If I know our readers -- and really, it's a mixed bag -- it's that as much or more than they love debating who might make the club out of camp for their beloved White Sox, they love debating which player might finally get the boot ... at least off the 40-man roster.
As the White Sox brain trust dons their pearly white lab coats, pours bubbling liquids into beakers and searches for the perfect mix of flawed but developing youngsters and established veterans looking for a bounce back season, their intentions to run an open competition for spots is colliding with their proclivity for hunting the waiver wire, and forming a perfect storm with their heavy supply of prospect invites.
Currently, the White Sox have a full 40-man, so there needs to be a corresponding subtraction for anyone off the roster who is added to their Opening Day 26. But as I always say whenever a reader asks, "But who gets cut when Yoán Moncada gets back in 7 1/2 weeks?!?!?", the answer is, "Whoever is injured by then." So let's do the easiest part of this first.
60-day IL candidates (-1)
Team don't place players on the 60-day injured list until they actually need to use the spot, but Prelander Berroa undergoing Tommy John surgery makes him an inevitable choice to clear space on the 40-man.
Juan Carela was optioned right before he was set to undergo TJ, so he will wind up going on the minor league IL. He doesn't accumulate service time on the minor league IL, and with the budgets that White Sox baseball operations are receiving, Carela's pre-arbitration years have outsized worth, but the trade-off is the Sox won't get to reclaim a 40-man spot. This is also your explanation for why Davis Martin never went on the 60-day IL during his TJ rehab last season.
While I understand the urge to comment, "I bet Drew Thorpe/Andrew Benintendi/Austin Slater wind up on the 60-day here," for the sake of cleaner mathematics we will not be factoring White Sox fans' ineffable sense of doom into the calculations. So let's just say we're at 39.
Out of options (-1?)
Matt Thaiss, Miguel Vargas and Lenyn Sosa are all out of options this spring, which gives them a little immediate nudge if the White Sox have any desire to see what they can do in extended playing time. But also, bailing on them frees up a 40-man spot.
The organization has been full steam ahead on Vargas and he hasn't discouraged them with his spring performance at the plate. Sosa doesn''t enjoy the same status, but has consistently hit since last September -- including through the winter in Venezuela -- and the Sox are starved for bats. Thaiss has a mix of experience and relatively stable recent performance otherwise missing in the White Sox catching ranks. While the Sox pride themselves on holding an open competition, discussing that Mike Tauchman and Bryse Wilson are both also out of options does not seem like a good use of time.
Jacob Amaya will probably be discussed in multiple sections of this piece, but part of the reason he's been in DFA limbo much of this winter is he cannot be freely stashed for Triple-A depth. He might be the most polished defensive shortstop, but is unlikely to be a multi-year solution. The Sox could simply swap 40-man roster spots if they opted for Chase Meidroth on the opening day roster over Amaya, or they could pick up one if they felt Brooks Baldwin would be well-served by a backup infielder role.
Veteran NRI hitters (+2, maybe +3)
Travis Jankowski arrived in White Sox camp not just with incredibly lofty requirements for gifting Andrew Vaughn a car, but a rather clear path to a roster spot due to injuries to Andrew Benintendi and Austin Slater. A Jankowski-Michael A. Taylor platoon at any outfield spot is not what the team envisioned for 2025 or beyond, but being able to platoon glove-first backup outfielders is better than not platooning them.
There are a lot of potential permutations for the 26th man/fifth outfielder spot behind them; do they carry Dominic Fletcher if Jankowski already gives them two lefties they'd rather platoon already? Does Baldwin's outfield work make him a candidate for a super utility role? In either case, let's say Jankowski will need a spot. If you spend all your time telling friends and fellow coffee shop patrons that Bobby Dalbec is a perfect four corners reserve for this roster, the math is the same.
Brandon Drury and Joey Gallo are both type XX(b) free agents on minor league deals, meaning the White Sox are required to inform them by Mar. 22 if they're making the team and if not, offer the choice of granting their release or pay them a $100K roster retention bonus. Before he was hexed by an optimistic article about his spring training performance, Drury looked like the clear pick here to grab a job as a DH/bench bat. Bryan Ramos seems likelier to start the year on the IL than factor into this competition.
Omar Narváez is here and has history with bench coach Walker McKinven, but Korey Lee has had his second-straight job-winning caliber Cactus League performance.
Chatham's own Nick Maton had five major league at-bats last year and is 28, so he wouldn't seem like a priority case for opening day, but he's whacked a couple of spring training dingers and played a fair amount of shortstop at Triple-A last year. I cannot imagine Maton and Amaya occupying the same 40-man roster, so let's project two adds from this group and assume we're at 41.
The Rule 5 pick (--)
After giving no quarter to the Asian Breeze on Thursday morning, Shane Smith still looks like one of the best things the White Sox have going this camp. The debate with the 24-year-old is more about whether to put him in the five-man rotation, rounding out a group with Davis Martin, Martín Pérez, Jonathan Cannon and Sean Burke, or to give the last spot to Wilson and shift Smith to the bullpen. Either choice figures to have a neutral effect on the 40-man.
Let's stick at 41.
Ascendant prospects (--)
By and large, if a top White Sox prospect is advanced enough to be in consideration to make the team, they're already on the 40-man (Ramos, Colson Montgomery) or is it was well-understood that their invite to camp was about acclimation (Noah Schultz, Hagen Smith, Grant Taylor, Braden Montgomery) rather than competition.
Edgar Quero and Kyle Teel would be the primary exceptions, but are both light on Triple-A experience and there are too many veteran options available to rush their arrival. Meidroth probably has the best chance, but despite his heavy usage, hasn't been clearly head and shoulders over the rest of the crowd to justify the extra work yet, in my view.
