News White Sox Team Notes

[Chicago White Sox]

White Sox Place Andrew Benintendi On IL, Select Nick Maton

The White Sox announced that outfielder Andrew Benintendi has been placed on the 10-day injured list, retroactive to May 5th, due to a left calf strain. Infielder Nick Maton has been selected to take his place on the active roster. The 40-man already had a vacancy since right-hander Penn Murfee was outrighted earlier this week.

Benintendi was removed from Sunday’s game with tightness in that calf and didn’t play in the club’s past two games, which is why this IL stint was able to be backdated. If it’s a minor issue, he could return to the club in just over a week.

The Sox don’t have any hopes of competing this year, currently sporting a 10-26 record, worst in the American League. Still, it’s less than ideal for Benintendi to be hurt again, as the club would surely love to trade him prior to the deadline.

That will be tough to do on account of his contract. He is making $16.5MM this year and again in 2026, followed by a $14.5MM salary in 2027. He hasn’t performed especially well with the White Sox overall, so other clubs won’t be too excited to take that on.

He went into the 2024-25 offseason with a bit of positive momentum. His 2024 season started rough, as he had a line of .195/.230/.284 when he landed on the IL in June with an Achilles injury. But he hit .251/.326/.470 for a 124 wRC+ after being reinstated.

The White Sox would have loved for him to roll that performance forward into 2025 but the injury bug has had other plans. Benintendi suffered a hand fracture on a hit-by-pitch in the spring. He was able to get healthy by Opening Day but then hit the IL due to an adductor strain in early April. He was reinstated fairly quickly but is now back on the shelf again. Around those injuries, he has hit .224/.298/.400 on the year, with five home runs getting that line up to league average.

For the time being, Maton will get some more at-bats with the Sox. He spent about a month with the club earlier this year but was outrighted off the roster after hitting .173/.295/.327. That brought his career batting line to .202/.302/.354 over 575 plate appearances. He has hit far better in the minors without being able to translate it to the show. From 2022 to 2024, he slashed .267/.375/.454 in the minors for a 121 wRC+. He has played all four infield positions as well as the outfield corners in his career, so he can bounce around the diamond for the Sox.

Photo courtesy of Rick Osentoski, Imagn Images

Source: https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2025...ndrew-benintendi-on-il-select-nick-maton.html

 

[Chicago White Sox]

White Sox Designate Nick Maton For Assignment

The White Sox announced that infielder Nick Maton has been designated for assignment. First base prospect Tim Elko’s contract was selected in the corresponding move, as was reported yesterday.

This is the second time in two weeks that the Sox have designated Maton, and his first trip through DFA limbo saw him clear waivers and then accept an outright assignment to Triple-A Charlotte. Maton had the option of becoming a free agent because he has been outrighted in the past, but chose to remain in the organization and wait for another crack at a spot on Chicago’s big league roster. That chance came when Maton’s contract was selected again as a corresponding move to Andrew Benintendi’s placement on the injured list, though Maton’s latest stint with the White Sox lasted just a couple of days.

Maton has hit .167/.286/.315 over 63 plate appearances, and he has played in 25 of Chicago’s 39 games this season primarily as a first baseman and designated hitter. Since Maton is out of minor league options, the White Sox have to designate him and expose him to the waiver wire whenever they wish to send him to Triple-A, thus giving Maton repeated chances to elect free agency.

As a veteran utilityman on a rebuilding team, Maton isn’t likely to receive the benefit of the doubt when it comes to playing time, as the White Sox are obviously prioritizing young talent. That said, catching on with another team that has more established players also might not give Maton much time on the diamond. Maton’s lack of minor league options leaves him with little flexibility, so if he isn’t claimed on waivers this time around, he’ll face another decision about whether or not to stick with the White Sox or test the open market.

Source: https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2025/05/white-sox-designate-nick-maton-for-assignment.html

 

[Chicago White Sox]

Mets Among Teams To Show Recent Interest In Luis Robert Jr.

10:15am: Jon Heyman of the New York Post reports that there is “nothing hot” between the Mets and White Sox regarding Robert as things stand, though he goes to acknowledge that the Mets have “checked in” on him previously and that center field could be an area the club has interest in upgrading.

9:15am: White Sox center fielder Luis Robert Jr. has long appeared to be the club’s most obvious trade chip for the 2025 season, and a report from USA Today’s Bob Nightengale last weekend suggested that Chicago may be motivated to move Robert before the end of May if he were to continue playing well throughout the month. Robert has gone just 4-for-19 at the plate with one walk and five strikeouts since that piece was published, but today Nightengale reports that teams have begun to show interest in Robert with the Mets among the clubs to have checked in.

The 27-year-old could certainly make plenty of sense in Queens. Robert’s offense has left much to be desired over the past two years, as he’s slashed just .215/.282/366 with a lackluster 82 wRC+ across 137 games since the start of the 2024 season. That’s essentially a full season’s worth of games where Robert has struck out at a 32.6% clip and hit just 19 homers, though he has walked at a solid 8.3% clip and stolen 38 bases in that time while serving as a capable defensive option in center field.

While Robert’s recent production isn’t exactly exciting, it’s impossible to deny his talent. Staying healthy has always been a question for Robert, but he offered star-level production when on the field from 2021 to 2023 with a .287/.331/.511 (129 wRC+) slash line and 10.6 fWAR in just 311 games. That’s a four- to five-win player over a full season, and while his recent downturn in production makes expected a five-win campaign like his 2023 season somewhat unrealistic, it’s worth noting that Robert’s been hurt badly this year by a .244 BABIP that falls well below the career norm for a player who’s never posted a figure below .300 before in a season. A look at Robert’s solid .326 xwOBA would suggest that his underlying performance this year is more or less in line with the production he put forward in 2022, when he slashed .284/.319/.426 with a wRC+ of 111 in 98 games.

