The Chicago White Sox made headlines for all the wrong reasons last season.
The team’s feeble 41-121 record was historically bad and their 21-game losing streak became a running gag among fans and media. To put things into perspective, the Sox were so bad that they would finish 20 games behind the second worst team in baseball, the Colorado Rockies.
But there was something of a silver lining inside their dark 2024 cloud.
The Silver Lining For The Chicago White Sox
Chicago picked up a prodigious haul of talent as a result of their necessary sell-off.
This offseason, in the Garrett Crochet deal with the Boston Red Sox, they added top catching prospect Kyle Teel, outfield prospect Braden Montgomery, infield prospect Chase Meidroth and right-handed pitching prospect Wikelman Gonzalez.
The team also acquired a nice return in the three-team deal with the St. Louis Cardinals and Los Angeles Dodgers at the trade deadline last season for Erick Fedde and Michael Kopech.
The return from those two deals joined the returns from the Dylan Cease trade with the San Diego Padres prior to the 2024 season.
All in all, the White Sox dealt away some of their top talent in those deals, but what they got in return was tremendous, and obviously enough to fully restock an already-solid farm system.
One Of The Best
In a recent piece for MLB.com, analyst Sam Dykstra actually named the Sox one of the nine most improved farm systems.
Per Dykstra:
“Four of Chicago’s Top 10 prospects weren’t White Sox a year ago at this time. Teel and Montgomery were solid additions in the Crochet deal, and right-hander Jairo Iriarte came over in the Dylan Cease trade with the Padres in the spring. In the Draft, the group added potential quick climber Hagen Smith with the fifth overall pick after the Arkansas southpaw was named SEC Pitcher of the Year.
At the top, Noah Schultz got through a stellar season at High-A Winston-Salem and Double-A Birmingham and continued to show the makings of a potential ace on the South Side. Putting Colson Montgomery’s Triple-A struggles aside, this became a more dynamic system through necessary external moves. The White Sox could still use more high-end talent and depth to be considered one of the best farms in the game — and might not be done dealing to achieve that goal.”
Fangraphs, meanwhile, ranks the White Sox farm system no. 3 in all of baseball.
Maybe The Best
Back before the Garrett Crochet trade and the deadline deal for Fedde and Kopech, Bleacher Report already ranked the White Sox farm system no. 1.
Per Ryan Taylor of NBC Sports Chicago:
“Since the White Sox’s roster has been pieced apart dating back to the 2023 MLB trade deadline, the South Side has been stocking up its farm system with talented prospects.
And it’s paying off, according to Bleacher Report’s newest MLB farm system rankings, which ranks the Sox’s farm system as the third-best in the league. They slot behind only the Cubs and Orioles.
According to Joel Reuter’s rankings, the White Sox have five Tier 1 prospects in their system. Tier 1 prospects, according to Reuter, are “Prospects who have elite skill sets and All-Star potential. This is the cream of the prospect crop. These players make up B/R’s Top 100 prospect list, which will publish later this week.”
All of this is good news for a team and a fandom in desperate need of a pick me up.
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