The top seven top 10 White Sox prospect lists for 2023
With MLB Pipeline posting its top 30 White Sox prospect list on Thursday, all of the major top prospect lists are accounted for … and we’re barely into March. I’m not sure what we’re supposed to do with the rest of the month.
The MLB.com list offers no sizable surprises, mostly because this farm system is not designed to surprise. There’s a consensus top three, and then a consensus next six. After that, the discussion expands considerably.
In this case, while Jonathan Cannon took the 10th spot, Ryan Burrowes was knocking at the door at No. 11, one spot ahead of Norge Vera. It would’ve been fun to see Burrowes grab the last spot on the board to better represent the murkiness of the remaining field, but I left him in my “honorable mentions” list because I just want to see him stateside before putting a number on him, so I can’t blame anybody else for doing the same.
There’s always next year. For now, here’s the big board of lists, with a handful of observations below:
| # | SM | FS | BA | MLB | Law | BP | FG |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Montgomery | Montgomery | Montgomery | Montgomery | Montgomery | Montgomery | Montgomery |
| 2 | Colás | Colás | Colás | Colás | Ramos | Colás | Ramos |
| 3 | Ramos | Ramos | Ramos | Ramos | Colás | Ramos | Colás |
| 4 | Sosa | Schultz | Schultz | Schultz | Rodríguez | Vera | Schultz |
| 5 | Rodríguez | Sosa | Burke | Burke | Sosa | Mena | Sosa |
| 6 | Mena | Rodríguez | Mena | Rodríguez | Schultz | Schultz | Rodríguez |
| 7 | Pallette | Mena | Pallette | Mena | Pallette | Pallette | Burke |
| 8 | Schultz | Pallette | Vera | Sosa | Mena | Rodríguez | Mena |
| 9 | Burke | Burke | Rodríguez | Pallette | Burke | Mieses | Santos |
| 10 | Vera | Vera | Sosa | Cannon | Cannon | Burke | Vera |
*This is the rare board that has everybody accounted for with the same body of evidence. Sometimes lists are posted before a key signing or trade, or sometimes lists are posted a month into the season, which is how Bryan Ramos outranked Colson Montgomery on FanGraphs’ list last year.
*Speaking of FanGraphs, its FanGraphs’ Future Value-based ranking is prone to inflating the standing of one low-leverage relief type, and Gregory Santos threatens to follow in the footsteps of Codi Heuer, Zack Burdi and Caleb Freeman (although Heuer briefly looked worth the billing).
*Vera topped out at fourth on Baseball Prospectus’ list, and bottomed out at 17th on Keith Law’s, which looks like the biggest spread to me. The enthusiasm chasm makes sense, because he’s looked like three different guys over the course of his very brief career.
*Sean Burke has a smaller divide, but the difference between fifth and 10th on this list strikes me as as the difference between believing he can contribute at a Davis Martin-like level, or that he’s a year away from it.
*Baseball Prospectus also out on a limb with Luis Mieses, although as I mentioned during Prospect Week, I like Mieses for his appreciable progress over the last two years, which gives hope that he can close up at least one of the gaps in his game that’s holding him back.
*I’m the lowest on Noah Schultz, although not because of Schultz himself. I mostly want the White Sox to prove that they can smoothly start a prep pitcher’s professional career before I put him ahead of pitchers who have demonstrated success at higher levels. The Schultz-adjacent skepticism also made me the high man on Lenyn Sosa, which I’m fine with.
