The Brewers are one of the White Sox's most prominent role models, which makes sense given both teams' budgetary restrictions in divisions that lack a financial juggernaut, but Milwaukee's top prospect list -- one that kicked off FanGraphs' 2026 lists with "one of the best and deepest farm systems in baseball" as a tagline -- shows why the White Sox will have to borrow from multiple influences to get this rebuild producing meaningful returns within the next couple of years.
Here's the podium from the Brendan Gawlowski/Eric Longenhagen joint, and how those prospects came to the Brewers in the first place:
- Jesus Made, FV 65 -- $950,000 signing in 2024, Dominican Republic
- Luis Peña, FV 55 -- $800,000 signing in 2024, Dominican Republic
- Jeferson Quero, FV 50 -- $200,000 signing in 2019, Venezuela
Quero may or may not be the Brewers' consensus third-best prospect because injuries have eaten away at his throwing, but even if you exclude him from the conversation, it's still enough to understand how the White Sox have to build a top-flight farm system with one arm tied behind their back. While the Brewers have two of the game's most impressive international prospects a year after Jackson Chourio ($1.8 million in 2021) graduated from the conversation, the White Sox's most advanced international signing struggles to crack the top 20 of their own system. MLB.com's half-updated White Sox list has Javier Mogollon at No. 18, and Marcelo Alcala is the only competition at No. 27.
At least the White Sox are no longer pretending they can work around this issue, with plenty of David Keller rhetoric as evidence, but any dividends from repairing relationships in the Dominican Republic might not emerge until the end of the decade. They Sox have been making noise of recent, but the agreements the remade international department are most excited about internally won't be bringing players into the organization until 2029 and 2030, let alone to Chicago, which would be too late to support this current core the White Sox are attempting to matriculate to the majors.
Baseball America's latest Prospect Podcast discussed the White Sox rebuild and saw a system that might struggle to get past the 85-win mark due to a lack of impact prospects, especially if the draft lottery gods continue to smite them. The lack of international traction wasn't discussed in any sort of detail, but it undermined the White Sox's aspirations the last time around, and it continues to serve as a through-line from the deterioration of the Second Rebuild to the disjointed nature of this one.
A 2026 White Sox prospect list of note hasn't been issued yet -- ours won't be coming out until February, so we're not helping -- but looking at the post-draft MLB Pipeline list shows how the White Sox are attempting to compensate for the lack of a Latin American presence in the interim. Here are the top 10 White Sox prospects with prep picks in bold:
- Braden Montgomery
- Noah Schultz
- Billy Carlson
- Caleb Bonemer
- Hagen Smith
- Jaden Fauske
- Tanner McDougal
- Christian Oppor
- Kyle Lodise
- George Wolkow
Schultz and McDougal were drafted while the White Sox fashioned themselves as contenders, but the others were selected after the ship sank. With no point in prioritizing fast-trackability for fast-trackability's sake, there's an emphasis on age, athleticism, ceiling, and general precociousness that international scouting hasn't been able to supply, except instead of San Pedro de Macoris, the Sox are mining a 200-mile radius around the Mars Cheese Castle. Carlson and McDougal are the only bolded names that didn't play for the White Sox Area Codes team.
Perhaps it'll be an effective patch until the day Keller's international signings dot the landscape. But given the geographical proximity, it seems like something the Brewers would've already discovered if it held a secret advantage.
