Top 34 Prospects: Chicago White Sox
Below is an analysis of the prospects in the farm system of the Chicago White Sox. Scouting reports were compiled with information provided by industry sources as well as my own observations. As there was no minor league season in 2020, there are some instances where no new information was gleaned about a player. Players whose write-ups have not been altered begin by telling you so. For the others, the blurb ends with an indication of where the player played in 2020, which in turn likely informed the changes to their report. As always, I’ve leaned more heavily on sources from outside the org than within for reasons of objectivity. Because outside scouts were not allowed at the alternate sites, I’ve primarily focused on data from there. Lastly, in effort to more clearly indicate relievers’ anticipated roles, you’ll see two reliever designations, both in lists and on The Board: MIRP, or multi-inning relief pitcher, and SIRP, or single-inning relief pitcher.
For more information on the 20-80 scouting scale by which all of our prospect content is governed, you can click here. For further explanation of Future Value’s merits and drawbacks, read Future Value.
All of the numbered prospects here also appear on The Board, a resource the site offers featuring sortable scouting information for every organization. It can be found here.
Editor’s Note: Yoelqui Cespedes and Norge Vera were added to this list after they agreed to deals with the White Sox on January 15.
Rk | Name | Age | Highest Level | Position | ETA | FV |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | Andrew Vaughn | 22.8 | A+ | 1B | 2021 | 60 |
2 | Michael Kopech | 24.7 | MLB | SP | 2021 | 55 |
3 | Nick Madrigal | 23.8 | MLB | 2B | 2021 | 55 |
4 | Garrett Crochet | 21.6 | MLB | SIRP | 2021 | 50 |
5 | Jared Kelley | 19.3 | R | SP | 2025 | 45 |
6 | Zack Burdi | 25.9 | MLB | SIRP | 2021 | 40+ |
7 | Benyamin Bailey | 19.3 | R | RF | 2024 | 40+ |
8 | Jose Rodriguez | 19.7 | R | SS | 2023 | 40+ |
9 | Micker Adolfo | 24.3 | AA | DH | 2021 | 40+ |
10 | Matthew Thompson | 20.4 | R | SP | 2024 | 40 |
11 | Andrew Dalquist | 20.2 | R | SP | 2024 | 40 |
12 | Jonathan Stiever | 23.7 | MLB | SP | 2021 | 40 |
13 | Bryan Ramos | 18.8 | R | 3B | 2023 | 40 |
14 | Norge Vera | 20.6 | R | RHP | 2025 | 40 |
15 | Yermin Mercedes | 27.9 | MLB | DH | 2021 | 40 |
16 | Luis Gonzalez | 25.3 | MLB | RF | 2021 | 40 |
17 | Blake Rutherford | 23.7 | AA | LF | 2021 | 40 |
18 | Yolbert Sanchez | 23.9 | R | SS | 2025 | 40 |
19 | Kade McClure | 24.9 | A+ | MIRP | 2022 | 40 |
20 | Lenyn Sosa | 21.0 | A | 2B | 2022 | 40 |
21 | Seby Zavala | 27.4 | MLB | C | 2021 | 40 |
22 | James Beard | 20.3 | R | CF | 2024 | 40 |
23 | Tyler Johnson | 25.4 | AA | SIRP | 2020 | 40 |
24 | Gavin Sheets | 24.7 | AA | 1B | 2020 | 40 |
25 | Yoelqui Cespedes | 23.3 | R | CF | 2022 | 35+ |
26 | Hunter Schryver | 25.8 | AAA | SIRP | 2022 | 35+ |
27 | Caleb Freeman | 22.9 | A | SIRP | 2023 | 35+ |
28 | Lency Delgado | 21.6 | R | 3B | 2023 | 35+ |
29 | Jimmy Lambert | 26.2 | MLB | SIRP | 2020 | 35+ |
30 | Bailey Horn | 23.0 | R | MIRP | 2023 | 35+ |
31 | Bryce Bush | 21.1 | A | RF | 2022 | 35+ |
32 | DJ Gladney | 19.5 | R | 3B | 2024 | 35+ |
33 | Luis Mieses | 20.6 | R | CF | 2022 | 35+ |
34 | Jake Burger | 24.8 | A | 1B | 2021 | 35+ |
Other Prospects of Note
Grouped by type and listed in order of preference within each category.
Catching Depth (and Remillard)
Carlos Perez, C
Gunnar Troutwine, C
Ricardo Aguilar, C
Zach Remillard, SS
Perez, 23, has good bat-to-ball skills and arm strength but little power. He might be a third catcher. Troutwine is a tough dude with great feel for the strike zone. Aguilar just signed. He’s a converted infielder with a compact frame and contact-oriented approach. Remillard is upper-level depth capable of playing almost every position on the field.
High Probability Depth Arms
Konnor Pilkington, LHP
Andrew Perez, LHP
Vince Arobio, RHP
Bernardo Flores Jr., LHP
All of these pitchers are in their mid-20s. Pilkington is an SEC college performance prospect with below average stuff. He’s a sixth starter type. Perez needs to find a breaking ball, but he will touch 95 from the left side and his changeup is plus. Arobio has a high spin, backspinning fastball, too, but his angle is more downhill. He has the best breaking ball of this group. Flores is a four-pitch lefty with good breaking stuff and a 40 fastball.
