With White Sox pitchers and catchers reporting on Tuesday and Chris Getz speaking to reports at Camelback Ranch on Monday, Prospect Week draws to a close with the publication of our top 10 White Sox prospects.
Over the course of the last five days, we've reviewed 60 White Sox prospects by sorting them into five bins that are all free to read:
- New in town
- Too early to tell, or getting late early
- Onward and upward
- When injuries interfered
- Sticking points
What Sox Machine subscribers pay for is our attempt to think that we've developed a sense of the future so keen that we can put them in a specific order that captures their ability to reach the majors, and provide some prognostication of impact when they get there. We do not revise these rankings at any point during the season because updates are for cowards. What follows will be left exposed to the elements, and in about eight months or so, we'll see whether they survived with any semblance of their previous credibility.
No. 1: Caleb Bonemer
Jim: I didn't have him on my top 10 list last year, but that's only because he didn't appear in any viewable action during his draft year, and I didn't know how to square up the bridge league raves against the draft day doubts, so I really didn't have a sense of the player where I could put an honest number on it. It's a lot easier to come by this time around.
James: It’s a little weird to put this designation on a 20-year-old with an unusual looking swing that has never played above A-ball, but Bonemer feels like the safest regular. His swing decisions are good, his contact rates are good, his present power is good, even being particularly buff for his present age dampens his odds of developing meaningfully more of it. He’s not a shortstop, but because he’s buff and box-shaped rather than he doesn’t have the glove to stick on the dirt, though his throwing arm seems a better fit at second at the moment. And that’s the thing, his flaws are more the flavor of secondary details about his big league roster fit than foundational challenges to him being a solid contributor in some form.
Jim: Regarding his build, whenever Bonemer runs full speed – which he did quite often, as he stole 27 bases – the Many Names of David Ryder fly through my head. Usually I settle on “Thick McRunFast,” with “Bolt VanderHuge” a close second.
No. 2: Braden Montgomery
JIM MARGALUS
Every time I hear a reference to the Quad God, I'm wondering what Montgomery is doing at the Winter Olympics. You can trust that he doesn't skip leg day. The contact rate does give me pause, and it could take him a little more time to achieve his final form due to balancing his right- and left-handed swings, but unlike other White Sox prospects with swing-and-miss concerns, his whiffing doesn't seem like it stems from poor discipline or an inability to cover certain parts of the zone, which makes me think he can eventually iron it out well enough to pair with outfield defense that should be an asset.
No. 2: Christian Oppor
JAMES FEGAN
First and foremost, I wanted to give the Sox Machine subscribers something more interesting than regurgitating the FanGraphs’ ordering and had to meaningfully shake it up somewhere. The second and more quippy answer is that on the FG list, Schultz, Smith and Oppor are all in the same 50 FV bucket, so I broke the tie by picking the lefty starter prospect who has best demonstrated that he has three pitches. The might be the wrong org to do it with, but this is picking the pronator who has recently learned a fairly nasty sweeper, over the super supinators who are still figuring out their changeups. Finally, the first time I interviewed Christian, I opened by asking him how he decided he wanted to jump into pro ball immediately after high school, since he was originally drafted by the A’s and only spent a year in JUCO ball when his deal fell through. Oppor said it was because he hated school. I love a straight-shooter.
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No. 3: Noah Schultz
JIM MARGALUS
When Schultz is on – and he was on for pretty much all of 2024 – he makes pitching the simplest task of anybody on this list because his two best pitches are good enough, and he has the athleticism to pump strikes despite the kind of height that usually requires years of suffering through mechanical inconsistency. This ranking is a bet that the knee was the reason why it looked as rough as it did in 2025, although this is the last year such an injury can be waved away.
No. 3: Hagen Smith
JAMES FEGAN
He kind of cheated since the minor league season had ended, but Smith finished the season with the strongest finishing kick – of the Schultz, Oppor, Smith trio that is, since McDougal ended his year with a series of Chuck Norris roundhouses. Smith sat 94-96 mph in the AFL, showed multiple shapes of his invincible slider, issued the high but acceptable amount of walks (six in 14 innings) that were foretold on draft night, and running a sub-3.00 ERA out there still puts you in line for a medal. It takes a lot of squinting at this stage to see him being efficient enough to compile 180 innings out of front of rotation slot. It takes a lot more to see him being bad, and not having any role, when his two primary pitches have dominated every level of hitter he’s encountered.
