At one time or another over the course of the 2021 season, the White Sox rostered eight of their last nine first-round draft picks. They had Carlos Rodón posting what turned out to be a top-five Cy Young season in the rotation, and Zack Collins often catching him. They had Nick Madrigal and Tim Anderson up the middle. Andrew Vaughn was keeping his head above water while playing a decent left field, Jake Burger provided a midseason boost off the bench. Garrett Crochet had a nice first full season in the majors out of the bullpen, with Zack Burdi joining him for a spell.
(Poor Carson Fulmer is the lone exception. He had a devil of a time with the Reds, posting a 6.66 ERA over 20 games before returning to Triple-A.)
That's a pretty cool feat, even if nothing so gold could stay. Madrigal was traded for Craig Kimbrel, who is not expected to last the winter with the White Sox. Burdi was claimed by the Orioles, then the Diamondbacks. Rodón is not yet a former White Sox, if only because he's not a current anybody else. He's expected to sign elsewhere in free agency.
Among the guys currently in the organization, Anderson is the lone fixture. Vaughn had a tall task and couldn't quite tackle it, which isn't his fault, but still. Crochet has earned his keep as a reliever, but he could return to the minors to stretch out, or he could be dealt elsewhere. Collins shouldn't be Plan A as the Plan B catcher. Burger did everything he could to reestablish his presence on White Sox prospect lists, but now his body needs to allow him to do it again.
It isn't a knock on the first-round success rate if only three or four guys stick instead of eight, but it feels like such a clip is needed when the top prospect list dries up so suddenly. As many of our Offseason Plan Project architects realize, a roster gets expensive when a team can't produce its own replacements.
The good news is the well isn't dry. The question is whether it's potable, but three players in particular can go a long way in producing another layer for a depth chart.
THE SECOND-ROUND DRAFT PICK: GAVIN SHEETS
Gavin Sheets played exactly one-third of a season, which makes extrapolation both easy and fun. His .250/.324/.506 line produces 33 homers and 102 RBIs when multiplying everything by three, and the 48 walks aren't bad for a rookie, either. Being cast out of position made it hard for him to clear replacement level, but finishing within 0.2 WAR puts him within range of being the White Sox's most productive second-round draft pick in 50 years. Just one decent, full season will get the job done.
- Terry Forster, 12 WAR, 1971-76
- Jake Petricka, 2.6 WAR, 2013-17
- Trayce Thompson, 1.6 WAR, 2015
- Larry Thomas, 1.5 WAR, 1995-97
- Bill Sharp, 1.9 WAR from 1973-75
- Brian Simmons, 0.4 WAR 1998-99
- Gavin Sheets, 0.2 WAR in 2021Josh Paul, 0.2 WAR from 1999-2003
Petricka was a decent find 63 picks deep and had some moments in high-leverage before his arm gave out, but he shouldn't have cast such a large shadow over the selections that followed.
- 2011: Erik Johnson (had real prospect stock before arm problems)
- 2012: Chris Beck (poor junior year foreshadowed issues)
- 2013: Tyler Danish (stuff didn't progress since high school)
- 2014: Spencer Adams (ditto)
- 2015: Alec Hansen (had real prospect stock before ... problems)
- 2016: Gavin Sheets
- 2017: Steele Walker (master-of-none outfielder traded before AA)
- 2018: Matthew Thompson (prep arm a long way away)
The White Sox dealt Walker after his first full season for one bad year of Nomar Mazara, and he's not yet making the White Sox regret it. He hit .255/.323/.439 at Double-A Frisco, but Triple-A pitching held him to a .223/.287/.348 line. This is who I'm keeping in mind if the White Sox ever sign somebody who cost them a draft pick. If they can shed a second-rounder for Mazara, then nobody should shed a tear about it with regards to a Michael Conforto.
Sheets could make everybody think a second time about sending away a second pick, but it's going to take a greater sample size than "1" to shift a strategy unless he continues bashing away. This is his invitation to continue bashing away. He's got some ground to make up if he wants to overtake Forster, especially as a hitter (lifetime .397/.413/.474 average!).
