GLENDALE, Ariz. — Baby steps.
The White Sox will have to settle for those in 2025, coming off a record 121 losses last season with very limited personnel upgrades made during the offseason. They made patchwork financial investments in players, but Chris Getz in his second full season as general manager and Will Venable in his first as manager are pushing to field teams invested in playing smarter baseball, this season and beyond.
Take baserunning as a place to start.
“Taking our leads, secondary leads, understanding the run value that can provide to a team without necessarily having raw speed,” Getz said. “You don’t need to have the fastest team in the league to create runs on the base paths.”
First-step quickness defensively, on the infield and in the outfield, is another place Getz, Venable and coaches are targeting.
“Understanding what a first step can do in regards to saving runs,” Getz said.
Catching matters big time, and having a nice stable of young catchers as an organization strength is a plus. Working on improving pitch framing numbers and knowing the impact that they can have is one aspect.
“Considering the amount of pitches that are thrown, and receiving being the most important part of the catching game,” Getz said. “Essentially, areas like that are going to be the focus and that’s going to, I hope, speak to the infrastructure that we have.”
If executing those things translate into more wins is the goal this season, when it would take a 22-win improvement to avoid 100 losses, and beyond when, as hoped, young talent develops and acquisitions are made for a group that can talk about winning again.
“Those types of approaches and prioritizing in those areas, if you stack up wins in those areas, wins in a way of just improvement that we feel like it’s going to show up in the win and loss record,” Getz said.
On the first day of camp, leadoffs and jumps on the bases were already being covered.
“Going over the numbers, and with replay, you know how close plays are,” said infielder Josh Rojas, who came from the Mariners after signing a one-year contract as a free agent. “Going from first to third, second to home, first to home. Those plays from the outfield can be bang-bang.”
“We have to take every inch we can to gain an advantage,” outfielder Dominic Fletcher said.
Rojas said it’s not unusual for runners to take a five-foot lead when seven feet are available.
“After a play, you look back and say, ‘I should have taken one more step on my lead or an extra step on my secondary [lead], it’s the difference in saving an out,” Rojas said.
Rojas said runners not looking to steal might shorten up on their leads, but shouldn’t. It makes a big difference on going from first to third.
“It’s a good lesson we’ve gone over,” he said. “You might not be stealing a base but it’s important to get that eight to 10-foot lead and try to get to 12-15 feet on your secondary.”
It’s not like none of these things were emphasized in previous camps, but judging by the way the Sox ran the bases at times last year, it may have seemed like it.
“A lot of it is similar but there are certain issues [the new regime] wants to emphasize more,” said Fletcher, who came up through the Diamondbacks’ system. “That’s one of them. We have all the numbers for each guy’s lead, their secondaries, league average, what high and what’s low in the league. It’s about trying to improve every little thing to gain an advantage.”
It’s just one small piece of the big improvements picture for Getz.
One step at a time.
“From a process standpoint we feel really good that we’re on the right track,” he said.