Typically at Sox Machine, the last full week of spring training is devoted to the White Sox farm system. I'll start on a Monday with a preamble, then cap off the end of the week with a top 10 White Sox prospects list. In between, I'll round up about 40 or so other prospects, grouping them by shared narratives in order to present posts of substantial yet digestible length.
This year, it's Wednesday and we're just getting started, but we had a pretty good reason, what with the introduction of James Fegan and all. He'll be around to help make up for lost time.
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We've seen the White Sox farm system in worse shape, but a pretty terrible set of circumstances led to its mild improvement. A miserable April put them on track to sell every tradeable free agent at the deadline (and Jake Burger), and they were able to add a couple of noteworthy prospects in Edgar Quero and Nick Nastrini, which added a little bulk to the torso of a top-heavy organization.
Without those guys -- and maybe Jake Eder, who had some top-100 cred himself until losing his way in his return from Tommy John surgery -- the system would be regarded as having Colson Montgomery, Noah Schultz and Bryan Ramos, before getting to the types of players other systems have in abundance.
That wouldn't be a problem if it were a situation like a few years ago, when the Sox graduated clumps of top-100 prospects in consecutive seasons to energize the 26-man roster with pre-arb talent. Since those waves of talent landed ashore, it's been ebb, ebb, ebb evermore.
To illustrate, here are Baseball America's top 30 White Sox prospects from 2022:
| 1-10 | 11-20 | 21-30 |
|---|---|---|
| Colson Montgomery | Bryan Ramos | Blake Rutherford |
| Yoelqui Céspedes | Jimmy Lambert | Caleb Freeman |
| Norge Vera | Jonathan Stiever | Luis Mieses |
| Wes Kath | Jason Bilous | Wilber Sanchez |
| José Rodríguez | Romy González | Yoelvin Silven |
| Andrew Dalquist | Yolbert Sánchez | Bennett Sousa |
| Jake Burger | Lenyn Sosa | Brooks Gosswein |
| Jared Kelley | Micker Adolfo | Gil Luna |
| Sean Burke | Tanner McDougal | Wilfred Veras |
| Matthew Thompson | Cristian Mena | Adam Hackenberg |
Two years later, Jake Burger is the only player who graduated from the prospect ranks and stuck in an MLB role. His ultimate viability is yet to be determined, but a 34-homer season between Chicago and Miami should have him in circulation for a few years at the very least.
As for the rest of the list, it came out before Oscar Colás signed, but even if you include him, you only get three other players on the White Sox 40-man roster who shed their prospect eligibility. What's more, while there's usually a tinge of sadness when a prospect graduates because his absence is felt on the farm system, it's mostly a relief that the White Sox's candidates no longer require a ranking. I wouldn't immediately know how to negotiate Colás' abrupt collapse of skills or Lenyn Sosa's decaffeinated cups of coffee against MLB pitching, and I'm glad I don't have to think about them in that way anymore.
Meanwhile, three of the top four White Sox prospects from that list no longer merit top-30 consideration, and No. 6 tumbled out of the standings as well. There have been pleasant surprises elsewhere -- the last two prospects listed are advancing against considerable odds -- but not enough to offset the stagnation upstream. That's why it's taken Quero and Nastrini, along with the late additions of Dominic Fletcher and Zach DeLoach, to propel the White Sox system out of the bottom five.
There's some solace that nobody perusing the newest White Sox prospect rankings will have to scour them for potential MLB contributions. The rebuild is dead, and what's done is done. Some guys are in a position to jump to the majors, and maybe for good, but it won't be an immediate crisis if they don't. That's a conversation that can be saved for 2025.
For the time being, you'll be able to read about several dozen prospects over the course of the next seven days. Like usual, they'll be carved into groups, and you'll read about ...
- Guys who dealt with notable injuries
- Guys who just got here
- Guys who made the most of 2023
- Guys who didn't, but have time on their side
- Guys who have one big sticking point
... in no particular order. Unlike previous years, we'll have James writing up prospects for double the bylines and brainpower.
