Bannister's Challenge: Fixing White Sox Walk Woes in 2025

In a season full of scary statistics, the 2024 White Sox pitching staff had a higher BB/9 (4.08) than any other team in baseball. This is obviously a function of a talent shortfall but it is something that simply can't continue into the future. 

The team ranked 12th in all of baseball last year with 8.66 K/9, but that number will surely backslide in 2025 now that Garrett Crochet is wearing a different-colored pair of Sox. The team's K/BB ratio of 2.12 ranked 28th in the sport last year. Contrast that with the league's best in this department, the Seattle Mariners, who boasted a 3.84 K/BB ratio. The league average in this stat that I pay very close attention to was 2.78 K/BB, so the Sox have a long way to go just to be middle of the pack.

The hope is that Brian Bannister and Ethan Katz are able to drive positive development from young rotation pieces like Drew Thorpe, Jonathan Cannon, Sean Burke, and Davis Martin. All four are looking to cement their position in a future rotation, while some of the organization's highest-ranking prospects are lurking. Development from any, and hopefully all of these unproven hurlers, would go a long way towards assuaging fears the fan base has about the direction of the team as a whole.  

A large amount of my focus for the 2025 season will be on the development of these four pitchers, and you'll see more thoughts on them in the days to come. If Bannister and Katz are able to move any of these pitchers in the right direction this season, it will go a long way toward helping GM Chris Getz navigate his roster construction plans going forward. We've seen the price of pitching escalate to some truly insane levels in recent years to the point where back-end starters are now approaching $20 million annual values on the open market, so having a stable of low-cost, homegrown hurlers would be a blessing for this organization that is always price conscious.

For the quartet I mentioned above to take that necessary step forward, step one will be limiting free passes. I harp on this issue all the time because it drives me absolutely insane, but it's with good reason. Issuing free passes is one of the quickest ways to see leads evaporate or deficits widen, as we have seen in recent years. Yes, you can survive an elevated walk rate if you have a staff that can miss bats with regularity but as presently constructed heading into 2025, the Sox pitching staff doesn't fit that bill. 

Issues Down On The Farm

It wasn't just at the corner of 35th & Shields where pitchers in the Sox organization struggled to command the strike zone. It was also an issue across the minor leagues and one that, again, will be of pivotal importance this season. The Charlotte Knights ranked 17th of 20 teams in the International League in walks allowed while ranking 11th in strikeouts. Their 1.94 K/BB rate falls well short of the league-leading Durham Bulls (Rays), who came in at 2.6k K/BB.

The Southern League Champion Birmingham Barons ballclub is an interesting case study in strike zone management. The club ranked 6th of 8 teams in walks allowed but had the second-highest strikeout number across the league. Thanks in large part to contributions from the likes of Drew Thorpe, Mason Adams, and Noah Schultz, the Barons hurlers were able to miss enough bats to make up for their propensity to issue free passes. The club's 2.59 K/BB ranked near the top of the league but still trailed the Tennessee Smokies, who posted a 2.78 K/BB rate.

The lower levels of the minor league food chain saw Winston-Salem rank 11th of 12 teams in walks allowed and just ninth in strikeouts, so there is a lot of improvement needed at this level. The Kannapolis Cannon Ballers of the Carolina League ranked 5th in both walks allowed and strikeouts among the 12-team league. The hope is that new processes implemented by the pitching development hierarchy will really begin to take shape in year two down at the foundational level, leading to improvements.

If we begin to see positive strides in the K/BB metric during the 2025 season, I think we will be able to say that the program implemented by Bannister and Co. is turning a corner and will lead to more significant developments in the near term. I'm not firing up MiLB TV to watch these games as I did during Rebuild 2.0, but I will be paying attention to these data points throughout the 2025 season. 

So, in a year where development is the thing that truly matters for the White Sox organization from top to bottom, I am looking for the pitchers to take a major step forward. Whether you find yourself pitching under the lights at 35th & Shields or down on the farm, controlling the strike zone more effectively is of paramount importance. The hope is that infrastructure improvements that were put into place last year begin to yield tangible results in 2025 as this team looks to get out of the doldrums, they currently find themselves in.

What's On Tap?

I'm still the lead #BannisterBot, but I'm not going to give my guy a free pass this year. He's had a full year to establish his staff and processes; it is now time to see results. I long for the days when Sox hurlers weren't walking the ballpark and putting themselves into precarious positions on a nightly basis, and hopefully, those days will be in the rearview mirror soon enough.