Farm Fortnight: Birmingham begins Southern League title defense

For the Minor Keys enthusiasts on Sox Machine, we regret to inform you that White Sox minor league games could cease as soon as Saturday. That's when the Charlotte Knights wrap up their regular season schedule with a doubleheader, since the Carolina Panthers need the parking lots on Sunday.

The chance of action reaching beyond the weekend rests on the shoulders of the Birmingham Barons, who begin their defense of the Southern League title tonight when they open a best-of-three series against the Chattanooga Lookouts. Tanner McDougal will take the ball in Game 1 at Regions Field. Game 2 will be played at Chattanooga on Thursday, followed by Game 3 on Friday if necessary.

Should the Barons advance, the Southern League Championship Series will extend into the following week, but before we cross that bridge, let's look at the season's final...

Fortnight's Finest

Position player: DJ Gladney. The Birmingham Barons hit six homers over their final 12 games of the regular season, and Gladney was responsible for five of them. He finished the abbreviated September hitting .300/.314/.680 with 17 RBIs over 12 games.

Pitcher: Riley Gowens. He could have simply earned this honors by pitching more innings than any White Sox farmhand over the last two weeks, but those 16 frames he threw were good ones, as he allowed just three runs on 11 hits and a walk while striking out 19.

Charlotte Knights

• Last two series: 3-4 vs. Jacksonville; 1-5 @Omaha
• Record: 63-81 (27-42 in second half)
• Final series: vs. Durham
• Individual stats

The Charlotte Knights are down to the last week of their regular season, and it's about time to call it a year. They've lost 13 of their last 17 games, stuck between a major league roster that needs all the help it can get, and a Double-A roster that is preoccupied with defending its Southern League title, and would be short on impact talent to promote otherwise.

The lineup was reduced to Jacob Gonzalez and eight guys who had been DFA'd, but Tim Elko and Bryan Ramos have returned to the lineup, while adding Ben Cowles on a waiver claim from the Cubs for a little more intrigue. Alas, Noah Schultz's season can now be spoken about in the past tense, because he was shut down due to a recurrence of the patellar tendinitis that had hampered him throughout the year.

With only six games remaining in the season, it appears as though the Charlotte Knights will fall short of employing 100 different players throughout the season. They're currently at 94, which means they'd have to debut one new player per game the rest of the way. Damn you, Birmingham.

Position Players

*Jacob Gonzalez is hitting .206/.318/.298 over his first 40 games and 154 plate appearances, so it doesn't appear as though the Southern League was responsible for flattening his Double-A production into a pedestrian shape. Meanwhile, Bryce Eldridge, selected one pick after Gonzalez by the Giants in 2023, made his major league debut on Sunday despite being three years younger.

*Tim Elko returned to Charlotte hitless in his last 21 major league at-bats, although they were scattered over three different stints dating back to late June. He's hit in all eight games played since returning to Charlotte.

*Bryan Ramos went 2-for-12 (both hits doubles) in four games with the White Sox before Miguel Vargas came off the injured list and squeezed him back to Charlotte.

*Ben Cowles is hitting .257/.341/.343 in nine games since the Sox claimed him from the Cubs, with four starts at second base, three starts at shortstop, and two starts at third. The 12 strikeouts in 41 plate appearances has apprised everyone of the contact issues he brought with him.

Pitchers

*Noah Schultz made his last appearance of the season in Nashville on Aug. 30, as his right knee continues to bother him. Paul Janish said it shouldn't require surgery, but it will prevent him from participating in the Arizona Fall League, so he'll fall well short of the 88⅓ innings he threw for Winston-Salem and Birmingham in 2024.

*Jairo Iriarte managed to avoid issuing a walk in two of his four appearances, but he was ineffective in his other two outings, so he could very well finish the second half with a double-digit ERA (11.40) and a four-digit OPS allowed (1.074) barring spotless work against Durham.

*Peyton Pallette had a stumble against Jacksonville on Sept. 6, but otherwise pitched effective baseball the last two weeks. If there's a particular reason why the White Sox haven't already put him on the 40-man roster, it might be control. He walked five batters over five innings thrown the last two weeks, and the walk rate is at 11.4 percent since the All-Star break.

*Shane Murphy is meeting his five-inning max with ease, even after the promotion to Triple-A. His line in two starts for Charlotte -- 10 IP, 6 H, 2 R, 2 ER, 1 HR, 3 BB, 5 K -- has slightly raised his season ERA to 1.58, so he might not catch Jonah Tong, whose 1.43 ERA is the lowest of any pitcher with 100 minor league innings thrown this season.

*Duncan Davitt is currently sitting third in minor league innings pitched, trailing only former Durham teammate Logan Workman (146⅓) and Grant Rogers (150⅓) with Double-A New Hampshire. He's faring better with Charlotte than he did with the Bulls, but walks are bunching up on him as he closes out his season.

*Ben Peoples retired all seven batters he faced during the Jacksonville series, but he's currently on the injured list after missing all six games against Omaha.

