Chicago White Sox's Collection of Young Bats Given Brutal Grade Entering 2025

Even accounting for Colson Montgomery's impending arrival in the MLB lineup, the Chicago White Sox do not have many highly-touted young position players on their roster.

Chicago, Illinois, USA; Chicago White Sox third base Lenyn Sosa (50) hits a two-run double against the Los Angeles Angels during the fifth inning at Guaranteed Rate Field. | Kamil Krzaczynski-Imagn Images

The Chicago White Sox suffered through a historic season in 2024, and it may take a while before the club is able to turn things around.

Yahoo Sports' Jake Mintz and Jordan Shusterman sifted through every team's roster and farm system, grading each franchise's collection of talent aged 26-and-under. They published the bottom five of their rankings on Monday, and the White Sox came in at No. 28.

The main culprit for Chicago's low overall rating was their quartet of young MLB position players. Catcher Korey Lee, second baseman Lenyn Sosa, third baseman Miguel Vargas and shortstop Colson Montgomery were the four hitters taken into account, and they combined to earn a 1-out-of-10 grade from Mintz and Shusterman.

In a way, that may have been a bit generous on Mintz and Shusterman's part.

Montgomery is ranked as the No. 39 prospect in baseball, having not yet made his big league debut, so qualifying him as an MLB player could be slightly premature. At the same time, Montgomery hit .214 with a .710 OPS in Triple-A last season, so perhaps his inclusion didn't do much to boost the team's score in that category.

Lee posted a 0.1 WAR across 125 games in 2024. Sosa, on the other hand, put up a -0.4 WAR in 100 games, while Vargas' WAR reached -1.0 in just 42 games. And although he was technically lumped in as a hitting prospect by Mintz and Shusterman, third baseman Bryan Ramos boasted a -0.2 WAR in 32 MLB appearances last season.

In short, Lee, Sosa, Vargas and Ramos are not viewed as future faces of the franchise. Even Montgomery, at this point, comes along with serious question marks he will have to shake in 2025.

The White Sox's big league pitchers under 27 – Jonathan Cannon, Sean Burke, Drew Thorpe and Shane Smith  – didn't fare much better, collectively earning a 2-out-of-10 rating.

Chicago's saving grace is its new-look farm system, propped up by recent draft picks and pieces acquired from the Boston Red Sox in December's blockbuster Garrett Crochet trade. Mintz and Shusterman rated both their hitting prospects and pitching prospects at 4-out-of-5.

In total, the White Sox scored an 11-out-of-30. The Philadelphia Phillies were in dead last with a mere 10 points, while the Colorado Rockies, Miami Marlins and New York Yankees all had 11 as well.

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