That sort of production would be extremely valuable for a Mets club that already lost its starting center fielder in Jose Siri for the first half of the season due to a fractured tibia. That’s left Tyrone Taylor to handle center field duties in Queens, and while he’s been serviceable with a .249/.295/317 (90 wRC+) slash line, he’s not exactly been an impact player for the Mets and lacks the superstar upside Robert offers. Center field is one of very few holes in New York’s lineup; the club is only ranked below average by both fWAR and wRC+ at three positions so far this year: second base, left field, and center field. Brandon Nimmo is entrenched in left and has wound up above-average at the plate in each of the last eight seasons, while second base is covered by a combination of Luisangel Acuna, Brett Baty, and Jeff McNeil. None of those names have firmly grabbed hold of the everyday job at the keystone to this point, but that depth of options makes an external addition seem unlikely.

That leaves center as the obvious place for an upgrade, and the pickings at the position figure to be slim this summer outside of Robert. Perhaps Cedric Mullins could be available if the Orioles can’t dig themselves out of their current hole in the standings. The Twins could deal either Willi Castro or former Met Harrison Bader if the club’s current seven-game winning streak proves to be simply a flash in the pan. Robert stands out from that pack, however, as an option controlled beyond the 2025 season (via a pair of $20MM club options for 2026 and ’27) and by offering higher upside than any of them.

Of course, any deal would be contingent on the sides being able to agree on an asking price. Nightengale writes that the White Sox are “eyeing” right-hander Blade Tidwell as part of the of a possible return package, though it’s unclear if the Mets would have any interesting in parting ways with the 23-year-old. Tidwell made his big league debut last week, and while it didn’t go well (six earned runs in 3 2/3 innings), he remains a valuable part of the starting pitching depth chart for a Mets club that has dealt with a number of early-season pitching injuries already. It would be understandable if the Mets were hesitant to include a big league ready arm like Tidwell in the return for Robert, especially if the deal were to happen early in the season before the trade market heats up in earnest. Speculatively speaking, the club could be more open to dealing a player like Tidwell later in the year, when they may have either received reinforcements from the injured list or swung separate trades with other clubs to acquire more starting pitching.

Source: https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2025...o-show-recent-interest-in-luis-robert-jr.html

 

[Chicago White Sox]

White Sox Claim Yoendrys Gomez, Release Greg Jones

The White Sox announced that they have claimed right-hander Yoendrys Gomez off waivers from the Dodgers. Outfielder Greg Jones was released to open up a 40-man roster space.

After spending the majority of his pro career in the Yankees farm system, Gomez is now joining his third different organization in the last three weeks. New York designated Gomez for assignment in late April and the Dodgers claimed him off waivers, only to themselves DFA Gomez earlier this week. Gomez has seen some big league time with both of his 2025 teams, posting a 2.70 ERA in 10 relief innings for the Yankees and a whopping 14.54 ERA over 4 1/3 innings and three appearances with Los Angeles.

This workload makes it 27 2/3 career MLB innings for Gomez since he made his debut during the 2023 season, with a 4.88 ERA for his time in the Show. Since the start of the 2021 season, Gomez has thrown only 246 2/3 total innings in the majors and minors, as a Tommy John surgery drastically cut into his availability in 2021-22.

Gomez still posted some pretty solid numbers in the minors, including a 3.67 ERA and 27% strikeout rate over 83 1/3 frames at the Triple-A level. However, Gomez’s walk rate has also crept upwards as he has worked his way up the minor league ladder. While he has worked almost exclusively as a starter in the minors, he has worked only as a reliever in his brief MLB tenure, albeit usually throwing multiple innings in his appearances.

Since Gomez is out of minor league options, the White Sox will need to keep him on their active roster unless they’re willing to expose him to waivers again in an effort to outright him off the 40-man roster and send Gomez down to Triple-A. The pitching-needy Sox should be able to make use of a multi-inning reliever who may yet have some utility as a depth starter, so this latest move could give the 25-year-old Gomez a clearer path to big league playing time than he would’ve likely found with the Yankees or Dodgers.

Jones was a waiver claim himself in late March, as the White Sox plucked him away from the Rockies just prior to Opening Day. Jones appeared in just three MLB games with Chicago, after making his debut in the Show last season and playing in six games with Colorado. In a nod to his speed and defense, Jones has been a late-game sub in all but one of his nine career games in the majors, and he has one hit (a home run) in eight plate appearances.

Known as one of the fastest players in baseball, Jones has stolen 167 bases (out of 192 attempts) during six minor league seasons. This speed and multi-positional defensive ability drew some top-100 prospect attention from MLB Pipeline in 2022 when Jones was in the Rays’ farm system, though he has also struck out in 567 of his 1662 career PA at the minor league level. He had posted solid Triple-A numbers before his production drastically fell off with Triple-A Charlotte this season, and thus the Sox have decided to move on in the form of a proper release.

Jones is still only 27, and his speed is the type of premium ability that usually intrigues teams. It wouldn’t be surprising to see another club scoop Jones up as at least a depth piece, with an eye towards possibly unlocking something at the plate that can turn Jones into more of a functional asset at the MLB level.

Source: https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2025/05/white-sox-claim-yoendrys-gomez-release-greg-jones.html

 

[Chicago White Sox]

White Sox Designate Gage Workman For Assignment

The White Sox announced that infielder Gage Workman has been returned from his rehab assignment, reinstated from the 10-day injured list and designated for assignment. The club’s 40-man roster count drops to 39.

Workman started the season with the Cubs as a Rule 5 pick, selected from the Tigers. He managed to stick with the Cubs for about the first month of the regular season before being designated for assignment.

The White Sox acquired him for cash considerations, with the Rule 5 parameters transferring to Workman’s new club. He got into three games with the Sox before landing on the IL with a right hip flexor strain. He’s now healthy, but the Sox evidently didn’t want to add him back to their active roster. Per the Rule 5 restrictions, he can’t be optioned to the minors, so they have gone the DFA route instead.

