There's a lot that can be said about Gavin Sheets, and was said before, during and after the White Sox non-tendered him nearly two weeks ago. His home run power was curiously absent for a guy that large, he was routinely asked to play outfield despite months and years of showing that he couldn't cover the ground, yet he also looked uncomfortable at first base when he got a turn at his natural position. He had his selling points -- durability, an actual plate approach, and commendable professionalism in staggering circumstances -- but it wasn't enough to move the needle when it came time to committing to a salary above the league minimum.
This is all well-covered ground, but it struck me that despite all of Sheets' long-established flaws, he has a case for being the White Sox's most successful second-round pick in the last 20 years.
"Successful" can be defined in different ways, of course. If you judge Sheets by Wins Above Replacement, his -2.7 WAR ranks dead last among Sox second-rounders who have made the majors, but that's not where the debate should start. Steele Walker theoretically ranks higher by that measure by finishing his career with -0.2 WAR, but that came in just five games with the Texas Rangers. Now he's Walker, Texas Realtor despite being drafted the year after Sheets.
Any discussion needs to start with games played, and when it comes to White Sox second-round picks, that eliminates most of the competition, at least since Ryan Sweeney went from a second-round pick out of the Iowa prep ranks in 2003 to a seven-year run as a fourth outfielder for a few different MLB teams.
Here's how they rank when it comes to plate appearances or batters faced:
| Player | Year | PA/BF |
|---|---|---|
| Gavin Sheets | 2017 | 1434 |
| Trayce Thompson | 2009 | 1058 |
| Jake Petricka | 2010 | 1049 |
| Chris Beck | 2012 | 596 |
| David Holmberg | 2009 | 565 |
| Erik Johnson | 2011 | 534 |
| Tyler Danish | 2013 | 239 |
| Steele Walker | 2018 | 16 |
So it's really a three-horse race between Sheets, Thompson and Petricka, and when it comes to the primary task at hand for MLB draft picks -- participating in MLB games -- it's not much of one. Sheets is in front by nearly a season's worth of reserve playing time, and while Thompson can't be ruled out from adding to his total, he wasn't able to crack a major-league roster in 2024. He spent the entire season in Triple-A, first with Syracuse and then with Iowa, and Grady Sizemore-led turnarounds are less accessible to him at the moment.
Yet action can't be the only metric, because Sheets is the rare guy who has benefited from being in the wrong place at the right time. Were Thompson in his physical prime for the White Sox teams of the last two years, he probably would've received hundreds of plate appearances himself. Hell, he nearly picked up 100 with the 2023 White Sox despite being 32 and posting a .493 OPS.
When you start getting into what the player did with the games he entered, the discussion becomes a little more interesting. Not a lot more interesting, because in the end we're still talking about Gavin Sheets, Trayce Thompson and Jake Petricka here, but since the White Sox won't officially announce their coaching staff, this will have to do.
Wins Above Replacement
- Thompson, 2.7
- Petricka, 1.8
- Sheets, -2.7
Thompson's ability to play a credible center field buoyed his value during his many ups and downs, and put him in a position to post some crazy small-sample successes when everything clicked offensively. Petricka had one big year.
Peak Contributions
- Petricka's 2014
- Thompson's 2022
- Sheets' 2021
Petricka amassed 2 WAR over 67 games of high-leverage work for the White Sox in 2014, leading the team with 14 saves while posting a 2.96 ERA. Because he had to prove it with the team's highest leverage index over the course of a full season, I'd give that performance a slight nod over Thompson's out-of-nowhere 2+ WAR half-season with the Dodgers, when he hit 13 homers in 74 games despite striking out a third of the time.
As for Sheets, he homered 11 times over his first 54 games, and his 122 OPS+ was an important contribution to a DH position that succeeded with stopgaps for six months.
Service time
- Thompson
- Sheets
- Petricka
If the mark of a success for a major leaguer is earning a seven-figure salary -- which is an accomplishment I remember Evan Marshall treasuring -- then Thompson is the only one who qualifies thus far. That found-money season with the Dodgers in 2022 pushed him into arbitration eligibility, and they paid him $1.45 million for 2023. He didn't last the year, as the Dodgers dumped him to the White Sox at the deadline as salary relief in the Lance Lynn/Joe Kelly deal, but that's besides the point.
That said, Thompson didn't reach his first arb year until his age-32 season, while Sheets will still be 28 next Opening Day. That brings us to...
Stability
- Sheets
- Petricka
- Thompson
While Thompson cleared four years of service time, it was a slog getting there. His career took a wrong turn in his second MLB season when he fractured multiple vertebrae. He's played for five different MLB teams -- including three stints with the Sox and two with Los Angeles -- and five other organizations in the minors.
Petricka followed up his emergency closer season with a decent encore in 2015, but a hip surgery cut his 2016 short after just eight appearances, and a series of elbow issues plagued him all the way to a non-tender after 2017. He popped up with Blue Jays, Brewers and Angels over the next four seasons, but couldn't summon staying power.
By contrast, Sheets avoided anything resembling an existential crisis between his MLB debut and his non-tendering. The only hardship as documented in transaction logs came in 2022: an 11-day stint in Charlotte after the White Sox optioned him in June. The idea was to give him some time to come up with a counterattack to the standard second-year adjustments, but injuries to Danny Mendick and Adam Engel necessitated his return within a fortnight, and that more or less set the tone for the next 2½ years. He's a testament to the idea that 90 percent of life is showing up, because amid a sea of soft-tissue injuries and rehab stint setbacks, his availability was practically never in question.
His performance, the White Sox's records, and his eventual non-tendering all point to the limits of merely being around, which is why you have to weigh quality along with the quantity. That said, even if Sheets isn't the best ballplayer the White Sox have produced in the second round over the last two decades, his career to date is one that most second-round picks probably envy, because it took three consecutive full seasons before the first real uncertainty to arrive.
That this registers as an accomplishment is a larger White Sox problem, and the club mercifully ended Sheets' run as being an avatar for their systemic shortcomings on the Friday before last.