Prospect Week Coverage
- Prospect Week: White Sox farm system made progress, but unevenly
- Wrangling 2023 White Sox Prospects: When injuries interfered
- Wrangling 2023 White Sox Prospects: New in town
- Wrangling 2023 White Sox Prospects: Onward and upward
- Wrangling 2023 White Sox Prospects: Time on their side
- Wrangling 2023 White Sox Prospects: The big issues
- Sox Machine’s top 10 White Sox prospects for 2023 (Patreon-exclusive)
- P.O. Sox: Prospect Week leftovers (Patreon-exclusive)
FutureSox Prospect Week
- Just Missed: Chicago White Sox prospects just outside the pre-season 2023 top 30
- FutureSox: Chicago White Sox 2023 preseason top 30 list (16-30)
- FutureSox: Chicago White Sox 2023 preseason top 30 prospect list (1-15)
- FutureSox Podcast: 2023 Preseason Top 30 Prospect Show
Author
Great quick look at the prospects across 7 different sources. I love the differences across and reading the takes on the prospects is much more important that rank.
I love the smell of rebuild in the morning….
You have to be human chromatographer to detect the smell of a rebuild with such weak farm.
The ZiPS prospect rankings are interesting:
Both Colas and Montgomery are nowhere to be found….
Someone Colas’s age is not going to make it onto a ZiPS list unless their minor league numbers are undeniable. Montgomery not being on there is kinda interesting.
Wilfred Veras made number 10 on ZiPS’s top 10 1B prospects.
To be fair, that has to do with how few true 1B prospects there are. 10th on the 1B list probably isn’t even a top 400 prospect.
I’m not sure where Veras ranks, but Dan said the 5th ranked 1B prospect was 282 on the overall master list.
Montgomery is probably not getting ZiPS love bc low minors walk rates, which was a lot of his offensive output, frequently doesn’t translate as a guy moves up the ladder bc pitchers simply get better control. He also hasn’t yet shown the power potential that his 6’4″ frame implies; if he does that somewhat this year while not striking out too much more, the computer will be a lot more excited.
I thought zips needed a certain volume of data before it projected minor leaguers and that Montgomery had less then that.
Romy getting the nod in CF today? Is that right or does someone have a bad scorecard up?
It’s real. He’s played 17 games there in the minors. https://twitter.com/scottmerkin/status/1631692265914789889
What would be a rational reason that so few ST White Sox games are being televised this year? Lack of sponsors?
It’s a White Sox thing so probably only the irrational applies.
In the meantime:
https://twitter.com/BleacherNation/status/1623401836311879680/photo/1
I think I get to see the Sox as much on Marquee as I will on the Sox channel. But hey I get to see A Fishing Story on the Sox channel.
My complaint is what happened to all the webcasts? They used to do just about every game at camelback and now it feels like we get nothing.
Jim was talking about it in his last Podcast with Josh. I can’t remember the conclusion.
It’s almost as if they could give a crap if we care about the team or not. No Soxfest, no Spring Training coverage, minimal offseason activity, refusing to talk to the biggest sports talk ratio station in town. The Sox are being openly antagonistic to their fan base.
Giving their customers what they want isn’t a white sox strength
Too many SELL THE TEAM signs lately
Two questions about this lineup card:
Romy ‘Gorilla’ Gonzalez. Zorilla eat your heart out.
They seem intent on Romy becoming a Swiss Army knife type, even though he’s done nothing with the bat to make it matter.
Gotta have a Leury stand in
Question: Who’s Hanser Alberto?
The #3 prospect in all of baseball.
Apparently someone who posted a 1.18 WHIP across 10 relief appearances for the Dodgers last season.
superutility dude with excellent contact skills, very little pop, and the literal lowest walk rate of all active players (min 1000 PA)
Hanser, he’s so hot right now.
Somebody that hopefully we won’t see taking PAs this year for the White Sox.
https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/a/alberha01.shtml
interesting that they had Rule V draft pick Nick Avila throw two innings today. wonder if that indicates they see him as a potential swingman type like VV last year; he was a fizzled SP prospect who broke out upon moving to the bullpen last year.
I don’t know, the most open position on the staff is long reliever so for the 4 or 5 guys competing for a spot they should all be trying to show they can do that job. Add to it that he’s a rule 5 so has to make the team, it’s doubly important for him.