The 25-year-old Workman shined for the Cubs in spring training, hitting .364/.420/.705 in 50 plate appearances. A contending Cubs team never found a way to get him any real playing time, however. He went 2-for-14 with a walk in his 15 plate appearances before being designated for assignment. He received even less playing time with the Sox, tallying all of two plate appearances.

Workman is viewed as a plus defender at third base with plenty of raw power and too much swing-and-miss in his offensive profile. He spent the 2024 season with the Tigers’ Double-A affiliate, where he batted .280/.366/.476 with 18 homers, 30 steals, an 11.7% walk rate and a bloated 27.5% strikeout rate in his third season of action at that level. He’s yet to appear in a Triple-A game.

The ChiSox could try to trade Workman in the coming days or simply put him on outright waivers. Any acquiring club would still be bound by the same Rule 5 limits. If he were to pass through unclaimed, he would be offered back to the Tigers. If that happens, Detroit could put Workman back in their system without having to put him on the 40-man roster. DFA limbo can last a week but the waiver process takes 48 hours, so any trade talks would have to come together in the next five days.

Source: https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2025/05/white-sox-designate-gage-workman-for-assignment.html

 

[Chicago White Sox]

White Sox To Select Tim Elko

The White Sox are selecting first baseman Tim Elko onto the big league roster, reports Vinnie Duber of The Chicago Sun-Times. He’ll be in line for his MLB debut tomorrow against the Marlins. Chicago’s 40-man roster is at capacity, so they’ll need to make corresponding active roster and 40-man moves.

Elko has never gotten much prospect fanfare, but his minor league production has certainly warranted a promotion. The right-handed hitter is out to a monster .348/.431/.670 slash over 31 games with Triple-A Charlotte. He has already hit 10 homers and six doubles in 130 plate appearances. He’s tied with Otto Kemp for the Triple-A home run lead. Among hitters with 100+ trips to the plate, only Carson McCusker has a higher OPS.

The 6’3″, 250-pound Elko has been a productive power bat dating back to his college days at Ole Miss. He nevertheless signed for a minuscule $35K bonus as a 10th-round draft pick in 2022. Scouts viewed him as an organizational depth type because of his defensive limitations and lofty swing-and-miss rates. Those are still present, though Elko has made slight improvements to his plate discipline this season. He’s drawing walks at what would be a personal-best 11.5% clip. That comes alongside an alarming 28.5% strikeout rate.

It’s a difficult profile to pull off, one that major league pitchers tend to exploit. Still, the Sox have scored the fourth-fewest runs in MLB. They’ve received a combined .215/.273/.356 slash from their first basemen and designated hitters. There’s little reason not to give Elko an opportunity to try to continue to defy expectations.

Andrew Vaughn has worked as the primary first baseman. The former third overall pick has posted middling numbers for the majority of his career. He entered play tonight with a dismal .186/.223/.293 line. A homer in his first at-bat will boost that a little bit, but it’s increasingly difficult to see Vaughn emerging as a legitimate trade chip for GM Chris Getz and company.

He’s playing on a $5.85MM arbitration salary and looks much more like a DFA or non-tender candidate than someone who could net the Sox a prospect of any regard. They haven’t had a set DH, so Vaughn and Elko could coexist in the same lineup, but it’s fair to wonder how much more runway Vaughn will have as an everyday player.

Source: https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2025/05/white-sox-to-select-tim-elko.html

 

[Chicago White Sox]

White Sox Return Rule 5 Pick Gage Workman To Tigers

Infielder Gage Workman has cleared waivers, and the White Sox have returned him to the Tigers, as reflected by his transaction log on MLB.com. He will report to Triple-A Toledo.

This hardly comes as a surprise after the White Sox designated Workman for assignment earlier this week. The Cubs initially selected Workman from the Tigers in the Rule 5 draft this past December. He made the Opening Day roster for the North Siders and suited up for the club in nine games over the first few weeks of the season. However, the Cubs no longer had a role for him after signing the much more experienced utility infielder Nicky Lopez to a big league deal in mid-April. Per the Rule 5 regulations, the Cubs could not simply option Workman to the minors, so they DFA’d him and traded him to the White Sox for cash considerations not long after.

Workman played just three games for the White Sox before landing on the IL with a right hip flexor strain. Upon reinstating him, the South Siders chose not to add him back to their active roster and DFA’d him instead. This time, evidently, no other teams were interested in giving him (and his .485 OPS through 17 PA) a spot on their active roster, so passed through waivers unclaimed. The White Sox then had to offer him back to the Tigers. As his original team, Detroit is not obligated to add him to its 26 or 40-man roster. He will return to the Tigers’ minor league system, where he thrived last year, hitting .280 with a 142 wRC+ in 126 games at Double-A.

Source: https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2025/05/white-sox-return-rule-5-pick-gage-workman-to-tigers.html

 

[Chicago White Sox]

White Sox Acquire Miguel Castro From Astros

The White Sox are acquiring right-hander Miguel Castro from the Astros, reports Robert Murray of FanSided. Astros general manager Dana Brown tells Chandler Rome of The Athletic that Houston receives cash considerations in return.

Castro, 30, signed a minor league deal with the Astros in the offseason. He has since pitched 19 2/3 innings at the Triple-A level with a 2.29 earned run average. His 10.1% walk rate is a tad high but he’s striking out 25.3% of opponents while getting grounders on 44% of balls in play.

Despite those solid numbers, it seems the Astros weren’t planning to call him up, so they’ve traded him instead. Per Ari Alexander of KPRC 2, Castro’s deal had an upcoming opt-out date on June 3rd.

The White Sox are rebuilding and don’t have a strong relief group. Collectively, their bullpen has a 4.42 ERA, putting them in the bottom third of major league teams. Given that they are 14-30 and at the bottom of the American League standings, they presumably plan to install Castro into the bullpen and see if he can pitch his way into being a midseason trade candidate. Assuming they plan to call him up before his opt-out, they will need to open a 40-man spot for him.

