Farm Fortnight: Fresh starts for White Sox affiliates in second half

While the A-ball squads got a head start on breaking off a fresh half, all of the White Sox's full-season affiliates will be operating under renewed standings.

But besides the reset for wins and losses, the second half also invites the opportunity to consider promotions -- particularly for players who reached their current level around the halfway point of the previous season. As we wend our way through the affiliates and their prospects, we'll make a note of highlighting which players seem to have reached the point of seeing what the next level up has to offer.

But first, please stand and remove your hats to honor the...

Fortnight's Finest

Position player: Brooks Baldwin. It stands to reason that if Baldwin won this honor the last time around, then performed even better over the last two series, then he should simply win it again. He homered four times in eight games around a brief return to the White Sox bench, raising his line from .343/.405/.716 to .375/.444/.781. It's also been a cold stretch for offenses over this period, with George Wolkow providing the only real competition.

Pitcher: Luis Reyes. The $700,000 signing out of the Dominican Republic in the 2023 international class had pitched better than his line reflected this season, but the intermittent disaster starts wrecked his numbers every time he stared building momentum. He's managed to drag his ERA back down to respectability by allowing just one earned run over his last five starts covering 26⅔ innings, and he's thrown three gems in a row, including five innings of one-run ball against Columbia, backed up by seven shutout innings versus Charleston.

Charlotte Knights

• Last two series: 2-4 @Durham; 3-3 vs. Gwinnett
• Record: 36-39
• Next two series: @Toledo, vs. Jacksonville
• Individual stats

While we've been tracking the number of players to appear in a game for the White Sox this season -- 53 and counting -- the Charlotte Knights are the primary party tasked with accommodating all the churn. They're no strangers to the turnstiles, but while they have some work to do catching up last year's Knights with regards to the number of pitchers (37, compared to 54 in 2024), they've already surpassed last year's total number of players who made at least one plate appearance (35, compared to 33).

At least Sergio Santos has been equipped with a far more effective roster this time around, especially with Noah Schultz helping shore up the rotation. Korey Lee is a particularly nice bonus. He'd be the second catcher on a whole host of rosters, but with Edgar Quero and Kyle Teel sharing the playing time in the majors, Lee is left to rake in a heaven for hitters, and currently producing at a .284/.384/.514 clip.

Position Players

*Colson Montgomery took five days off after getting drilled in the hand, but while he was able to play the final four games of the Durham series and five of six against Gwinnett, the results weren't there. He went just 5-for-35 over the nine games, and the strikeouts are clustering on him again. He K'd 16 times over 39 plate appearances, which is the kind of strikeout rate that plagued him before his Arizona reset. Chris Getz said that Montgomery still has to "maintain a routine" around bumps, bruises and new mechanics, which would be easier to take at face value had similar defenses not given way to the Ryan Fuller intervention earlier in the year.

*Bryan Ramos opened this fortnight with a homer against Durham, then proceeded to go 3-for-23 the rest of the way. He's hitting just .194 against right-handed pitching, and if the splits haven't been egregiously off, it seems like the Charlotte Knights only face right-handed pitching. Ramos' tab is reflective of the imbalance as a whole: 160 plate appearances against righties, 25 against lefties.

*Brooks Baldwin might always have a difficult time translating his Triple-A success to the majors no matter how long he well he hits at Charlotte, but he's certainly testing the hypothesis to the most severe degrees.

*Tim Elko returned to the minors after his second MLB stint ended with him going 0-for-12 with 10 strikeouts over his last four games, but there hasn't been any sort of hangover. He hit .303/.324/.515 in his first eight games back with Charlotte.

*Dru Baker still hasn't found his footing since coming over to the organization in the Matt Thaiss trade, going 2-for-20 with 10 strikeouts over the last two weeks. He did make this catch in center, though.