Mason Adams has drawn quiet raves from the coaching staff and getting a start on Friday is in line with that, but his promotion is anticipated as more of a mid-season consideration.
How many randos in the bullpen? (+2)
Relievers lead transient existences. They're always getting hot or playing catch or getting dry-humped or having elbow pain so intense they nearly fall unconscious, regardless of the point on the schedule. The hierarchy in the bullpen is heavily dictated by who is throwing the ball well at this very specific moment, so it would seem like they could usher in a lot of 40-man roster tumult.
It would be crazy if the only 40-man addition wound up being Mike Clevinger, right?
It would be even crazier if the Sox absorbed a third Clevinger-related PR hit only to not roster him. He's had two scoreless appearance and sat in the mid-90s so far, but even if he didn't make the initial eight-man bullpen, staying in Arizona to continue ramping up sounds more likely than a long stint in Triple-A. They've gone back to this well many times on purpose, so it's not going to end without them taking at least one more sip.
But on the whole, the Sox are honestly not that flush in non-roster reliever candidates. Slider-centric minor leaguers Trey McGough and Eric Adler have already been optioned. Peyton Pallette is still around and has been effective if not at peak late-2024 velocity, but hasn't pitched above Double-A yet and would be a surprising season-opening choice. Especially since Pallette has the built-up innings base to be a factor through the end of the year.
From there, it's veteran right-hander Dan Altavilla, former Mets first-round pick Justin Dunn, longtime Cleveland high-leverage guy James Karinchak and requisite former Royal Jonathan Heasley. Dunn is another Sox addition who has developed a new changeup in camp, making him a particular source of optimism, but that has also justified stretching him out to as much as three innings so far. The Sox plan on having several multi-inning relievers, and Dunn has pitched fewer than four professional innings since the end of the 2022 season due to shoulder surgery, so it'd be surprising if he was being prepped to start in Charlotte. Beset by control problems historically, Altavilla hasn't walked anyone in six appearances, although he has plunked two.
Neither Dunn nor Altavilla are type XX(b) free agents who are mandated by the CBA to have opt-outs, so they could be stashed for depth at Charlotte even with strong performances. Karinchak's velocity remains in the low-90s and has had a couple of blowup outings. Heasley is unscored upon in four innings of work but reads as swingman depth.
Let's assume two additions from this group and put ourselves at 43. So how would we clear three spots?
Wouldn't be the first time (-2)
It's never easy to broach the topic of who is on the chopping block, so let's take the easy way out and focus on players who might get designated for assignment if only because they have literally already been DFA this winter, maybe even by the White Sox themselves.
Amaya has been DFA four times since Sox Machine hired me and is out of options, so it'll almost certainly be five if he doesn't make the Opening Day roster. Since the White Sox were the worst team in baseball last year, they've been more active on the waiver wire -- look at Amaya's transaction history, for example -- than most. So just because kitchen sink righty Owen White didn't get by them when the Rangers tried to sneak him through waivers earlier this spring, it wouldn't preclude the Sox from trying the same trick at the end of spring when there's a flurry of activity across the league.
Low slot lefty reliever Brandon Eisert was claimed off waivers from the Rays, who DFA'd him after buying him for cash considerations from the Blue Jays earlier in the offseason. But Sox quants (They're real! They exist!) love Eisert's funky profile and I'm bullish on him making the team outright, rather than being cut for space.
So I'll predict two to get dropped from this group. They'll be difficult conversations, but not confounding ones. We're at 41.
Approaching the inevitable
Oscar Colás is 26. He was healthy last year and appeared in 13 games for, ideally, the worst White Sox team ever. The team responded not only by walling him out of this roster, and handing guaranteed deals to three veteran outfielders. But also moved quickly to add Travis Jankowski when two of them went down. Using context clues, Colás simply does not seem to be in the team's plans.
This is not an irretrievable position. Sosa has been optioned to Triple-A and generally passed over more times anyone can count, but still looks primed to brute force his way onto the opening day roster. But what could bring this situation to a head is that Colás hasn't played in over a week since spraining his wrist while trying to make a sliding catch in right field.
Even with so many of the people responsible for acquiring Colás for a $2.7 million signing bonus and championing his major league readiness no longer in the organization, an outright purge from the 40-man -- and thus, possibly the organization -- has been the step that's been avoided so far. But the injury would allow it to be more of a sneak through waivers move than a final judgment. Still, we'll hold off on banking on this one.
You didn't make the team, but you're going to want to sit down for the second part
Jared Shuster's already been optioned after four up-and-down outings, and the White Sox have cultivated a lot of alternatives for the multi-inning swingman role he filled last. Justin Anderson's 19-pitch, eight-run, zero outs recorded spring debut was the sort of appearance that happens for someone every February, but safe description would be that he's looked off thus far in camp.
Both have minor league options left, both have something (draft pedigree, spin talent) to make them possibly intriguing on the waiver wire. But the Cactus League underperformance that undermines their opening day bids could also sneak them through the waiver wire at its busiest point of the year. My money is always on relievers being the first to be subject to roster churn, and one cut from this group seems like the way the Sox get down to 40.
In conclusion...
The answer of course, whatever injury or unexpected development goes down between publish time and Mar. 24 will probably reset the picture. But the White Sox also lost 121 games last year, and are in full-blown asset accumulation mode, so lots of churn and shuffle will be the way of life around here for all of 2025 and probably beyond, so it's good that we set the appropriate parameters for everyone to argue within.
