CWS - White Sox 2025 Team Awards
- OppoTaco Baseball
- Dec 9, 2025
- 4 min read
After only being one year removed from putting up the worst season in MLB history in 2024, the Chicago White Sox did manage to improve in 2025 (considering they couldn't get any worse). Despite only moving up from being the 30th-ranked team to the 29th, the better number to look at if you're a White Sox fan is the wins total, jumping from 41 in 2024 to 60 in 2025 (19 more wins), signifying that they are trending in the right direction.
No matter how or what they ended up finishing in the standings at the end of 2025, they still had some notable players. We are going to break down and hand out awards for below.
TOP STARTER - SHANE SMITH
In what was his rookie season, it was Shane Smith who proved to be the top starting pitcher and stood out the most among this young White Sox pitching rotation. A year in which he was named to his 1st all-star game and finished 10th in AL Rookie of the Year voting. Smith finished the year with a 2.3 WAR (0.8 more than any other starter - Davis Martin 1.5). He started in 29 games, accumulating 146.1 innings, with a 3.81 ERA, and 145 strikeouts.
Similar to Freeland of the Rockies, Smith wasn't exactly "lights out" but did stand out amongst his peers in the rotation as he had some pretty solid/promising starts throughout the season, such as having 12 of his 29 starts being 6+ strikeout games, including carving up 8 each in his last 2 starts of the season. All enough to earn himself White Sox 2025 Starting Pitcher of the Year.
FINAL 2025 STAT LINE:
WAR: 2.3
Games Started: 29
Record: 7-8
IP: 146.1
ERA: 3.81
WHIP: 1.19
K/BB: 145/55 (2.50)
Notable Mention: Adrian Houser (3.0 WAR with CWS) had himself a good showing with the White Sox to start the season, but was later traded to the Rays at the deadline, and so decided to just go with the guy who was with the team for the entire season.
TOP RELIEVER - MIKR VASIL
In what was another rookie season similar to Smith, this time it's Mike Vasil who is going to be taking home the White Sox 2025 reliever of the year award. All in all, it wasn't a terrible season for the White Sox bullpen as a whole, with their top 5 arms all finishing with positive WAR seasons. It just happened that Vasil topped them all with a 2.9 WAR (which was 1.7 more than the 2nd most by a bullpen pitcher with a 1.2 posted by Steven Wilson). A couple of other noteworthy stats for Vasil are that he appeared in 47 games, in which he started 3 of them, finished 17, and even earned himself 4 saves, all for a total of 101.0 innings pitched! Despite struggling with walking batters, he still managed to post only a 2.50 ERA (which was 0.92 points lower than the aforementioned Steven Wilson (4.42)).
FINAL 2025 STAT LINE:
WAR: 2.9
Games Played: 47
Record: 5-3
IP: 101.0
ERA: 2.50
WHIP: 1.24
K/BB: 82/52 (1.58)
So again, despite the walks issue, Vasil was clearly still very effective at limiting runs as he ate up innings for a poor White Sox team. Which is why he gets the nod for the White Sox's top reliever in 2025.
TOP HITTER & ROOKIE - COLSON MONTGOMERY
It was a season full of showcasing their rookies for the White Sox in 2025, as yet again we have another taking home the 2025 Top Hitter award (as well as the Rookie of the Year) in former 1st round pick Colson Montgomery.
It wasn't until July 4th that Montgomery got the call, and he made an instant splash when he did. As only it was only in the 2nd career game that he managed to get on the board with his 1st big league hit, and 2nd, and 3rd as he finished the day 3/5 with a triple and run batted in. After that, he just continued to produce for them, playing a majority of his games at shortstop but did spot in at third from time to time as well.
He finished his rookie season 5th in AL Rookie of the Year voting after he appeared in 71 games, collecting 61 hits in 225 at-bats, 9 of them doubles, 1 triple, and 21 homers; he drove in 55, and came around to score 43 times himself.
FINAL 2025 STAT LINE:
WAR: 3.3
SLASH LINE: .239/.311/.529
H/AB: 61/255
HR: 21
RBI: 55
R: 43
Finishing Top 5 in ROY Voting and atop the team in WAR after not playing in the first 2 months of the season. I think it is what makes Montgomery a fine choice to earn himself the White Sox 2025 Hitter and Rookie of the Year honours. Look forward to seeing what he can do in a full season at the big league level, as the White Sox will look to climb the ladder a little more in 2026.
Comments