Castro has occasionally been a useful pitcher in the big leagues, though with declining results in recent seasons. His ground ball rate has been fairly consistently near 50% and his walk rate has usually been a bit higher than average. The strikeouts have been high at times but there’s been a clear downward trend. He peaked at 33% in 2020 but that figure dropped to 25.4% in 2021, 23.7% in 2022 and 22.4% in 2023.

Last year, he started with the Diamondbacks but landed on the injured list due to shoulder inflammation in the middle of April. He stayed there for about three months, getting reinstated in July but was released in early August. Around the IL stint, he tossed 13 2/3 innings with a 5.93 ERA and 12.5% strikeout rate in that small sample. Based on his minor league numbers this year, it’s possible he has put the shoulder problems behind him and is back in good form.

Photo courtesy of Reinhold Matay, Imagn Images

Source: https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2025/05/white-sox-to-acquire-miguel-castro-from-astros.html

 

[Chicago White Sox]

White Sox Designate Jacob Amaya For Assignment

The White Sox announced Friday morning that infielder Jacob Amaya has been designated for assignment. He’ll be the corresponding roster move for Chicago’s previously reported acquisition of reliever Miguel Castro. The Sox also added infielder Vinny Capra, whom they claimed off waivers from the Brewers, to their active roster. Left-hander Jared Shuster was optioned to Triple-A to clear a second roster spot.

Amaya, 26, originally came to the White Sox via waivers last August. He was briefly jettisoned from the 40-man roster in January and claimed by the Orioles. The South Siders claimed Amaya back from Baltimore two weeks later when the O’s tried to pass him through waivers themselves.

Amaya is regarded as a gifted defender but offers little with the bat. He’s appeared in 56 games with the ChiSox and totaled 139 plate appearances but has just a .140/.174/.155 batting line to show for it — including a .097/.119/.113 slash in 68 plate appearances this season. Though he’s yet to provide any offense in the big leagues, Amaya has a more palatable (albeit still below average) .246/.342/.380 batting line in 1219 plate appearances at the Triple-A level.

Because Amaya is out of minor league options, the Sox couldn’t simply send him directly to Triple-A Charlotte. He’d first need to pass through outright waivers for the Sox to be able to assign him to a minor league affiliate. Major League Baseball’s DFA window lasts a week, and the Sox are free to explore trade possibilities or place Amaya during that time. Waivers are a 48-hour process, however, so if they find a trade partner it’d need to happen within the next five days. Given Amaya’s struggles this year, waivers seem likelier, but a team with a short-term need at shortstop could show some interest.

Source: https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2025/05/white-sox-dfa-jacob-amaya.html

 

[Chicago White Sox]

White Sox Release Brandon Drury

The White Sox released Brandon Drury from his minor league deal, according to the MiLB.com transaction tracker. He has been on the injured list since May 8.

Drury hasn’t played a game for Triple-A Charlotte since April 26. Their manager, Sergio Santos, told Jeff Cohen of Future Sox last week that Drury had injured his wrist on a hit-by-pitch. At the time, Santos said that Drury was able to field without issue but experienced soreness when he was taking swings. He’d only been able to appear in 10 games before the injury. The veteran infielder hit .179/.319/.282 with one home run across 47 trips to the plate.

The Sox signed Drury to a minor league contract shortly before the opening of Spring Training. He looked well on his way to breaking camp when he raked at a .410 clip through 13 exhibition contests. That was scuttled when he broke his left thumb in the final few days of Spring Training. Chicago granted him his release but brought him back on a new minor league deal in mid-April once he’d returned to health.

There aren’t many specifics on his latest injury, but it stands to reason that Drury will find renewed minor league interest whenever he’s healthy. He won a Silver Slugger in 2022 and remained an above-average hitter as recently as ’23, when he hit .262/.306/.497 with 30 doubles and 26 homers for the Angels. The wheels fell off last season. His bat cratered to a .169/.242/.228 showing across 360 plate appearances, limiting him to minor league offers.

Source: https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2025/05/white-sox-release-brandon-drury-2.html

 

[Chicago White Sox]

White Sox Place Tyler Gilbert On 15-Day Injured List

The White Sox announced that left-hander Tyler Gilbert has been placed on the 15-day injured list due to a sprained left MCL. Southpaw Jared Shuster has been called back up to Chicago’s 26-man roster in the corresponding move, just a day after Shuster was optioned to Triple-A as part of another collection of roster moves.

This is the second time this season that a left knee issue has sidelined Gilbert, as he began the year with a 15-day stint on the IL due to bursitis. The MCL sprain arose yesterday, as the lefty made it two batters into a relief appearance against the Cubs before he had to be removed from the game. The length of Gilbert’s recovery timeline will depend on the severity of the sprain, and more details on that front should arise when manager Will Venable meets with the Chicago media today.

Acquired in a January trade with the Phillies, Gilbert has a 4.85 ERA over 13 innings and appearances for the White Sox this season. (Three of those appearances were “starts” as an opener, and the other 10 came out of the bullpen.) Five of Gilbert’s seven earned runs came over back-to-back rough outings against the A’s and Red Sox on April 16 and 18, as he has otherwise been pretty solid, allowing just two ER over his other 10 2/3 frames of work.

Gilbert has a strong 30.8% strikeout rate but control has been a problem, as the left-hander has a 13.5% walk rate. While acknowledging the small sample size, both statistics are far different from Gilbert’s career norms, as he had a 16.5% strikeout rate and 7.3% walk rate over his 100 career MLB innings heading into 2025. Of course, a good chunk of that prior experience came as a starting pitcher, and Gilbert has increasingly transitioned into being a full-time reliever over the last two seasons.

