, and when Reinsdorf starts clutching his chest, you remind him the 2025 payroll will be so small it will be invisible to the naked eye. The options on Yoán Moncada and Eloy Jiménez aren’t picked up, which they won’t be anyway. Any one-year-contract vets not traded at the deadline are left to wander off.

WHAT’S LEFT?

Youth, youth, and more youth. Lenyn Sosa, Oscar Colás, Korey Lee, and Corey Julks (a nice nab by Chris Getz, so far) among current position players. Colson Montgomery, Edgar Quero, Bryan Ramos, Jacob Gonzalez and a whole bunch of guys to be picked up at the deadline and offseason, especially outfielders and a first baseman (there are plenty of infield candidates who can actually catch the ball to replace Sosa).

That’s not great, but it will have to do. Pitching is much better. In addition to those who have had tryouts already — Nick Nastrini, Jonathan Cannon and Drew Thorpe — Birmingham has starters Ky Bush, Mason Adams, and Noah Schultz doing extremely well and others doing OK.

The fire sale should bring in a raft of solid prospects, preferably on the position side where things are weak — more than enough to fill out a 26-man roster and a bullpen.

WHAT ABOUT THE USUAL FEAR OF BRINGING THEM UP TOO SOON?

That fear is because of the usual need for them to play too well too soon. It will be very early for many of them, but no such pressures will exist. The new manager will need to explain to them, as a group and individually, that being on the White Sox is like being in the minors, which is true enough already. If they fail, they fail, and no big deal. Meanwhile, they learn at the highest level, with the best coaches in the system, and nobody cares about wins and losses. And they get paid as major-leaguers, which some would never otherwise become (even 70% of Top 100 prospects don’t make it).

Will some get frustrated by their struggles? Sure. That’s why you need a manager used to working with young players.

But they don’t have to worry about being cowed by crowd size, at least at home, except for Opening Day and Cubs games.

After 2025? A 2026 team with a year or more under their belts, maybe reach .500 ... win the division in 2027 ... World Series in 2028. That may seem a long stretch, but it’s far quicker than the route back to glory as appears now.

WHO WOULD BOTHER TO COME WATCH?

Marketed right (there will be a whole new marketing department), plenty of people — lots more than are apt to come as is. All you have to do is promote the living daylights out of the youth, out of the “stars of the future,” out of “your chance to say you saw them back when.” Toss in some “these kids are making baseball fun again” (you need to see to it that’s true) and you’re in much better shape than you are now.

Naturally, the TV broadcast team will have to be all-new as well (sorry, Stoney but losing you is a price we’d have to pay to get rid of that other waste of air time, and you’ll be older than 80 before this cycle would be over).

It’s a workable plan, and at least one or two players are apt to have solid seasons and become hometown heroes.

The long term is even better. Used to be, you could follow your favorites for years, and they’d still be on your team. Now, too often, “poof” and they’re gone to some other team. This would bring back that feeling of a relationship, at least for four to six years. Merchandise sales, here we come!

COULD THIS REALLY HAPPEN?

Of course not, not even if the control freak in charge doesn’t stick to all us fans by living another couple of decades. Too bad, though.

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