Baseball America and Baseball Prospectus both graded the White Sox for slightly different purposes with different weights for criteria, but they came to a similar conclusion: It's hard to come to a conclusion.
Baseball America gave the White Sox a "B" for their work in 2026, but called it a "strange year for the White Sox system." They graduated a number of players, but were able to produce them on the strength of a draft class that included the No. 1 overall pick and a record bonus pool, but the number of prospects taking steps back was greater than the number of prospects who made meaningful leaps.
Meanwhile, BP's Jarrett Seidler is ranking all 30 front offices, and placed the White Sox 19th, but what he considered a surprising showing was based on the strength of their pro acquisition. When it comes to drafting and developing, they're in better shape than they used to be, but still not generating stars.
They are not particularly good at any discrete aspect of player development, although not among the worst either. What the White Sox lack as an organizational is anything resembling core stars. They haven’t developed any, they haven’t sought them in free agency, and they haven’t traded for one. The most recent group of top prospects—Colson Montgomery, Braden Montgomery, Hagen Smith, Noah Schultz—looks like it might produce some good players, but not superstars. Will Roch Cholowsky or Caleb Bonemer break the cycle? Will they finally make a real buy move and be right about it? Until then, I think they’re just a moderately-behind-the-times organization doing some nifty pro scouting work.
Charlotte 5, Norfolk 1
- Rikuu Nishida went 2-for-4, and was caught stealing.
- Junior Perez was 1-for-4 with a double and a strikeout.
- Shane Murphy: 5 IP, 3 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 2 BB, 2 K, 42 of 74 pitches for strikes.
- Shane Smith: 1 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 1 BB, 0 K, 6 of 13 pitches for strikes.
Notes:
*The Knights need one more win to secure a winning second half for all four White Sox full-season affiliates.
