Lenyn Sosa Putting Together Best Season Of Major League Career With White Sox

CHICAGO –– Lenyn Sosa is a veteran from the standpoint that he's one of three players left from the White Sox 2022 roster –– along with Luis Robert Jr. and Davis Martin –– and signed with the team out of Venezuela way back in 2016.

But still just 25, it might be easy to forget that Sosa is the ninth-youngest player on the White Sox 26-man active roster. And now in his fourth major league season, he's putting together his best year yet.

"It takes a minute for some young players to really find themselves," White Sox general manager Chris Getz said. "And it looks like he's really tapped into something. It's exciting to see."

"He's just getting more confident in the box. He has made some adjustments to put himself in a position to drive the baseball and be consistent at the plate. ... He's a player that has definitely accrued a fair amount of wins for our club. You look at his individual production, it's been really solid."

Sosa opened the scoring on Sunday with a two-run home run in the first inning off Cleveland Guardians' starter Slade Cecconi. He connected with a slider on the outer half and pulled it 380 feet to left field for his 14th home run of the season, tied with Andrew Benintendi for the team lead.

Sosa had hit just 15 home runs in the first three seasons of his career, including 163 games played and 578 plate appearances, making his power surge in 2025 somewhat unexpected. The uptick in home runs in partially due to being an everyday player for the first time and already surpassing his career-high plate appearance total.

But it's not surprising to Sosa, given the effort he's put in to improve in this area.

"No, not really. I am not surprised because I've been working on my strength and my power for a long time, going to the gym every day," Sosa said. "Trying to hit the ball out front because that's where you can produce more power. I haven't thought much about that, and I'm not surprised by it. I'm just doing what I know I can do."

In the later innings of Sunday's 6-4 victory, Sosa singled sharply up the middle and provided an insurance run with a sacrifice fly. He finished the day 2-for-3 with a home run, three RBI and a run scored.

That raised his OPS to .751, the third-highest it's been at any point this season, and brought his slash line to .278/.307/.444 –– all career-highs. He also leads the White Sox with 100 hits and 48 RBI.

"I feel very good, very comfortable with a lot of confidence," Sosa said. "All of that is because I've been working very hard on getting my timing back. The last couple weeks, I've been able to do that."

Sosa sense this type of season could be coming from the start.

"Since Opening Day. Even before that, in spring training. I felt like, yeah, I belong here," Sosa said. "I'm a good player, and I know I can do the job I am supposed to do here. There's no doubt in my mind that I deserve to be here and that I am part of this."

Another positive is that Sosa's production hasn't come with peaks and valleys; he's been consistent for most of the season. His batting average has stayed above .250 for 85 of his 101 games and above .270 for 55 of them.

On a roster with several top prospects making their major league debuts, it might be easy to overlook Sosa's steadiness.

"Sosa was one of those guys that, you know, kind of a sneaky performer," manager Will Venable said in June. "Really good performance and productive, but he’s just a guy that was in there every day and kind of just look up and he’s among our team leaders in all categories."

Sosa came up with the White Sox in 2022 with an aggressive approach and low walk rate, which hasn't changed despite his increased production. He still chases as much as anyone, ranked in the third percentile in MLB at 41.1%, and rarely walks at 3.4%, the third percentile. His defense remains a work in progress, too.

But he's made up for that with significant strides in making quality contact. And while he strikes out around league average and still doesn't walk much, he's undeterred when pitchers get ahead of him, as he leads MLB with 19 hits in 0-2 counts.

"The most important thing about that is you have to keep your confidence level high," Sosa said. "No matter what the result is, you have to keep your plan. You know the pitcher, eventually, has to come to you in the strike zone. You have to be ready for it."

From Venable's perspective, there's a balance for Sosa to find between patience and using his typical aggression to his advantage.

"He regulates it. We know he's aggressive and we know there's chase in there, but we've seen early in the count where he takes a step back and gathers information and might seem passive early in the count, even getting to two strikes, then doing damage after two strikes," Venable said. "For him, it's balancing that out day to day, at-bat to at-bat, knowing he's ready to go but knowing when it's time to kind of scale back and get some information and see some pitches."

Getz has been with the White Sox since the nascent stages of Sosa's professional career as a teenager. He watched Sosa posted numbers that didn't necessarily jump off the page his first four minor league seasons before tearing it up in Double-A and Triple-A in 2022, with 23 home runs with a .315 batting average and an .881.

Sosa was below replacement level his first three seasons with the White Sox, but now he's 12th among second baseman at 1.5 wins above replacement. His defensive position and a lopsided strikeout-to-walk ratio are two areas Sosa and the White Sox will still have to hammer out moving forward, but 2025 has nevertheless been a notable step in the right direction.

"I think he's got a greater understanding of who he is," Getz said. "When we were around him at 17 years old, I mean, there were always a lot of positives. You could tell he was a guy that was looking forward to getting in the box. That's a good sign. Not everyone had that trait about them. But we've always believed in the player, and most importantly he's believed in himself and he's getting a chance to play at a regular basis and he's taking advantage of it."

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