Whether White Sox think they can or can't take a real step forward in 2026, they're right

MILWAUKEE — So, how many games should the White Sox win this season?

Sixty-plus? Seventy-plus? Dare I go on?

But the question itself is a fair one, even if Sox general manager Chris Getz and manager Will Venable still treat any discussion of total wins and losses as a rhetorical third rail.

You just don’t go there with these guys, not even on Opening Day, unless mumbo-jumbo, hocus-pocus and argle-bargle happen to be three of your very favorite things.

“What’s really taking another meaningful step forward?” Getz said. “Whether that be in wins and losses, consistency of our competitiveness throughout the year [or] the confidence that grows within a clubhouse and for individual players at this level, you want to reflect back, once we get through this season, on what 2026 was for us [and have] a better idea of where we are in the development of this major league club and the organization as a whole.”

Once more, in terms that might enable the average yo-yo to glean something semi-meaningful?

“I do anticipate winning more games this year,” Getz went on. “But we don’t focus on win-loss record. We focus on winning the game that’s right in front of you.”

Venable, too, avoids getting specific when it comes to defining success in 2026, other than expressing his wishes for fewer mistakes and more consistent execution. I’m no baseball man, yet I’d be willing to bet no skipper in the history of the game has wished for the other way around.

“Just going out there every day and completing those things and executing those things,” he said. “We’ve got a very clear idea of what those things are on a daily basis, we have a plan in place to go out and execute them, and we’ve got to go execute them. We’re going to hold ourselves to that standard [and] that’s how we’re going to measure how this is going.”

There are “W” and “L” columns for that, just saying.

As the Brewers were steamrolling the Sox 14-2 in Game No. 1 of 162 for each team, it was impossible to watch without experiencing a sense of here-we-go-again. The Sox have lost a mind-numbing 324 times over the last three seasons. They’ve put up three of the seven 100-loss seasons in Sox history, right in a row. A fourth wouldn’t exactly be shocking, but it would be utterly indefensible.

Because there’s what progress looks like as Getz and Venable describe it, and then there’s progress in the only way that matters to most people — winning a bunch more games. A major league season is often described by those on the inside as a “marathon,” but it’s Sox fans who know better than anybody what that actually feels like. They’re the ones who’ve been stranded by the side of the road, doubled over and gasping for breaths of any sort of optimism that might power them through another full journey.

Why is it so hard to put a number on progress?

Here, I’ll start: The Sox were 28-37 (.431) after the All-Star break last season. Over 162, that translates to right around 70 wins. Boom, there’s your number. Did you see how easy that was?

Fortunately, there were others willing to play along somewhat.

Sox radio analyst Darrin Jackson, cornered outside an elevator, mused that after the Sox improved by 19 wins — from 41 to 60 — last season, it would be perfectly A-OK if they were to improve by 19 again. That makes Jackson’s number a relatively robust 79.

“That’s wishful thinking, though,” he made clear. “Definitely not a prediction.”

It was demanded of TV analyst Steve Stone, Chicago’s favorite psychic, that he put his mystical powers to the test. He answered that the projected Sox win totals out there on metrics sites and betting sites — in the neighborhood of 66 or 67 — are easily too low.

“This team has the ability to finish well above that number,” Stone said, putting himself on the record.

A few hours before homering off Brewers All-Star Jacob Misiorowski in the Sox’ very first at-bat of the season, second baseman Chase Meidroth did more than put a number on it.

“Making the playoffs, that’s what we’re aiming for,” he said.

I had to ask if he meant it or was just pulling my leg.

“We’re going to compete our asses off,” he said. “If you do that over the course of a season, you’re going to look up and be where you want to be.”

The Sox have some interesting players, for sure. They could do worse than Colson Montgomery, Kyle Teel, Miguel Vargas, Meidroth — and have. Japanese slugger Munetaka Murakami has arrived, clubhouse bidets and all, and it’s honest-to-goodness exciting, especially after he ripped his first home run in the ninth inning Thursday. There are strong prospects in the pipeline, some of whom will show their mugs at Rate Field this year. Why not take a sizable step forward?

There have been many teams that fared so much better than expected, it defied reason. The 2002 A’s on a bargain-basement budget. The 2003 Marlins, whom Cubs fans might remember. Joe Maddon’s 2008 Rays went from 96 losses to 97 wins and the World Series with the lowest payroll in baseball. The 2024 Brewers were projected to have a losing record and won their division by 10 games. Last year’s Blue Jays were projected to have a losing record and reached Game 7 of the World Series. Crazy stories sometimes unfold.

What do Getz and Venable really think? It would be nice to know.

Whether you think you can or think you can’t, you’re right, as the saying goes.