Pitchers

*Noah Schultz didn't suffer for his inconsistent command in Birmingham, as the White Sox promoted him to Charlotte for his Triple-A debut on Friday. The velocity and strike-throwing were evident in a back-to-basics outing, but the third pitch to better neutralize righties wasn't a point of emphasis, and he suffered for it. Still, he didn't look out of place, and while he gave up six runs over 5⅓ innings, "he didn't look out of place" not a backhanded compliment. At least not yet.

*Nick Nastrini was placed on the 7-day injured list after appearing to tweak his back after walking and plunking the only two batters he faced on June 17. He'd issued 12 walks and hit two other batters over his previous 6⅔ innings, so this injury did not interrupt a hot streak.

*Jairo Iriarte returned to Charlotte and pitched exclusively out of the bullpen, where he succeeded in preventing runs despite uninspiring peripherals. He threw a pair of scoreless outings apiece against Durham and Gwinnett covering 6 ⅓ innings, allowing just two hits while striking out seven, but he walked four and threw just 56 percent of his pitches for strikes. The White Sox are OK with seeing more walks if it gets him back to his livelier form, but only to a point.

*Tyler Schweitzer has been shifted to the bullpen after allowing 42 runs over 40 innings as a starter. The move isn't permanent, but if his stuff ticks up in shorter stints, it could be.

*Peyton Pallette hit a speed bump -- or maybe it was a boulder -- after giving up 10 runs over two-thirds of an inning spanning three appearances from June 8-13. He has to adjust his arsenal to be less fastball-heavy, and improvement over three games against Gwinnett (4 IP, 2 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 0 BB, 4 K) hints at better days ahead.

Birmingham Barons

• Last two series: 1-5 @Montgomery; 6-1 vs. Columbus
• Record: 38-31
• Next two series: @Knoxville, @/vs. Chattanooga
• Individual stats

The Birmingham Barons had the highest hopes for a first half title of any White Sox affiliate, but they fell short by 1½ games because the Chattanooga Lookouts refused to lose.

John Kovalik's pitching staff has a new look after the promotions of Noah Schultz to Charlotte and Grant Taylor to Chicago. Tanner McDougal and Lucas Gordon were promoted to the rotation, and Hagen Smith is scheduled to return on Saturday, albeit in a shorter outing. If he's mechanically and structurally sound, the Barons should be able to excel at preventing runs.

Position Players

*Jacob Gonzalez has been Birmingham's best hitter for the last month and a half (.309/.370/.504 over his last 34 games). He's now up to 160 games at Birmingham, so he's probably worth testing at Charlotte at any point now.

*Wilfred Veras hit a double on Wednesday, which snapped a streak of 24 games without an extra-base hit. He hasn't played since, for there were no more worlds to conquer.

*DJ Gladney had 10 extra-base hits over 24 games in Birmingham last year, but he's still stuck at nine over 54 games in 2025.

*William Bergolla has seemingly reached his Double-A equilibrium after 62 games, as his performance in June (.279/.355/.338) pretty much matches his season line.

*Rikuu Nishida is still streaking. He reached base 12 times over five games against Columbus as he continues to put forth a line that can only be achieved by the idiosyncratic.

*Ryan Galanie opened June with a grand slam against Knoxville, but he's been limited to two doubles over the next 19 games, including a pair of quiet series against Montgomery and Columbus (.204/.268/.245).

Pitchers

*Riley Gowens is now the leader of the Birmingham rotation, what with Schultz in Charlotte and Hagen Smith still ramping up on the side, but he's been hit around his last two times out, with a combined line of 9.2 IP, 16 H, 7 R, 7 ER, 5 BB, 12 K against Montgomery and Columbus.

*Tanner McDougal still hasn't won a game since his professional debut back in 2021, but he earned a promotion to Birmingham after his 29th start in Winston-Salem, and he promptly set a career high with 10 strikeouts over 5 ⅓ innings in his debut with the Barons on Wednesday.

