The White Sox are making use of that 40-man roster spot they opened by designating Martín Maldonado for assignment, and it's not for Yoán Moncada.
A source confirmed Daryl Van Schouwen of the Sun-Times' report that the White Sox are selecting the contract of infielder Brooks Baldwin from Triple-A Charlotte and adding him to the active roster ahead of this weekend's series in Kansas City.
It's a meteoric rise for Baldwin, a former small-conference college star and 12th-round pick who first broke out as a prospect in the second half of last season at High-A Winston-Salem, but has clearly been one of the best performers in the Sox minor league system for all of 2024. Baldwin has compiled a .324/.391/.460 batting line across Double-A and Triple-A, winning Southern League Player of the Month honors in April, and shrugging off a June swoon to hit the ground running since a midseason promotion to Charlotte. But he's also only played just eight games at Triple-A, great as they were: two homers, three doubles, five walks, two strikeouts.
Baldwin will turn 24 next month, so the Sox are closer to the point of needing to start looking at what they have in him than some others, and both his minor league assignments this year have had him working around a first-round pick at shortstop anyway, which might be his best position. Pedro Grifol hinted at a coming youth movement after the All-Star break, and here it begins.
"Development in the minor leagues is extremely important, but the difference in the caliber of play between the minor leagues and the major leagues is significant," said Grifol, who believes the gap has significantly widened since earlier in his career. "And sometimes you need to see these guys in this environment to be able to know how close they really are.”
While Baldwin's bat and offensive results have gained him attention both publicly and from scouts this year, his polished defense, baserunning and situational baseball awareness has always drawn praise, and figure to offer him a higher floor to providing acceptable contributions, even if his bat needs an acclimation window. Intangibles and baseball know-how can read as cliches and we've all been misled before, but it's consistently brought up for Baldwin.
"I would like to say that Brooks Baldwin, people don't look at him enough," said Colson Montgomery recently. "I would say he's one of the best players in our organization, just how he goes about his business and being professional with the things he does. He plays the game the right way."
"The best way to describe him is he just does winning things on the field," said player development director Paul Janish earlier in the season. "There’s not a lot he can’t do. It’s not flashy. You’re going to see him more than you’re going to hear him. But so far this year, you couldn’t ask him to do more."
“He has good instincts. He’s a baseball player," Birmingham Barons manager Sergio Santos said in April. “When I first started seeing him, it was, you don’t take much notice, right? Because he’s not the biggest, he’s not the fastest, he doesn’t have the flashy stuff. But with him, what you get is consistency; him doing something everything single game. After a week and a half, two weeks, you notice. And then you start paying attention, and yeah, I think he’s just a complete ballplayer."
It's simultaneously a refreshing sight to see a player earn a series of merit-based promotions despite not being tabbed as a future core piece upon arrival in the organization. But Baldwin's rise might be less easily repeated by top prospects that tend to be moved through the system very intentionally. After all, the Sox are not eschewing draft pick compensation by promoting Baldwin with too much time in the season left to be Rookie of the Year eligible in 2025.
Alongside Nick Senzel, Baldwin is part of a wave of change in an infield that was getting the worst OPS in baseball from their third basemen and the second-worst from their second sackers. Paul DeJong has rebounded to be one of the team's most consistent sources of power at shortstop, but he knows more than anyone that likely will earn him a trip out of town in the next two weeks. With Danny Mendick was designated for assignment and another souring on Lenyn Sosa, the Sox had signaled their willingness to look at other parts of their infield depth.
And in a weird way, Baldwin in Chicago might wind up being a better way to return him to receiving regular reps at shortstop, rather than have him work his utilityman act around Montgomery at Charlotte, right after he had done it with Jacob Gonzalez in Birmingham. At the very least, he's earned it.