Source: https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2025/05/white-sox-place-tyler-gilbert-on-15-day-injured-list.html

 

[Chicago White Sox]

White Sox Claim Vinny Capra

The White Sox announced that they have claimed infielder/outfielder Vinny Capra off waivers from the Brewers. He had been designated for assignment by Milwaukee last week. The Sox opened a 40-man spot recently by designating Gage Workman for assignment, so no corresponding move will be necessary there. Capra is out of options, so the Sox will need to open active roster space once he reports to the club.

Capra, 28, has been a good minor league performer in his career but hasn’t really had a chance to carve out a major league career. He has appeared in each of the four most recent major league seasons but has only been sent up to the plate 96 times over those campaigns. He has produced a dismal .105/.170/.163 line in those.

But on the farm, he received 1,287 plate appearances from 2021 to 2024. He drew walks in 11.4% of those while limiting strikeouts to an 18.6% clip. He had a combined .287/.376/.431 line and 118 wRC+ over those seasons. He also stole 25 bases while bouncing around the diamond. He has played every position except first base, though that includes just one inning as a catcher and just a third of an inning on the mound.

The Brewers apparently thought there was a chance of Capra being a useful big league player. They claimed him off waivers from the Pirates in 2023. Coming into 2025, he had exhausted his option years but earned an Opening Day roster spot by hitting .292/.358/.729 in spring training. However, he didn’t carry it over into the regular season, which nudged him off the roster and onto the waiver wire.

The Chicago roster is a bit of a motley crew right now. After losing 121 games last year, they are giving playing time to guys like Luis Robert Jr. and Andrew Vaughn, with the club hoping those guys can build trade value in the coming months. Meanwhile, guys like Miguel Vargas and Chase Meidroth are attempting to establish themselves as bonafide major leaguers and form part of the next core. Capra will jump in there and can bounce around to multiple spots. If he can get some plate appearances and produce some offense like he has in the minors, he’ll be a nice pickup for the Sox.

Photo courtesy of Benny Sieu, Imagn Images

Source: https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2025/05/white-sox-claim-vinny-capra.html

 

[Chicago White Sox]

White Sox, Adrian Houser Nearing Deal

The White Sox are nearing an agreement with free agent righty Adrian Houser, reports Robert Murray of FanSided. It’s not clear if he’ll jump right onto the big league roster or head to Triple-A Charlotte. Houser, a client of BBI Sports Group, was granted his release from a minor league contract with Texas last week.

Houser signed with the Rangers during the offseason. He has worked out of the rotation at Triple-A Round Rock, tallying 39 1/3 innings across nine appearances. While his 5.03 earned run average is pedestrian, that’s not all that uncommon in the Pacific Coast League. Houser has stronger peripherals. He struck out a decent 22.8% of opponents while running an excellent 57.3% grounder rate.

Ground balls are Houser’s speciality. He has gotten grounders at a near-52% clip over parts of eight seasons in the majors. That was up in the 58-59% range during his best seasons with Milwaukee but has been down to a more normal 46-48% mark over the past few years. That caught up to him last year, as he allowed 5.84 earned runs per nine across 69 1/3 frames with the Mets. Houser had begun the season in New York’s rotation but was kicked to the bullpen after seven starts. His results in relief were much better. He carried an ERA north of 8.00 as a starting pitcher but turned in a 3.28 mark across 35 2/3 relief innings.

Texas signed him as rotation depth, which seems likely to be his role in Chicago (assuming the deal is finalized). The rebuilding White Sox have baseball’s least experienced rotation. Bryse Wilson is the only member of the current starting staff who entered the season with even one year of MLB service. Wilson, who had begun the year in the bullpen, stepped into the starting five after Martín Pérez suffered a forearm injury. He has allowed a 6.62 ERA with nearly as many walks as strikeouts over four starts.

Rule 5 pick Shane Smith has been the team’s best pitcher, turning in a sterling 2.05 ERA with average strikeout and walk numbers over his first nine MLB starts. Davis Martin and Jonathan Cannon have each been a little worse than average. Opening Day starter Sean Burke has struggled, though he’d been better this month until giving up six runs to the Cubs on Saturday. If Houser jumps right onto the MLB roster, he could nudge Burke or Wilson from the rotation. Burke still has a full slate of minor league options. Wilson is out of options and would need to be designated for assignment for the Sox to take him off the big league roster.

Source: https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2025/05/white-sox-adrian-houser-nearing-deal.html

 

[Chicago White Sox]

White Sox Designate Yoendrys Gomez For Assignment

The White Sox announced Tuesday that right-hander Yoendrys Gomez has been designated for assignment. His spot on the roster goes to veteran righty Adrian Houser, whose previously reported major league deal with the South Siders has now been formally announced. Chicago had just claimed Gomez off waivers from the Dodgers ten days ago.

The Sox were Gomez’s third team of the still-young season. A former top prospect in the Yankees’ system, he’s bounced from the Bronx to L.A. to Chicago’s South Side. Along the way, he’s totaled 17 2/3 innings and allowed 13 runs (6.62 ERA) on 20 hits and 13 walks with 13 strikeouts. He tossed 3 1/3 innings with Chicago and allowed three runs on five hits, two walks and a hit batter. Gomez has now pitched 31 innings in the majors and yielded a 5.23 ERA.

Lackluster major league track record notwithstanding, Gomez sports near-identical ERAs of 3.64 and 3.67 in Double-A and Triple-A, respectively. Those have come in samples of 83 1/3 innings and 81 2/3 frames. Gomez has fanned 27% of his opponents in Triple-A against an 11.3% walk rate, and his Double-A rates (28.3% and 12.6%) are again quite similar.

