HOUSTON — To the left of the entrance to the visiting clubhouse at Daikin Park are the lockers of catchers Kyle Teel and Edgar Quero and infielder Chase Meidroth.
Across the clubhouse in the opposite corner is right-hander Grant Taylor, who made his MLB debut Tuesday night with a perfect seventh inning.
The White Sox are still at the bottom of the MLB standings, but the graduation of young players to the majors has been a bright spot after the ignominy of last year’s record-breaking 121-loss season.
“There’s still a lot of road left in the season, but we wanted to see progress,” assistant general manager Josh Barfield told the Sun-Times Thursday. “We knew that we had some of these young guys coming up here, and we wanted to find the right time to get them up here and have some success.”
Creating an environment suitable for young players to develop was important for the Sox, which is why the managerial hire was so important. So far, manager Will Venable’s calm, easygoing presence has been appreciated in the clubhouse.
But Venable also is pointed and direct with his criticism, holding the club accountable. He also has leaned on veterans such as Mike Tauchman, Martin Perez and Michael A. Taylor, who have been instrumental in assisting the young players.
“Our guys with experience have done a tremendous job helping these guys get up to speed with their game-planning, how to be a big-leaguer, all kinds of stuff they are leaning on these guys for,” Venable said. “Just feel good about our ability to help on-board these guys here.”
But wins and losses still matter. The Sox lost 4-3 Thursday in the series finale against the Astros and now own a 23-46 record — an improvement over 2024’s franchise-worst 17-52 record at the same point but still among the worst teams record-wise.
“No one’s satisfied,” said starter Davis Martin, who allowed four runs on seven hits over six innings. “Last year, it was like, ‘Man if those things would have fallen, we would have won this game.’ I think all of us were looking at a bunch of different areas of [Thursday’s game] that we slipped up, we did something wrong, we made a mistake here or there that we could have put the game away earlier.
“It’s a young team. It’s a learning team that isn’t satisfied. We want to win these games, we want to win these series.”
The Sox have played 21 one-run games and 12 two-run games, a sign they’re more competitive but still operating with holes in the rotation, bullpen and lineup.
“We wanted the baseball to be better,” Barfield said. “The goal every day is to win games, right? We feel like we’re getting closer.”
Barfield said the improvement from the young players has been a pleasant surprise.
Quero is going through growing pains behind the plate as he navigates his rookie season. Taylor is showing flashes of what could be a high-leverage reliever, and Meidroth has played solid defense at shortstop (95th percentile in outs above average) and been a reliable hitter.
General manager Chris Getz said last week the team wants to continue “building from within.” So ensuring the players are properly developing while identifying underrated talents, such as drafting starter Shane Smith (3-3, 2.37 ERA) with the No. 1 pick in the Rule 5 Draft, is important.
“The staff’s done a tremendous job of just preparing guys day in and day out,” Barfield said. “[They’re] keeping a good environment in the clubhouse while still teaching and developing. You’ve seen the results of that with quality of play, playing a lot of close games and playing better baseball.”
The Sox are still far away from playing competitive baseball, but this step in the rebuild is about development.
“You always want to see the arrow trending in the right direction, especially coming off of last year,” Barfield said. “So far, I think the staff and players have done a good job of that.”