THE THIRD-DAY DRAFT PICK: ROMY GONZÁLEZ
Relievers can show up from anywhere. That doesn't make Aaron Bummer's ascent from the 19th round any less impressive of a personal journey, but such pitchers are only asked to play to their strengths for one inning at at time, which increases the chances of a team striking gold. A fellow 19th-rounder on the position-player side like Adam Engel isn't going to sign a $16 million extension for running and catching. He had to shape himself into a hitter in order to earn his keep.
So here comes Romy González, who is suddenly bearing the weight of the entire 2018 draft class after the White Sox traded three of their first six picks that year (Madrigal, Walker, Konnor Pilkington, Codi Heuer). That entire draft class capital was used on miserable partial seasons from Mazara, Kimbrel and César Hernández.
González is going to be one of the most fascinating prospects to follow in the upcoming cycle of organizational rankings. What do you do with this performance?
| Season | Age | Level | Pos | PA | 2B | 3B | HR | SB | BA | OBP | SLG |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2019 | 22 | A | LF | 405 | 22 | 4 | 4 | 11 | .244 | .329 | .364 |
| 2020 | 23 | n/a | n/a | n/a | n/a | n/a | n/a | n/a | n/a | n/a | n/a |
| 2021 | 24 | AA-AAA | SS | 404 | 17 | 0 | 24 | 24 | .283 | .364 | .532 |
If we all weren't so intimately familiar with why he wasn't seen in 2020, you might've assumed that he was bitten by a radioactive Bo Bichette, and I still wouldn't rule it out. However it happened, the Sox now have a random 20-20 guy from the 18th round.
This sort of performance would've been a godsend during a rebuild, when he would've been qualified for hundreds of plate appearances among the five positions he can play, and any struggles could more or less be shrugged away. The current context makes it more difficult, especially after a season in which scalding cups of coffee from unexpected sources played a surprisingly large part in the White Sox's cruise to 93 wins. The White Sox's re-signing of Leury García for three(!) years suggests some organizational skepticism about a guy who could theoretically cover the same ground.
THE INTERNATIONAL SIGNING: JOSE RODRIGUEZ
Micker Adolfo's body fell apart roughly two dozen times on his way to breaking down the wall between the White Sox's international baseball academy and Charlotte. It's hard to see how his story avoids the John Henry path, because with no minor-league options remaining, there isn't a likely path to a responsible audition with the White Sox. He's hitting .205/.225/.359 with two homers and 16 strikeouts over 40 plate appearances with Estrellas in the Dominican Winter League, which is the first of the last two small samples that might change some minds. The writing on the wall says that he'd benefit from a trade to an organization with plenty of low-stakes outfield playing time to spare.
The greater hope is that Adolfo's path indicates an easier time ahead for younger players, after years of seeing the White Sox's teenage signings stalling out at Winston-Salem. Jose Rodriguez is chief among them after a wildly successful age-20 season. He hit .301/.338/.469 over 111 games before the Arizona Fall League provided a little bit of a heat check.
Rodriguez isn't quite alone in the White Sox farm system, as Bryan Ramos and Luis Mieses providing some upside with athleticism at each of the A-ball levels, and Lenyn Sosa has climbed to Double-A at a slow but steady clip.
Yet it's also a little optimistic to say that Rodriguez has company. Yolbert Sánchez is running alongside Rodriguez as an international signing who is a couple good minor-league months away from his first cup of coffee, and he posted a .533 OBP in the AFL. He's also four years older than Rodriguez, as is Yoelqui Céspedes, who looked lost in the desert. Norge Vera could be the real deal, but his dynamic debut in the DSL came closer to American Legion competition than American League.
Also, all of those players are Cuban. That's no strike against them, but the one country that Marco Paddy and Co. have scouted well is also the one with the least reliable schedule for producing players thanks to geopolitics. When it comes to the traditional hotbeds like the Dominican Republic and Venezuela, the White Sox's only real success story is Yolmer Sánchez, who signed 12 years ago.
It's not great that the White Sox have graduated so many top draft picks, traded others, and still only have one typical international signing cracking the top 10 list for both MLB.com and Baseball America. Rodriguez, who signed for $50,000 out of the Dominican in 2018, gives the White Sox their current best chance to show they have some idea of what they're doing when it comes to helping precocious international talent reach the highest levels. Again, perhaps Adolfo will beat him to Chicago, but the accumulation of scars, figurative and literal, make him a better story to read about than emulate.
(Photo by Ken Murray/Icon Sportswire)