Any team that claims or acquires Gomez will have to plug him right onto the MLB roster. He’s out of minor league options and can’t be sent down without first clearing waivers. The once-promising righty’s development has been slowed by the canceled 2020 minor league season and a Tommy John procedure that wiped out most of his 2021-22 campaigns. He could potentially benefit from some additional time in the upper minors, but it’s not a luxury teams can pursue until he passes through waivers. If Gomez goes unclaimed this time around, he’ll stick with the Sox as a depth option; he lacks the major league service time or the prior outright assignment needed to reject an outright assignment in favor of free agency.

Source: https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2025/05/white-sox-dfa-yoendrys-gomez.html

 

[Chicago White Sox]

White Sox Release Omar Narvaez

The White Sox released catcher Omar Narváez from his minor league deal, according to an announcement from their Triple-A affiliate. He’d signed one month ago, his second non-roster contract of the year with the Sox.

Narváez has played in 15 games for Triple-A Charlotte, where he’d paired with top prospect Kyle Teel. The veteran hit .218/.317/.345 with a pair of homers in 63 plate appearances. Narváez had a brief stint on the big league roster immediately after Korey Lee went down with an ankle sprain. He only appeared in four games before the team pivoted to prospect Edgar Quero. Narváez was waived, elected free agency, then returned on the aforementioned second minor league deal.

Lee has been on a rehab assignment with Charlotte since May 9. Teams can keep an injured position player on a rehab stint for up to 20 days. The Sox will need to activate him by next week at the latest. They’ll need to decide whether to keep him in Charlotte on an optional assignment or carry him on the MLB roster, likely at the expense of out-of-options backup Matt Thaiss.

They could also option Quero back out, but he’s holding his head above water in his first MLB action (.267/.357/.302 in 98 plate appearances). Keeping him in the majors allows both Quero and Teel to continue developing defensively with the respective lion’s shares of playing time at catcher in MLB and Triple-A.

Narváez figures to look for a minor league opportunity elsewhere. The 33-year-old has appeared in 10 big league seasons. He developed into a solid #1 catcher for the Mariners and Brewers midway through that run, though his production has tanked over the past few seasons. He owns a .201/.278/.286 slash line since the start of 2022.

Source: https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2025/05/white-sox-release-omar-narvaez.html

 

[Chicago White Sox]

White Sox Notes: Robert, Wilson, Benintendi

Luis Robert Jr. has been the subject of trade rumors for well over a year. With the White Sox in a full rebuild, it has felt like a matter of time before the 2023 All-Star would head elsewhere.

That has been complicated by Robert’s recent play. He missed a couple months early last year with a hip flexor strain and hit .224/.278/.379 with 14 homers in 100 games. The Sox held him over the offseason, maintaining a high asking price in hopes that he’d rebound and emerge as a key deadline trade chip. That hasn’t happened, as Robert’s numbers have only further spiraled. He goes into tonight’s game with a .186/.281/.308 line over 180 plate appearances. Robert has taken walks at a career-best 11.7% rate, but he’s striking out 29% of the time and not hitting for his usual amount of power.

Robert acknowledged that the lack of production is tanking his trade value. “Right now, as my season is going, I don’t think anybody is going to take a chance on me,” he told reporters through an interpreter (link via Kyle Williams of The Chicago Sun-Times). There are a little over two months for Robert to turn things around before the deadline. He remains a capable defensive center fielder and leads MLB with 17 stolen bases. Robert still has intriguing physical tools, but he hasn’t come close to his 2021-23 numbers (.287/.331/.511) in the batter’s box.

The Sox owe Robert what remains of his $15MM salary. He’s controlled via $20MM club options for another two seasons, but it’s increasingly difficult to see the team exercising those.

In other news out of Chicago, the Sox finalized their one-year deal with righty Adrian Houser this afternoon. He drew right into the rotation and held Seattle scoreless over six innings in a 1-0 victory for his team debut. Manager Will Venable confirmed that the Sox were moving Bryse Wilson back to the bullpen as a result of the signing (link via Scott Merkin of MLB.com).

Wilson had begun the year in relief but drew into the starting five after the Martín Pérez injury. He had a 5.28 ERA over 10 relief appearances. He struggled in four starts, surrendering 13 runs across 17 2/3 innings. Wilson is out of options, so the Sox needed to keep him on the MLB roster or designate him for assignment. He’s likely to work as a long man.

Meanwhile, Andrew Benintendi began a rehab assignment with Triple-A Charlotte this evening. He went 0-4 with a strikeout while working as the designated hitter. Benintendi has been out for two weeks with a strained calf. He’d hit .224/.298/.400 with five homers through his first 24 games. Austin Slater is the primary left fielder in Benintendi’s absence.

Source: https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2025/05/white-sox-notes-robert-wilson-benintendi.html

 

[Chicago White Sox]

White Sox Outright Yoendrys Gómez

The White Sox announced to reporters, including Scott Merkin of MLB.com, that right-hander Yoendrys Gómez has cleared waivers and been outrighted to Triple-A Charlotte. He had been designated for assignment earlier this week.

While no player wants to be booted out of the major leagues, it’s possible that this is the best result for Gómez in the short term. He came into 2025 out of options, which has led to him bouncing around the league in a long relief role. He started the year with the Yankees but was designated for assignment about three weeks into the season. He was claimed off waivers by the Dodgers but lasted a little over a week with that club. The Sox then claimed him on May 10th and he was DFA’d on the 20th.

Around those transactions, he logged 17 2/3 innings over 12 long relief outings, posting a 6.62 earned run average in the process. But now that he has cleared waivers, perhaps the Sox will let him get stretched back out as a starter in Charlotte.

That’s a role in which he has shown some promise in the past. Though he made his professional debut in 2017, the canceled 2020 season and a Tommy John surgery in 2021 kept him from climbing too high on the minor league ladder. He went into 2022 without having pitched any higher than Single-A.

Over the 2022 through 2024 seasons, he went through High-A, Double-A, Triple-A and the majors. He logged 195 2/3 innings on the farm over those three seasons with a 3.36 ERA. His 11.6% walk rate in that time was certainly high but he also punched out 27.2% of batters faced. Baseball America considered him one of the top 30 Yankee prospects in each season from 2019 to 2024.

