What’s ahead this offseason for South Side Sox

If you think South Side Sox is just going to shut down shop in the offseason, c’mon, you know us, you’re sorely mistaken. It’s tempting, after the gut-punch that was all of 2022, but while the team is practically inviting us to take a long, long break, we won’t abandon you.

First off, as has been the playbook over the past few seasons, you’ll probably be seeing more of me in the coming months. Offseason is where I take a little more of the reins here. The same might be said of some of our other editors, a list that is growing if you ever check the very weighty masthead here. But I can say that I’ll be shepherding a lot of stories over the winter.

We definitely have some tricks and surprises still in hand, but here’s a bullet list of what we’ll be doing in the offseason:

• Playoff Coverage has already begun, with gamethreads from Allie Wesel and Dante Jones. Those will continue all offseason; there will be a place every day here for postseason discussion. For the World Series and perhaps LCS or earlier games, we may trot out a Six Pack, recap or Bird App postseason story as well.
• Weekly AFL Updates from Darren Black. A year ago, with José Rodríguez and Yolbert Sánchez playing for the Glendale Desert Dogs, it seemed exciting enough to cover the Arizona Fall League every night. This year, with the most exciting White Sox prospect being ... manager Justin Jirschele, well, eh, OK. This week we will conclude our affiliate wrap-ups with the Charlotte Knights, but the plan is to have a few additional South Side Sox on the Farm podcasts in the offseason, to discuss Project Birmingham, scouting the minors, and perhaps even ...
• South Side Sox Top 100 Prospects and Prospect Votes will be back again this year. Writing about 100 White Sox prospects seems to really get on some people’s nerves, but I know Brett is pretty proud of the fact that we are writing that deep into the system and potentially highlighting surprise hot prospects who become common affiliate banter the next summer. This year, expect our entire minors coverage team (and possibly some White Sox-only writers) to make this countdown more of a group effort. Usually we’ve started these in December, but this year we might churn out the series at a more leisurely pace but get rolling after the World Series. And remember, as the Top 100 counts up from the bottom, the Top Prospect Vote (with help from all of you dear people) counts from 1 down to 50. We meet in the middle, and then SSS reader votes count toward the naming of SSS’s Top 50.
• Soxivus coverage expands from five weeks to as many as eight this year, with some fun new themes and accompanying podcasts. Look for our first Soxivus celebration to begin next week.
• White Sox Report Card is a new feature that will begin this week. At midseason we put out a report card that debuted our only-made-up-if-you-believe-Brett-is-incapable-of-inventing-a-stat WARsss system to grade the roster and coaching staff. Rather than one article, most of our masthead is taking a crack and short summaries of every player who saw at least one game with the White Sox this season.
• Should He Stay or Should He Go is a new series from Trooper Galactus that will unfurl leading up to and coming out of the Winter Meetings.
• Today in White Sox History from Mark Liptak never ends.
• Offseason Plan Project, giving you a chance fire Rick Hahn and fix the White Sox, will rear its head upon the conclusion of the World Series.
• SSS 2022 Staff Predictions will be reviewed after the World Series, to determine who among almost two dozen staff members was most accurate in foreseeing the season.
• Hall of Fame votes are run out on three ballots, beginning at the start of December: Veteran, Hall of Fame, and White Sox Hall of Fame. We had enough success with on-site polling last year that we’ll continue it this offseason — and bonus categories for the White Sox Hall of Fame will be included once again.
• Weekly SSS Mothership Podcasts will include Soxivus podcasts every Monday for most of the rest of the year, and other programming as necessary (firings, manager hirings, free agents, trades).
• MLB Offseason News including the Hall of Fame, Hot Stove, Winter Meetings, SoxFest (if it reappears in some form) will be covered, as always.
• Miñoso League, featuring site writers and readers who support our staff patreon, should see some play this offseason. It might not happen until the end of the playoffs, but we’ll get some games in.

A year ago we were forced into a lot of alternate programming, like Kristina Airdo’s dutiful labor coverage, that thankfully will not be repeated this offseason. Some of the most fun stuff, like our baseball movies tournament, would be wonderful to revisit. If the White Sox have a ho-hum winter, maybe we’ll stoke alternate entertainment like that back up. We promise to always try to surprise you.