*Lucas Gordon then one-upped McDougal by making his Double-A debut and throwing six scoreless innings of one-hit ball, striking out nine. Unlike McDougal, He'd allowed nine runs over his previous eight innings with the Dash, so the promotion didn't catch him at his best. When you take him and McDougal with the random emergences of Jake Palisch and Shane Murphy, perhaps it's just impossible to fail as a pitcher in Birmingham this season.

Winston-Salem Dash

• Last two series: 3-3 vs. Bowling Green; 3-2 vs. Rome
• Record: 27-41
• Next two series: @Greensboro, vs./@Hub City
• Individual stats

Nobody needed a second half reset more than the Winston-Salem Dash, who managed to avoid having the South Atlantic League's worst record by a game (congratulations, Aberdeen). Four other teams had worse run differentials, but the Dash went 4-13 in one-run games to maximize the damage in the standings. Sounds familiar, right?

The Dash have a 2-1 record for the purposes of their postseason aspirations, but their pitching staff is going to have to count on some unheralded names after the promotions of their most reliable starters, Gordon and McDougal. The offense might gain more than it loses when it comes to any promotions over the next few weeks.

Position Players

*Braden Montgomery is hitting .260/.338/.457 when you isolate his performance to his 46 games with Winston-Salem. He's avoided any crushing slumps in June, but it's also been a more than a month since he's strung together a series of electric games, so he's probably fine where he is right now.

*Sam Antonacci has also played 46 games with Winston-Salem, and he's hitting .364/.509/.591 in the 14 games he's played this June since coming back from his hand injury. It doesn't seem like his power would translate to Birmingham, but Double-A would test how the rest of his production would fare without inflated slugging numbers.

*Jeral Perez hit a pair of homers over the last two weeks, so he maintains his share of his White Sox minor-league lead, but it was an otherwise quiet fortnight (.209/.261/.349).

*Samuel Zavala went 7-for-36 over the last two weeks, which strengthens suspicions that his torrid series in Asheville was aided by McCormick Field's cozy dimensions. He's now played 162 games in Winston-Salem and 186 in High-A overall.

Pitchers

*Christian Oppor stands alone as a pitcher of intrigue on the Winston-Salem staff since McDougal and Gordon were bumped up to Birmingham, so it was a good time for him to have his first breakthrough performance in High-A, as he threw five innings of one-run ball against Rome on Wednesday. His fastball-changeup combination is promising; the search for a reliable breaking ball continues.

Kannapolis Cannon Ballers

• Last two series: 1-5 @Columbia; 0-6 vs. Charleston
• Record: 32-37
• Next two series: @Fredericksburg, vs./@Hickory
• Individual stats

The Kannapolis Cannon Ballers finished the first half of their season by losing seven in a row. Many of those games they played shorthanded, and FutureSox issued enough warnings about a virus going through the clubhouse that if a player missed games or struggled through others, you could make an educated first guess about an underlying cause.

They opened the second half by losing their first three games, so they weren't able to neatly contain the fallout to standings that no longer mattered. Perhaps a day off and a fresh series is what they need. Otherwise, they'll have to wait until the draft.

Position Players

*Caleb Bonemer has just one extra-base hit over his last 19 games, including a pair of muted series against Columbia and Charleston. He hit .231/.318/.231 over those 10 games, and he had some strikeout problems that he'd evaded thus far this season (14 over 44 plate appearances).

*Javier Mogollón had an 0-for-19 stretch that killed his numbers from the last two weeks. He's since recovered with four hits over his last four games.

*Ronny Hernandez was one of the few hitters to look largely unaffected by the plague circulating through the rosters. He went 8-for-29 with seven walks over eight games against Columbia and Charleston, which is characteristic of the form he's shown over 143 games at Low-A the last two years. His bat could stand to be tested in Winston-Salem.

*George Wolkow had one of those illness outages, striking out seven times over plate appearances before taking a couple games off. That represents the only blip in an otherwise outstanding June (.346/.452/.577). With 134 games for Kannapolis under his belt, a promotion wouldn't be out of hand.