No. 4: Hagen Smith
JIM MARGALUS
I toggled between Schultz and Smith, because when Schultz is dealing, hitters can still return to the dugout with some dignity intact, while Smith's best stuff has the capacity for embarrassing anybody who steps into the batter's box against him. Whenever Smith gets to the majors, I feel like the quality of the stuff will be immediately evident, but harnessing them into a form that generates quality starts on a semi-reliable basis will take enough time that fans will start to get anxious.
No. 4: Noah Schultz
JAMES FEGAN
Schultz’s outlier frame, his history of throwing strikes from it, the quality of his best sliders, his relationship with Brian Bannister, the whole package, deserve a lot of respect. So much respect that I think he should still be a top-100 prospect despite not looking that good last year, and at this point, not having a performance record of looking awesome that is substantially longer than what Oppor put together just last season. But between his stuff looking degraded and coming off a bothersome knee injury, I think sliding him to the back of this three-person line is appropriate caution until he shows out this spring, rather than a diss.
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No. 5: Billy Carlson
JIM MARGALUS
I can't think of a White Sox prospect whose defense was this highly regarded from the jump, and neither can 25 years of Baseball America rankings. Luis Robert Jr. might come closest, but the earliest reads on his defensive tools hedge their bets, obscured by his hazier origins in Cuba. Even Robin Ventura's write-up says “He is not Brooks Robinson, but is competent enough in all areas to make the plays that are supposed to be outs.” The hitting side of the equation remains a question, but if Carlson's glovework translates to professional baseball as advertised, this gives him a massive head start.
No. 5: Braden Montgomery
JAMES FEGAN
Montgomery slotting behind Schultz feels right in terms of lining up established prospects whose tools command a lot of respect, and will have a long runway to get better because of them, but had seasons where I came away more focused on the concerns. It’s not fair to call Montgomery a bat-first prospect — he might mature into an awesome defensive right fielder and maintain center field utility for a bit — but his current outlook is rooted in becoming a middle-of-the-order bopper. For such a prospect, a sub-70 percent contact rate is a real red flag, and the power production hasn’t been overwhelming enough to mute those concerns yet. It very soon could be, which is clear if you watch any highlight of the guy, and the injuries he’s weathered while still rocketing in his first year in Double-A could easily explain the delayed arrival.
No. 6: Christian Oppor
JIM MARGALUS
I admire James for ranking Oppor second, because when you have a lefty who naturally retires righties and looks like he's getting a handle on the breaking pitch he needs, what initially reads like overexuberance could turn out to be justified enthusiasm. I'm only tempering it because the reduced walks is a recent development, and I wonder if it's just a product of A-ball hitters being unable to process high-90s heat and two other pitches, rather than real polish. This ranking allows for the possibility of Double-A hitters forcing further refinement, and Oppor made such a leap last year that he can take a little time to gather himself before the next one.
No. 6: Tanner McDougal
JAMES FEGAN
McDougal hasn’t had great feel for his changeup since undergoing TJ. A platoon split is developing. His arm slot makes his fastball play a little vulnerable when he isn’t touching 100 mph. His history of strike-throwing is brief.
These are things I repeat to myself like Austin Powers shouting “Margaret Thatcher naked on a very cold day!” as a way of calming myself down about McDougal. I absolutely love this guy. The big red-assed kid I’ve believed in since the 2021 draft, who is hard on himself but also screams and shouts on the mound when he’s dealing? Maybe he’s the best prospect in the system. Maybe he’s the best prospect in the world. I think he’s thought the same at times, and I love players who agree with me.
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No. 7: Tanner McDougal
JIM MARGALUS
McDougal is a year ahead of Oppor in terms of figuring it out, but the possibility of a significant, persistent platoon split is why I bumped him below. Either way, this feels like as low as he can possibly be ranked,. because there's a distinct gap after No. 7. What I like about both pitchers is that they threw well enough at the end of the season to get the Sox to loosen their hard innings cap, which I often think lacks a feel in their implementation. Perhaps that foreshadows further ceiling-busting.
No. 7: Billy Carlson
JAMES FEGAN
It’s been a few decades since I watched it, but in pretty much an exact recreation of Michelangelo Antonioni’s 1966 psychological thriller Blow-Up, I thought my bridge league phone video captured Carlson hitting a routine two-hopper to second, only to discover upon further review it was clear evidence that he had already excised more hand movement from the load in his oft-scrutinized swing. He’s down this low because there’s just really no certainty yet that he can hit at all, even though you have to take the stairs to access his defensive floor. Carlson might correct these notions soon, though.
