With August coming to a close and the minor league seasons winding down soon after, ESPN's Kiley McDaniel published his rankings of the MLB farm systems to complete the set. While he's in the same neighborhood as MLB Pipeline (15th) and Baseball America (17th), he's the most bearish of the bunch, placing the White Sox 20th.
McDaniel uses a Future Value-based system to rank the organizations in terms of a calculated worth, which gives the exercise an objective feel, although he's using subjective evaluations from FanGraphs to apply FVs in the first place, but he leaves open the idea that this ranking could look considerably different next year given the players he references:
The White Sox graduated Noah Schultz, Braden Montgomery and Sam Antonacci this year, while adding a strong draft class headlined by No. 1 pick Roch Cholowsky to backfill.
Caleb Bonemer has had a huge season (33 homers across High-A and Double-A) but there are still questions about his ultimate defensive home and bat-to-ball ability. Hagen Smith is in the big leagues but needs another notch of control to stick as a starter, and Billy Carlson needs to lift the ball more to get to his raw power in games.
Keep an eye on Joey Volchko as a potential 2027 breakout with some development tweaks, same goes for outfielder Jaden Fauske possibly breaking out with a bit more loft in his swing.
Between Cholowsky, Carlson and Fauske barely getting their careers underway, two more prep picks in Landon Thome and Cole Prosek not appearing in games until next year and Volchko being regarded as a guy who can make a big step early in the pros, there's a lot of room for speculation at the moment. The hope is that by this point next year, at least half of them will have started to establish an MLB trajectory that gives the system a lot more grounding.
Memphis 3, Charlotte 2 (10 innings)
- Edgar Quero went 1-for-4 with a walk and a strikeout.
- Ryan Galanie, 1-for-5.
- Junior Pérez was 1-for-4 with a strikeout.
- Davis Martin: 5 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 1 BB, 5 K, 40 of 59 pitches for strikes.
- Tanner McDougal: 1 IP, 3 H, 2 R, 2 ER, 1 BB, 0 K, 11 of 18 pitches for strikes.
- Jaden Woods: 1.1 IP, 1 H, 1 R, 0 ER, 1 BB, 4 K, 25 of 36 pitches for strikes.
Rocket City 7, Birmingham 4
- Caleb Bonemer started in center again and went 0-for-3 with a walk and a strikeout.
- Anthony DePino was 0-for-4 with two strikeouts.
- Ryan Burrowes singled, walked, struck out twice and stole a base.
- Connor McCullough: 4 IP, 3 H, 3 R, 3 ER, 1 BB, 6 K, 1 HR, 46 of 71 pitches for strikes.
Notes:
*The Barons entered the ninth leading 4-3, but Jonathan Clark allowed a double, RBI single, then back-to-back homers. They're now two games back of Rocket City.
*The first double in the ninth inning was just out of Bonemer's reach on the center field warning track, and he started his route looking over the wrong shoulder.
Winston-Salem 10, Bowling Green 7
- Javier Mogollón went 2-for-5 with a strikeout, and was picked off/caught stealing.
- Kyle Lodise singled, walked twice and struck out twice.
- George Wolkow was 1-for-5 with a bases-clearing triple and two strikeouts.
- Jeral Perez went 1-for-4.
Notes:
*The Dash are now tied atop the division standings with Bowling Green at 30-26, although they only need to stay ahead of Greenville. They're still 2½ games up there.
Hill City 7, Kannapolis 6
- Abraham Nunez went 2-for-4 with a walk.
- Matthew Boughton, 1-for-4 with a walk.
- Alexander Albertus, 0-for-3 with a sac bunt and two strikeouts.
- Christian Gonzalez went 0-for-3 with a walk and a strikeout.
- Jaden Fauske entered as a pinch runner and crossed the plate.