Younger, Raw Pitching
Frander Veras, RHP
Davis Martin, RHP
Yoelvin Silven, RHP
McKinley Moore, RHP
Adisyn Coffey, RHP/3B
Ronaldo Guzman, LHP
Veras is 21 and spent 2019, his first pro season, in the DSL. He was up to 96 there and his changeup has late sinking action at times. Martin is another good Day 3 pick out of Texas Tech. He sits 89-94 and has a plus slider. Silven was up to 95 as a 19-year-old in 2019, and sitting 93 and touching 96 late in 2020. His secondary stuff is below average and the Sox are tinkering with a couple different breaking balls there. Moore is an arm strength-only prospect who actually threw strikes pretty consistently during instructs, which he needs to continue doing as he climbs the ladder. He’s up to 98. Coffey was the team’s underslot 2020 signee so they could fit Kelley into their bonus pool. He was a high school infielder once committed to ASU, ended up at a Midwest JUCO and moved to the mound. He’s been 93-95 in spurts but had a Tommy John two months ago and is now taking BP and groundballs. Guzman is a small-ish 18-year-old lefty who was the youngest player on the Instructional League roster. He struck out a lot of DSL hitters in 2019 even though he only threw in the mid-80s because his fastball has big carry. He’s now into the upper-80s and will have an impact fastball if he can keep throwing harder.
System Overview
The White Sox have graduated top prospects several years running, and their 2020 group was particularly strong. Especially now that they’re pushing in their chips and trading prospects for current big leaguers (Dane Dunning would have been in the 50 FV tier, while Avery Weems would be toward the top of the 40s), this group is starting to thin a little bit, and this list may be artificially deep because I’ve kept some of the young hellion hitting prospects alive here. It’s likely a couple of the toolsy scratch-offs toward the bottom of the list would have struggled during a 2020 season and fallen off, but it’s also possible one or two of them would have broken out in a meaningful way, although I suppose Bailey did during the Fall and that stretch also reinforced the notion that Rodriguez might have a special bat. It’s especially important to this org that the draft be as many rounds as the owners can stomach to fill in some depth at the bottom of the system.
It’s notable that even the really good prospects in this system have very aggressive approaches, often so aggressive that it undermines their ability to hit. I think virtual reality training would be an interesting fit for this org. The concept of it makes sense: show your hitters dozens of pitches per day, from VR big league pitching, and try to develop pitch recognition skills without needing to have a pitcher there. Some orgs have tried it and seen promising early results but the pandemic wiped out another season to evaluate if it was working.
The White Sox did not appear to opt in to Fall data sharing with the rest of baseball, as I asked multiple sources to check on some objective information for this list and they found nothing from instructs in their system. Because this is one of the orgs I did not see myself in the Fall, alterations to this list were largely derived from the opinions of scouts I spoke to who saw ball at Camelback Ranch and whatever was gleaned from players’ big league performance.
Eric Longenhagen is from Catasauqua, PA and currently lives in Tempe, AZ. He spent four years working for the Phillies Triple-A affiliate, two with Baseball Info Solutions and two contributing to prospect coverage at ESPN.com. Previous work can also be found at Sports On Earth, CrashburnAlley and Prospect Insider.
It’s going to be fun watching Abreu, Vaughn, Mercedes, and Collins all jostling for the 1B/DH slots. I would add Jimenez but since there’s no room anyway, why bother.
I thought Jimenez would be the full time DH as soon as 2021 or 22 based on Abreu’s aging, decline, and contract. The MVP season pushes that back by at least a year.
I think you know my feelings on Jimenez as an outfielder, but if last year’s short season is sustainable and Abreu keeps hitting into his mid 30’s, they are stuck playing him in left.
Abreu is going to have to play his way out of the lineup. He is signed through 2022 and will play until he can no longer hit. The list of excellent hitters, similar to Abreu, who defy Father Time includes names like Ortiz and Cruz. Either Vaughn or Jimenez, or very possibly both, will have to stand on the field in positions that they should not be seen at.
Thing was Abreu never really declined. Checkout his statcast numbers in 2019. He hit the ball better than he ever had in his career with the exception of his rookie year. He is a good hitter. Baseball is a cruel game, and variance can be huge. The difference between a 170 and a 120 wRC+ in a short season is a couple singles falling, and a home run or two being robbed.
I think it’s more than a couple. 120 to 170 is a fairly significant jump.
They think Collins can catch (lol) and his bat probably isn’t good enough to DH as it is. Just a total waste of a top 10 pick.
There’s an alterative universe where the Sox rebuild went exactly the same but they hold on to Tatis and draft Lewis at 10 instead of Collins and the Sox are looking like the only team that can take on the Dodgers over the next half decade. Alas, they might not even win their division in 2021 despite 60% of the division not even trying.
I doubt if Abreu is going to have to do even the slightest amount of jostling to see his name in the lineup every day as it was this year.