Birmingham Barons

• Last two series: 4-2 @Chattanooga; 2-4 vs. Biloxi
• Record: 81-57 (43-26 in second half)
• Playoffs: Division series vs. Chattanooga
• Individual stats

Last year, the Birmingham Barons won the Southern League despite the third-best overall record, as they disbanded their initial roster following the first-half title. Thanks to a roster that didn't change all that much over the course of 2025, the Barons will enter the Division Series against Chattanooga at the top of the full-season standings.

We'll go more into the big picture production when we begin the season review phase of our minor league coverage, but the top lines have remained stunningly consistent: the fewest runs allowed (2.99 team ERA!), and the league's fewest homers (52 in 138 games!).

Position Players

*Braden Montgomery suffered a small foot fracture on an HBP during the Chattanooga series, ending the Birmingham portion of his season a week early. He's not ruled out for the Arizona Fall League and the Sox continue to speak plainly like he is headed there, but it wouldn't be surprising if the risk-reward ratio no longer makes sense, as he's already accrued a full season's worth of playing time.

*Sam Antonacci is still going strong. He finished the regular season with a .292/.435/.381 line at Birmingham, including his first Double-A homer on Sunday. We'll see if he gets a chance to hit a second one, because he could start the 2026 season in Charlotte.

*Wilfred Veras finished his regular season with a pair of silver sombreros, which also capped off a miserable season at home. He hit just .199/.269/.264 with just one of his nine homers coming at Regions Field. The .230/.316/.388 road line isn't great, either, but more representative of what he had been doing up until this point.

*DJ Gladney came out of nowhere to seize the Birmingham home run crown, doubling his season total of dingers with three homers against Chattanooga and two more against Biloxi to close out the season. Last year's title-clinching hero is in position to have another productive postseason for the Barons, which they could use with Montgomery on the shelf.

*William Bergolla played 125 games for Birmingham without homering, but he did rediscover his brand of power in Chattanooga, snapping a 40-game extra-base hit drought with four doubles over three games. Any Scott Podsednik will tell you he's just saving it for the postseason.

*Rikuu Nishida played 115 games for Birmingham without homering. He made five straight starts at second base during the Chattanooga series, but he finished the year playing mostly right field after Montgomery hit the IL.

*Ryan Galanie hit .227/.300/.273 while playing all 12 games as he works his way back from the three weeks he missed on the IL.

Pitchers

*Hagen Smith finished his regular season by walking 10 batters over a pair of four-inning starts against Chattanooga and Biloxi, so there are no real signs of progress from the way he started the season. Trey Yesavage recently made his MLB debut from the same draft class despite being selected by Toronto 15 picks later, to give you an idea of how this could be going.

*Riley Gowens remained the rock of the Birmingham rotation for the entire season, completing five innings in 10 of his last 11 starts for the Barons. He also got a handle on the control issues he occasionally encountered throughout the season, walking just six batters over his final 32 innings.

*Tanner McDougal failed to hit his three-inning limit against Biloxi his last time out, which was only the second time out of 10 truncated starts. The combined line from his last two outings -- 5 IP, 10 H, 8 R, 8 ER, 5 BB, 4 K, 2 HBP -- might represent some fatigue from a workload that's easily the biggest of his career.

*Tyler Schweitzer carried a 0.00 ERA into September, but gave up eight runs (seven earned) over his last pair of four-inning outings, so he wrapped up his regular season with a Double-A ERA of 1.27. He finished one out short of his third consecutive 100-inning season.

*Lucas Gordon worked his way back into the Birmingham rotation, making three starts over the Chattanooga and Biloxi series. Two of them were outstanding (11 IP, 3 H, 0 R, 5 BB, 9 K), with a five-run clunker in between, but when you throw in his scoreless debut back in June before the IL stint, it balances out to an initial Double-A experience he'll gladly take (2.11 ERA over 21⅓ innings).

Winston-Salem Dash

• Final series: 3-3 vs. Greenville
• Record: 56-74 (31-34 in second half)
• Individual stats

The Winston-Salem Dash finished their season much better than they started it, thanks in part to Caleb Bonemer and Christian Oppor, both of whom put authoritative stamps on breakout seasons with their High-A debuts (Bonemer was named Carolina League MVP for his previous work with Kannapolis). The Dash pitching staff also rounded into form over the final month, resulting in promotions for Lucas Gordon and relievers Carson Jacobs and Phil Fox as the Barons readied for the postseason.

We'll cover the individual performances in more depth when we begin the affiliate reviews next week.

Kannapolis Cannon Ballers

• Final series: 4-2 @Augusta
• Record: 64-68 (32-34 in second half)
• Individual stats

The same goes for the Cannon Ballers, who returned to their running-wild roots in their only September series by stealing 26 bases in 28 attempts over six games in Augusta. Jordan Sprinkle parlayed his overqualified 65 stolen bases over 63 games with Kannapolis into a promotion to Birmingham to serve as bench speed for the playoffs. Grant Umberger also received a promotion at the very end of the season, making his 25th and final appearance of the 2025 season for Winston-Salem after setting the Kannapolis single-season strikeout record with 113 over 102 innings.