But as mentioned, his out-of-options status has had him in a sort of holding pattern for this year. He hasn’t shown enough for a proper big league rotation job, with a 5.23 ERA in 31 big league innings over three seasons. He has been bouncing around to various clubs in a mop-up role.

While losing his roster spot probably isn’t fun, it might at least be a chance to get back into a groove as a starter. The White Sox have a fairly inexperienced rotation, so there could be opportunities available later in the year. Adrian Houser was just signed but he’s on a one-year deal and should be traded this summer if he’s throwing well. Davis Martin, Jonathan Cannon, Sean Burke and Shane Smith all came into this season with less than a year of service time. Injuries are also fairly inevitable, with the Sox having already lost Drew Thorpe and Ky Bush to Tommy John surgery this year.

Photo courtesy of Jonathan Hui, Imagn Images

Source: https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2025/05/white-sox-outright-yoendrys-gomez.html

 

[Chicago White Sox]

White Sox Option Andrew Vaughn, Tim Elko

The White Sox announced today that outfielders Andrew Benintendi and Mike Tauchman have been reinstated from the injured list. In corresponding moves, first basemen Andrew Vaughn and Tim Elko have been optioned to Triple-A Charlotte.

Looking at recent developments, Vaughn being optioned to the minors isn’t a shock. His bat has hovered around league average for most of his career but he’s been far worse here in 2025. He’s currently sporting a .189/.218/.314 line on the year. He has five home runs but the batting average is obviously rough. A tiny 3.6% walk rate means his on-base percentage is also quite low. His 44 wRC+ indicates he’s been 56% below league average at the plate this year.

Zooming out for a wider view, it’s been a pretty surprising trajectory. Vaughn was a slugger in college, hitting 50 home runs in 160 games for California, leading to a .374/.495/.688 batting line. The Sox took Vaughn third overall in the 2019 draft and signed him with a $7.2212MM bonus. The hope was that he was a potential middle-of-the-order bat who could be a key staple of the lineup for years to come.

It hasn’t played out as hoped. Vaughn cracked the Opening Day roster in 2021 but, as mentioned, his results have been fairly middling so far. He has shown a bit of pop but nothing special, finishing each previous season of his career between 15 and 21 long balls. The batting averages haven’t been great and he hasn’t drawn many walks. From 2021 to 2024, he took 2,258 plate appearances for the Sox with 72 home runs. His 20.3% strikeout rate was good but his 6.5% walk rate was subpar. His combined .253/.310/.415 batting line led to a 102 wRC+, indicating he was 2% better than league average in that time.

That’s not disastrous production but the Sox were surely hoping for more, especially because he doesn’t provide value in any other way. He’s not a burner on the basepaths, with just three career stolen bases. His defense isn’t great anywhere on the field. Earlier in his career, the Sox got him some outfield time while they had José Abreu at first. The results were disastrous, with Vaughn getting terrible grades from advanced defensive metrics. He has since settled in as the regular at first but both Outs Above Average and Defensive Runs Saved consider him to be subpar there as well.

Coming into 2025, it wasn’t even a guarantee the Sox would tender him a contract. In the end, they did, and avoided arbitration by agreeing to a $5.85MM salary for this year. For a club that lost 121 games last year, the hope was presumably that Vaughn would finally have a big breakout at the plate and turn himself into a viable summer trade candidate, but that has not happened.

For now, Vaughn will head down to Charlotte to see if there’s some way to get himself back on track, but it seems his rope with the White Sox is running out. As mentioned, he was a non-tender candidate at the end of last year. He can be retained for next year via arbitration but it’s hard to see that happening with this year’s swoon. If he’s down in the minors for a few weeks, they would gain an extra year of club control, but that’s not likely to matter if he’s a non-tender candidate anyway. If he shows any promise at all in the coming months, the Sox will surely try to flip him prior to the July 31st deadline.

Elko getting optioned isn’t a shock in a vacuum. He was only promoted two weeks ago and has a .161/.188/.452 line in his first 32 big league plate appearances. But he had been taking some of the first base playing time recently and would have been a candidate to replace Vaughn there. With both Vaughn and Elko getting optioned, the Sox are subtracting their two primary first basemen.

General manager Chris Getz says that Miguel Vargas and Lenyn Sosa will be mixing in at that position, per James Fegan of Sox Machine. Sosa is a utility player with a subpar bat. Vargas is a former top prospect who may be having a breakout at the plate. He struggled in his initial big league call-ups with the Dodgers and this year’s batting line was .139/.236/.203 as of April 21st. Since then, however, he has a .315/.379/.565 line and 166 wRC+. That’s still a small sample of 103 plate appearances but his previous prospect status perhaps gives it some credibility.

He has been the club’s regular third baseman with passable defense there. DRS considers him to be a roughly league average defender at that spot, though OAA has him at -5 in his career and -3 this year. Perhaps the Sox feel it’s better if he moves to the less-demanding first base position. Josh Rojas is playing third base for now but he’s not hitting well this year and will likely be traded if he turns his season around. Perhaps Vargas will move back to third if Vaughn earns his way back to the majors.

Photo courtesy of Jay Biggerstaff, Imagn Images

Source: https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2025/05/white-sox-option-andrew-vaughn-tim-elko.html

 

[Chicago White Sox]

White Sox Release Oscar Colas

The White Sox have released outfielder Oscar Colas, according to an announcement from the club’s Triple-A affiliate Charlotte Knights. Colas was previously outrighted off the club’s 40-man roster back in March, so the move has no impact on Chicago’s major league roster.

