NEW YORK — Mike Tauchman’s right knee hadn’t felt right for months, but he had a shot at a low fly ball to right field last weekend against the Padres.
The White Sox’ veteran outfielder was playing with a torn meniscus that had prompted team doctors to load up his knee with a cortisone injection weeks earlier.
The shot did little to dull the pain, not that anything was going to stop Tauchman from making the diving catch.
“If the decision is I’m going to play, then I’m going to play the way that I want to play. This league’s too hard for me to go out there and play at any less than what I would consider my best effort,” Tauchman said Wednesday, after the Sox shut him down for the final week of the season. “I owe it to my teammates to give the most amount of effort I have.”
That’s one of the lessons the Palatine native tried to instill in a clubhouse full of rookies after Tauchman signed a one-year deal with the Sox.
It’s a message he will keep reinforcing from the bench over the final few games of the season — and one that Tauchman would like to keep sharing into the next phase of the team’s rebuild.
“I like the direction the group’s headed in, and I’d like to be a part of it,” said the arbitration-eligible Tauchman, who will be 35 come spring training.
That clubhouse presence was one reason general manager Chris Getz held on to Tauchman at the trade deadline and will consider tendering him a contract to come back next season.
But Tauchman’s production still makes him an asset for an organization without any outfield prospects soon knocking on the door after top-rated Braden Montgomery.
In 93 games — just about all of them at less than 100% with hamstring and knee issues — Tauchman put up one of the best lines of his eight-year career at .263/.356/.400, with nine home runs, 17 doubles and 40 RBI.
Tauchman’s 1.9 WAR is third-best on the Sox, per Baseball Reference, trailing only Kyle Teel and Colson Montgomery, whose sensational rookie campaign has benefitted from the veteran wisdom.
“Being able to pick a guy’s brain like that is pretty good. He’s played with some really good players and he’s really good at talking through approaches and things like that — simplifying things,” Montgomery said.
Manager Will Venable has raved about the mentorship from Tauchman, who is the Sox’ nominee for the 2025 Roberto Clemente Award for the philanthropic work he and his wife, Eileen, have done to raise awareness for children born with cleft palates.
“Tauch was one of those guys who certainly made an impact on the young group,” manager Will Venable said. “We talk about finishing strong and the importance and he really set the tone of going out there and grinding through a lot of physical ailments, and his body just eventually gave up on him there.”
After two stints on the injured list before the All-Star break, Tauchman felt the meniscus tear while sliding to stop a ball at home against the Cubs in late July. He’ll undergo surgery next week and should be ready for spring training.
“I pride myself on being an available player and this year, to my standard, I wasn’t as available as much as I would have liked to have been,” said Tauchman, who played a career-high 109 games with the Cubs last year. “That’s going to be a big part of this offseason, is rectifying that.”
Before then, there’s still a group of young guys looking up to him as the season winds down.
“Something that I’ve tried to express to the group this year is that every opportunity is important and every game is important, because you never know when something’s going to click for you, or something’s going to happen that opens you up to a new level,” Tauchman said. “That’s kind of the mindset of the group, just coming through this last week.”