White Sox 2024 Affiliate Preview: Birmingham Barons

12:00 PM CDT on April 5, 2024

Regions Field in Birrmingham — Regions Field in Birmingham (Jim Margalus / Sox Machine)

However the season goes for the Birmingham Barons in 2024, at least it'll be easier to evaluate.

Last year, all of the teams in the Southern League were given a tacky, enhanced-grip baseball to play with for the first half of the season. The spike in spin rates generally favored the pitchers, and the White Sox Double-A affiliate struggled more than most. When the normal baseball returned, so did the expected levels of production, at least on the hitting side. The pitching was a little bit of a train wreck all year.

The hope is that the Barons can avoid a similar fate this season, because it'd be a nice reflection of the immediate impact the White Sox's new pitching apparatus makes possible.

Coaching staff

Manager: Sergio Santos
Pitching coach: John Ely
Hitting coach: Nicky Delmonico
Bench coach: Ángel Rosario

Delmonico returns as the hitting coach for the Barons, but the rest of the staff is new to Birmingham. Santos is the newest of all, as the one-time Sox closer is now managing the Barons after experiencing success leading A-ball teams with the Yankees (where he previously managed Drew Thorpe). Danny Farquhar took a job with the Mariners, opening a path for Ely to advance to Double-A, and Rosario was the fundamentals coach in the ACL last year.

Starting pitchers

This rotation rivals Winston-Salem's for everyday viewing, although not if Eder returns to Birmingham struggling to find the strike zone to the extent that he did after coming over from Miami in the Jake Burger trade. The White Sox spent the offseason trying to address his lower body mechanics, but then he missed most of spring with a sore non-throwing shoulder. Bush also has made a number of mechanical tweaks since the Sox acquired him from the Angels, hoping he'll regain the velocity he showed during a breakout season two years ago.

Thorpe and Iriarte bring new prospect smell to the roster. James talked to Brian Bannister about both this past week, so read that to understand what they're working on. Adams stands alone as an incumbent coming off a successful season, and now the 2022 13th-round pick gets to see if his stuff works at Double-A five innings at a time every five days.

Bullpen

Even when the deadline trades infused the Birmingham roster with talent for the final month-plus of the 2023 season, the bullpen still turned games into a slog. Perhaps the overhauled pitching program will be able to get more of these guys throwing useful strikes, but based on what we've seen to date, you can divide these groups into four buckets.

Returning relivers who struggled: Coffey, Freeman and Luna all had trouble with the strike zone to varying degrees (they're listed both alphabetically, and in ascending order of walk rates).

Some success at Winston-Salem: Stivors led the Dash in saves last year ... with six, but still. He had the strikeout rate to overcome control lapses. Mikel, who just turned 25, is a Hinsdale native who will make his Double-A debut after bouncing between A-ball affiliates the last three seasons. Palisch finished his first full season better than he started it. The 5.31 ERA masks decent peripherals because he was susceptible to disaster innings, especially over the first half of the season.

Shifting from starting: After getting further afield with each successive season, the White Sox are moving Dalquist to the bullpen in hopes of getting something out of their overslot third-round pick from 2019. McCullough threw a no-hitter for Kannapolis, but the home run ball bit him hard in Winston-Salem. At least strike-throwing is not an issue. Cousin is on the 40-man roster despite having done nothing yet to deserve it, but given that he was 25 when he signed with the Sox out of Cuba, he might've been able to secure some contract language not available to most international signings.

Wild cards: The White Sox are encouraging Kelley to revert to his draft-day mechanics and let him throw two or three innings at a time. For those ready to pun, Then is pronounced "ten." He had nine games with the Mariners last year, although his 40-man status dictated the cup of coffee more than his performance.

Catchers

Quero survived at Double-A as a 20-year-old, as the Angels had him skip High-A. The hope is that he can thrive this time around, which would include a little more power and continued refinement of his catching skills. Turner is coming off a strong season at the plate with Winston-Salem, where he hit .309/.430/.441 with more walks (64) than strikeouts (58). Some success was to be expected, given that he's an SEC product playing in the Sally League at 24, but Quero's arrival temporarily blocked his upward mobility. Claunch is an org catcher who filled in at four different affiliates last year.

Infielders

In terms of his overall game, Ramos had a better case for a promotion to Charlotte than Colson Montgomery, but he just turned 22 and a season-opening groin injury limited him to 77 games with the Barons, so a little more time in Double-A won't kill him. Elko will man the opposite side of the field, where he has the potential to deliver some monster homers when he isn't expanding on high fastballs and breaking balls out of the zone. In between is Baldwin, who fascinates me by being a switch-hitter who makes good swing decisions and just started playing shortstop on an everyday basis.

Womack got most of the time at second base last year, and he gets on base and plays the game with a noticeable charisma. Matthews is a utility guy, as is Castellano, a 29-year-old who, up until this point, had spent the entirety of his 11-year pro career in the Royals organization.

Outfielders

Veras succeeded in his late-season promotion to Birmingham last year, hitting .309/.346/.533 over 38 games. He has a very aggressive approach that often results in ground balls on pitchers' pitches, but it also keeps working for him. Tatum walked 100 times and struck out 149 times, which is pretty extreme for a guy who hit six homers, so he has to make more of his hit tool this time around. Neslony provides a veteran presence, while Ellis creates chaos.