It’s an unfortunate end to Colas’s time in the organization. The 26-year-old was a fairly high-profile player in Cuba and Japan before he came over to affiliated ball by signing with Chicago for a $2.7MM bonus in early 2022. He crushed minor league pitching that year and put himself on the map as a consensus top-100 prospect in the sport headed into the 2023 season. He broke camp with the team after a strong spring training, but ultimately struggled badly across 75 games with the White Sox that year. He hit just .216/.257/.314 in 263 trips to the plate, with an elevated 27.0% strikeout rate against a lackluster 4.6% walk rate.

Those numbers weren’t enough for the White Sox to continue riding with Colas even amid a disastrous 101-loss season, and he was shipped back to the minors. Once back in Triple-A, Colas regained his hitting prowess somewhat and slashed .272/.345/.465 with the Knights in 54 games down the stretch. As the White Sox dove headfirst into a rebuilding phase in 2024, many expected that Colas would receive another opportunity to come up and try to establish himself in the majors with the club. That never came to pass, however, as reps in right field were instead primarily split between Dominic Fletcher, Gavin Sheets, and Tommy Pham.

Relegated to Triple-A for almost the entirety of 2024, Colas hit .273/.368/.273 with a 26.3% strikeout rate and a 10.5% walk rate in the 13 games he did play in the majors last year but recorded no extra-base hits in the majors and saw his performance in the minors take a noticeable step back as he slashed just .246/.332/.400 across 400 trips to the plate. Colas did not factor into the club’s plans for the outfield this year either, as team brass added players like Mike Tauchman and Austin Slater to the mix rather than give Colas another opportunity. This year, he posted a brutal .163/.245/.255 slash line across the Double- and Triple-A levels in 29 games (110 plate appearances) before the White Sox decided it was time to pull the plug.

Now that the White Sox and Colas have parted ways, the outfielder is free to sign with any of the league’s 29 other teams. The outfielder won’t turn 27 until September and is not terribly far removed from sensational numbers in the upper minors, so it wouldn’t be a shock if an outfield needy club gave him a call to serve as a depth option or injury replacement. Another possible option would be to explore the possibility of playing overseas, building on his stint with NPB’s Fukuoka Softbank Hawks during the 2019 season. If Colas is unable to find an attractive stateside opportunity, he’s certainly young enough to find success overseas before attempting to make an MLB comeback as a handful of other players have done over the years.

Source: https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2025/05/white-sox-release-oscar-colas.html

 

[Chicago White Sox]

Poll: Did The White Sox Find A Gem In The Rule 5?

There’s not been much for fans on the South Side of Chicago to get excited about of late. The club’s lengthy rebuild in the 2010s assembled a core that included well-regarded pieces like Lucas Giolito, Dylan Cease, Eloy Jimenez, Tim Anderson, Yoan Moncada, and Luis Robert Jr. but did not translate to much success on the field; the group ultimately made it to the playoffs in 2020 and ’21 but lost in the first round both years before regressing to an 81-81 record in 2022 and kicking off the latest rebuild.

Since then, White Sox fans have watched that core get dismantled, whether via trades or declined club options, and breakout ace Garrett Crochet followed them out the door over the offseason. Crochet’s excellent pitching performances were the one highlight of the White Sox season this side of the Campfire Milkshake, so that left fans with little to look forward to in 2025… or so we thought. In reality, the White Sox seem to have replaced their dominant ace with another potential front-of-the-rotation arm who came from the most unlikely of places: the Rule 5 draft.

Righty Shane Smith was plucked from the Brewers’ organization and made Chicago’s Opening Day rotation out of Spring Training. It was difficult to know what to expect from Smith, given that an organization as well-regarded for its pitching development as Milwaukee was comfortable leaving the righty unprotected this past winter. That’s quickly proving to have been a mistake. Through his first ten starts of the season, Smith has posted a sterling 2.36 ERA that stands as the eleventh-best figure among qualified starters this year, just ahead of Paul Skenes.

ERA is an imperfect estimator of talent, of course, and Smith’s personal figure is deflated by the fact that a six-run, five-inning outing against the Cubs saw five of those runs scored as unearned. Even setting ERA aside, however, his season has been an impressive one so far: a 3.32 FIP (26th) and 3.57 xERA (t-29th) lend credence to the idea of Smith as a potential front-end arm, even if he isn’t quite in the Cy Young conversation based on those more advanced metrics. Have the White Sox truly found a diamond in the rough, or is Smith’s hot start to his career just a flash in the pan?

Overall, Smith’s profile is a solid one, but there are signs that it’s closer to that of a league average starter than anything else. His 22.0% strikeout rate and 8.1% walk rate are both middle of the pack, and a 45.3% ground ball rate is above-average but not exactly elite. His .259 BABIP and 5.9% home run to fly ball ratio are both top-of-the-scale, but neither of those figures are particularly skill-interactive or sustainable, particularly for a hurler who rarely generates soft contact. If anything, those figures are potential red flags that indicate risk of future regression. Smith’s 3.96 SIERA and 97 xFIP- paint him as a roughly average MLB starter as well, offering all the more reason to think he might regress.

There are reasons for optimism as well, however. Smith generates swinging strikes at a well above average clip, which could be a sign for strikeout potential beyond the average rates that he’s shown to this point. An uptick in strikeouts would raise the floor on his whole profile in a way that could allow him to keep producing at this level. Even without that, however, it’s fair to point out that there have certainly been pitchers who have found consistent MLB success over the years despite mediocre underlying data. Smith’s metrics are better than, as one example, those of Javier Assad on the other side of town. Assad has a career 3.40 ERA across nearly 300 innings in the majors despite lackluster metrics, and that’s a figure any team would happily take from a Rule 5 pick.

How do MLBTR readers think Smith will pan out going forward? Will he be able to find another gear and keep producing like a front-half of the rotation arm, will he settle in as more of a reliable back-end starter, or will this hot start prove to be a total mirage? Have your say in the poll below:

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Source: https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2025/05/poll-did-the-white-sox-find-a-gem-in-the-rule-5.html