No. 8: Sam Antonacci
JIM MARGALUS
When Antonacci starts exacting vengeance on those who doubted him, I hope he takes note of which one of us failed to rank him.
No. 8: David Sandlin
JAMES FEGAN
I’m trying to offset my bias for McDougal by rating his analogue similarly high. Absurd player development optimism reaches nigh-fatal levels this time of year, but also if Bannister teaches both these guys’ Shane Smith’s changeup this spring, maybe the Sox win the division.
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No. 9: David Sandlin
JIM MARGALUS
Sandlin steps into a great situation here, both because the White Sox are committing to starting him in a way the Red Sox weren't, and because the slew of last year's Tommy John surgeries for White Sox prospects opens a lot of starts and innings for anybody who wants to emerge as a depth arm over the first two months of the season. It seems like Sandlin has most of what he needs to take advantage of it. If he can't learn the changeup, maybe he returns to the splitter.
No. 9: Jedixson Paez
JAMES FEGAN
Baseball, and more specifically the constant attrition of the season, have been gone for too long for anyone to appropriately calibrate anything anymore. Case in point, there have been a lot more questions of recent built upon the premise that the White Sox bullpen is going to be too deep—too deep!—to figure out what to do with the little guy who does literally nothing but throw strikes.
No. 10: Jaden Fauske
Jim: Like Bonemer, Fauske was a second-round pick who didn't appear in a documented game during his draft year, so I considered giving him the same treatment and letting him lead the honorable mentions. Unlike Bonemer, I have something to contribute to the conversation, which is that the thumbnail description – a tall, strong, hitting-oriented lefty drafted out of high school in the second round – reminds me of Ryan Sweeney, who Hawk Harrelson once described as “the best-looking 19-year-old position player the White Sox have ever had.” Sweeney's production didn't live up to that kind of lavishing, but he ended up with the third-highest WAR total of any second-round pick in 2003, and that feels like one potential outcome on the spectrum.
James: Let’s paraphrase a point my colleague Eric Longenhagen made on the Sox Machine Podcast. The difference between a 55-grade hit tool — where Fauske resembles later career Andrew Benintendi, clearly is a viable hitter but doesn’t have quite have the big power or defensive value to make an impact —or a 70-grade hitter who just squares up too many baseball for anything else to matter, can’t really be perceived from watching high school showcases. Fauske might have the best hitting hands and move his barrel around the zone better than any other prep player in the '25 draft. But we still don’t know if he can track high-80s sliders at the bottom of the zone while still being on time for 97 mph at the top of it, until he’s doing it.
Honorable Mentions
Jim:
- Blake Larson
- Jedixson Paez
- Jeral Perez
- Kyle Lodise
- Duncan Davitt
I said earlier this winter that the top 10 felt very much like a top 10, in that you wouldn't find many insurgent candidates meaningfully screwing up the agreed-upon order, and the acquisition of Sandlin sealed a comfortable round number for me. The next 10 feels wide open. Larson is entirely unknown, which works in his favor at this point. I compared Paez to Mason Adams and I like them both, but I'm not confident the Rule 5 process will do him any favors developmentally. Perez seems like the kind of guy who can put up kinda-ugly-but-ultimately-effective numbers at each level. I'm not sure what tool is going to lead the way for Lodise, and Davitt is one pitch away from being a useful back-end starter.
James:
- Sam Antonacci
- Aldrin Batista
Including these two is clean because I put them at the same grade as Fauske on the FG list.
A scout once told a story about wanting to draft Antonacci during his Division II Heartland Community College days. It obviously didn’t happen, because Antonacci didn’t check many physical scouting, batted ball data, or defensive projection boxes, but the scout’s case for it boiled down to something like, “Yeah boss, but he’s hitting .500.” How much has really changed since then? Prospect writing about Antonacci is tricky because his results make the case that he’s a god, and you either have to write about why he isn’t a god, or wind up sounding like the old Michael Irvin “when we played in that cold weather we was cold” tweet. You may have heard that other players play hard, but Sam Antonacci plays hard.
OK, final thing: McDougal made a quip at SoxFest about how Antonacci never talks, which only serves to spook me that when he gets his revenge for leaving him out of the top 10, I won’t hear him coming.
Batista really looked great in 2024 and throughout spring, and I would have nudged him ahead of the Mason Adams/Ky Bush tier before he suffered an elbow fracture in his first start of 2025. He looked like a future No. 4 starter before that and hasn’t since, but he deserves a clean slate.