*Ryan Burrowes went 33 games without a double before hitting one apiece over the Columbia and Charleston series. He's hitting .302/.333/.396 in June, so he's another guy playing his best baseball yet as he ventures 130 games or more into his Low-A career.

*Lyle Miller-Green is still striking out at an elevated clip, but his production has been steady around it, hitting .316/.435/.474 in June on the strength of a .457 BABIP.

*Abraham Nuñez has had a rough go of it. His slump has now extended to 19 games, over which he's 5-for-68 with 19 strikeouts.

Pitchers

*Seth Keener has a 6.60 ERA over six starts with Kannapolis, so his demotion to Winston-Salem hasn't provided the intended jolt of confidence

*Luis Reyes has already set a career high in innings, topping the 42⅓ he threw for the ACL White Sox last year. He doesn't turn 20 until October, so we'll see how the organizational balances his hot streak against his workload.

*Pierce George is in the middle of a pattern that's extended for about five weeks: two scoreless outings, then one where he gives up multiple runs, which is why his ERA remains bloated despite a sense of progress. If this holds, he has one more scoreless outing before his next scheduled burp.

*Blake Shepardson is now up to 10 consecutive scoreless appearances, and he's gone three innings without walking a batter, so the peripherals are gradually growing less absurd.

ACL White Sox

• Record: 20-17
• Individual stats

The Arizona Complex League season runs through July 24, so there's officially one month left in the stateside rookie ball calendar. Wins have been strangely distributed, in the sense that 10 of the 15 teams are .500 or better, but there are only four negative run differentials in the entire league. There are just a handful of teams that are really struggling, and somehow the White Sox aren't one of them.

Position Players

Alexander Albertus is up to eight games this season, and he's played third base in all of them, but he hasn't played on consecutive days, nor has he finished one he started. He looks like he's having no issues against ACL pitchers when he's allowed to play. Adrian Gíl added a third base cameo on Tuesday to defensive portfolio, as he'd already been bouncing between first base and catcher.

Pitchers

Mathias LaCombe is on a roll, having allowed just one run (solo shot) on four hits and a walk over his last 10 innings, striking out 12. It seems like he should make it out of the complex after the short season ends, if not before.

DSL White Sox

• Record: 7-9
• Individual stats

The DSL White Sox have only hit six homers in 15 games, but they're middle-of-the-pack in runs thanks to the league's second best team OBP at .417. The pitching staff is 48th out of 52 with a 7.20 ERA, however, and of the four teams that are worse, the DSL Twins are the only ones that aren't a split squad.

Alejandro Cruz has been off to a sluggish start, but he's had four hits over his last two games, so perhaps the arrow is finally starting to point up. Eduardo Herrera is rolling, and given that he's in his second year of DSL play, he could be shifted stateside without the usual tax implications. Then again, he's caught a couple of games, so that might be a reason for slow-rolling his development.

Yobal Rodríguez continues to be untouchable. You'd hope that a Cuban signing would look more advanced than standard DSL competition, but he's 17, so he would have age as an excuse. Speaking of which, Diego Perez has been the most productive of the 16-year-old arms.

White Sox Minor Keys

ACL Mariners 7, ACL White Sox 6 (9 innings)

• Alexander Albertus went 1-for-3 with a walk.
• Adrian Gíl was 2-for-4 with a homer and a strikeout.
• Jurdrick Profar singled in his pinch-hitting appearance.

DSL Cardinals 9, DSL White Sox 8 (7 innings)

• Alejandro Cruz went 2-for-4 with a strikeout.
• Christian Gonzalez, 1-for-3 with an HBP.
• Eduardo Herrera went 1-for-4.
• So did Yordani Soto, with a double.
• Albert Munoz: 3 IP, 3 H, 0 R, 1 BB, 4 K, 1 HBP