The White Sox sent three infielders from the Birmingham Barons to the Arizona Fall League, but none saw the season all the way through. Anthony DePino's AFL season didn't even get off the ground, as he underwent shoulder surgery instead of reporting. Caleb Bonemer slugged .633 over 13 games before the White Sox decided there were no more worlds to conquer, and let him call it a year at the halfway point.
Colby Shelton lasted the longest, but he was also allowed to finish his season with a flourish. He drove in four runs in each of his final three games, including a grand slam in his final action of the season on Oct. 29. That hot stretch garnered him Player of the Week honors, but he was already on his way home by the end of that period.
That season-ending flurry instantly fixed his slash line, as captured by his No. 3 placement on Baseball America's Hot Sheet.
- Before: .206/.310/.294
- After: .277/.379/.511
And he struck out just eight times against eight walks over 58 plate appearances, so after 142 games and nearly 600 plate appearances across Winston-Salem, Birmingham and Glendale, the White Sox decided they didn't need to see more.
Shelton played mostly first base due to Glendale's needs, and he told Scott Merkin he learned a lot about a position he'd never played ...
“If you can play a bunch of positions, someone can find a way into the lineup for you. The more positions you play, it can’t hurt you,” Shelton told MLB.com after his AFL stint. “I definitely wasn’t perfect at it.
“I definitely learned some new stuff, whether I was in the wrong spot on a wrong count or with the outs or I wasn’t in the right spot for a lefty hitter in the shift or a righty hitter in the shift. So just learning that part, and then it wasn’t anything too crazy. Just getting my feet wet over there.”
... but second base seems like his most natural position at this point, although it'd behoove him to maintain the ability to cover the left side of the infield, even for spot duty.
Kaleb Freeman joined the Glendale roster over the final stretch, and Grant Magill was the only White Sox prospect to play the entire schedule. The catcher's desired offensive improvements will have to wait until spring.
| Player | PA | 2B | 3B | HR | BB | K | AVG/OBP/SLG |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bonemer | 55 | 4 | 2 | 3 | 6 | 12 | .286/.364/.633 |
| Shelton | 58 | 2 | 0 | 3 | 8 | 8 | .277/.379/.511 |
| Magill | 39 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 15 | .171/.231/.200 |
| Freeman | 16 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 4 | 5 | .273/.500/.364 |
On the pitching side, the most pressing question was whether Mathias LaCombe would use his AFL performance to make a pressing case for Rule 5 protection, but he seemed to answer that question in the negative by walking more than a batter an inning.
But while the two pitchers with the most name recognition had tough fall seasons -- Pierce George left his first and only game with a fracture in his elbow -- the field of White Sox pitchers on the Glendale roster fared well on the whole.
| Pitcher | G | IP | H | HR | BB | K | ERA |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Altermatt | 8 | 7 | 7 | 0 | 4 | 9 | 2.57 |
| LaCombe | 8 | 9.1 | 10 | 3 | 10 | 8 | 7.71 |
| Wright | 8 | 8.2 | 12 | 0 | 7 | 13 | 1.04 |
| Clark | 7 | 8.1 | 5 | 2 | 2 | 13 | 3.24 |
| Vail | 4 | 4 | 3 | 0 | 2 | 6 | 2.25 |
| George | 1 | 0.2 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 1 | 13.50 |
If you're wondering how a pitcher with Garrett Wright's peripherals could've allowed a 1.04 ERA, it's because seven of the eight runs on his tab were unearned. He's the youngest of the other four pitchers, as Nick Altermatt and Jonathan Clark are both 26, and Tommy Vail is 27. Nevertheless, in an environment where the league walk rate approached a staggering 16 percent, anybody who routinely found the zone stood a chance of making some sort of impression.
