After a 600-day absence, Minor League Baseball is back. It's just not the Minor League Baseball you remember.
That said, there's more familiarity for the White Sox than anybody else, as they were the only team to preserve all four of its affiliates at all four of its levels. We'll be spending the day reviewing the rosters of Charlotte, Birmingham, Winston-Salem and Kannapolis, in that order, as we normally do.
But there are going to be weird touches throughout. Below you'll see a 33-man roster, which comprises a 28-man active roster and a five-man reserve squad. Wes Helms explained the setup to Jonathan Lee, Our Man in Charlotte:
The Knights no longer play in International League, but the lamely named Triple-A East, at least until it gets renamed by some corporate sponsor. They'll play one opponent a week in six-game series, just like every other team, with scheduled off days on Mondays just like every other team. Many of those weeks will feature the Jacksonville Jumbo Shrimp, although they'll be opening tonight against Gwinnett.
As for the roster, most of it is made up of White Sox reserves we've already seen, and some recent minor-league signings who received non-roster invitations to the most recent spring training. There's only one assignment that truly seems out of place, and we'll get to that.
But let's start with the non-players:
COACHING STAFF
- Manager: Wes Helms
- Pitching coach: Matt Zaleski
- Hitting coach: Chris Johnson
- Coach: Daniel Gonzalez
I once again get to make the joke that Wes Helms is a true sentence. Zaleski gets to actually coach at Charlotte, an affiliate with whom he made 74 starts as a player, and I saw half of them in person. Johnson is only 36 years old, and raked against International League pitching as recently as 2017.
STARTING PITCHERS
After a few unsuccessful bites at the MLB apple - including four singles to four hitters this season -- Stiever will get a chance to resume his previously promising minor league development with an Opening Night start at Charlotte, meaning he'll skip Double-A entirely. Lambert is right behind him. He went 2-for-2 in successful innings, but a forearm injury after Tommy John surgery led the Sox to exercise extreme caution in how to bring him back, and now he's in Charlotte after spending April in Arizona with the minor leagers. López will be in the top three once he returns from eye surgery. Rick Hahn said López had both of his corneas worked on after experiencing blurry vision.
The rest of the starter candidates are on the older side, with Kubat being the guy who seems to have the most unexplored territory. He succeeded everywhere in the White Sox system before he hit a wall with a 5.63 ERA over 12 starts at Charlotte in 2019. Then again, few pitched well there in 2019. Tomshaw and Wright are both in their 30s, and Banks is about to enter them after serving as a workhorse for various affiliates.
RELIEVERS
Burdi and Johnson are on the 40-man roster, so they would theoretically get called upon first if help were needed. Burdi's shown flashes of great stuff among flashes of extremely hittable stuff in his couple cracks at the majors. Johnson hasn't gotten there thanks to injuries, and setbacks in performance after undergoing mechanical changes in hopes of preventing future injuries. Of the rest, Burr is the one guy who had previously impressed the Sox enough to get a look in Chicago, but he fell off the 40-man after Tommy John surgery.
Lindgren, Schryver and Turley are your lefty relievers. Lindgren's been trying to get back to the majors after two UCL repairs, Schryver's been mentioned as a guy to keep an eye on for a couple years, and Turley was snagged by the White Sox during the latter half of spring training, then retained after designating him for assignment off the 40-man.
Among the righties, Sadzeck and Guerrero have massive fastballs but a hard time getting them to play up, while Paulino has the ability to start. Dopico has gotten looks in spring training and the Arizona Fall League, making it seem like the White Sox like him more than his performance so far has warranted.
CATCHERS
Zavala has survived as the fifth catcher much longer than I figured, and with Zack Collins and Yermín Mercedes in Chicago for the foreseeable future, he'll get the starter's reps for himself. Seriously, he will not be pressured laterally or from below. Nolan is an organizational catcher, and the same can be said of DeCarlo, although he at least has the wrinkle of being a third baseman whom Seattle converted to catching in High-A starting in 2017.
INFIELDERS
Burger, who hasn't been seen at a White Sox affiliate since wearing a Kannapolis Intimidators uniform back in 2017, will get a seemingly aggressive assignment to Charlotte. He sounds thrilled.
It's a very odd placement at first glance, and Chris Getz explained the thinking to James Fegan:
“We feel like he deserves to be at that Triple-A level based on what we’ve seen so far, whether it be physically, mentally, his survival skills, his ability to do damage and play third base,” Getz said of Burger.
I'm not sure about that, but after a whole year without Minor League Baseball, it's hard to know how many teams will be similarly aggressive, which could lower the standard level of competition during the nascent stages of its return. It'll be nice to see him back in action no matter the uniform, and here's hoping the White Sox will make swift adjustments if they're needed, rather than giving him the Courtney Hawkins treatment.
Sheets will stand across the diamond from Burger, and his placement is the result of a steady matriculation through the system. The jump from Regions Field to Truist Field is more than a shift in naming rights for regional financial institutions. He's going to a pitcher's park to one of the homer-friendliest bandboxes in baseball, so scouting may have more to say about his progress than the numbers.
Mendick is merely waiting for his next chance, Beckham will hope for better health than he endured in spring training, and Hernández and Reynolds are classic Triple-A depth.
OUTFIELDERS
What we said about Sheets can apply to Rutherford and González, two of the founding members of the Birmingham Logjam. González can at least play a decent center, which affords him the chance to return to contact-oriented spray hitting. Rutherford will have to get the ball in the air after years of miniscule progress on that front, but Charlotte won't punish his profile the way Birmingham did.
Booker is now 27 and three years removed from his last promising performance, but he provides center support for González. We saw what Williams did in Chicago, and Mahtook might be in the system because he has eight homers against the White Sox, and no more than five against anybody else, making him a Ragin' Cajun Raburn.
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