White Sox Rookie Chase Meidroth Displays Rare Plate Discipline

When Chase Meidroth drove in his first run in the major leagues, it showed a lot about his approach.

Facing the Boston Red Sox – the team that traded Meidroth and other prospects for Garrett Crochet – he stepped to the plate on April 19 against right-hander Greg Weissert. Meidroth took a first-pitch slider down the middle for a strike, then backed away from an inside sinker to even the count.

Meidroth fell into a 1-2 hole after watching a sinker catch the bottom of the zone, but he didn’t panic. With a compact swing, Meidroth roped a high-and-inside sinker back up the middle for a single, which left his bat at 99.1 mph and brought home a run.

Patient is perhaps the best way to describe Meidroth, the White Sox No. 8 prospect who made his MLB debut on April 11 after posting a 1.050 OPS in Triple-A to begin the 2025 season. Through Meidroth’s first 53 MLB plate appearances, he has a chase rate of 17.8%, much lower than the MLB average of 28.4%. He almost never swings at the first pitch – just 3.8% of the time, compared to the league average of 29.9%.

“I think I’ve always kind of been priding myself on swinging at pitches in the zone and taking stuff out of the zone,” Meidroth said. “I love grinding at-bats and trying to get my way to first base as much as I can.”

“Just be locked into your zone, do your homework, pick your tunnels. These guys got good stuff, and they game plan and they know what they’re trying to do against you. So I think I find hitting toward your strengths and keeping them where you want to keep pitches and letting it happen from there.”

Regardless of the count, he swings 13.7% less frequently than the average hitter. He has nine walks to just eight strikeouts, and his whiff percentage is 8.6% lower than league average. This approach has carried over from his Triple-A season in 2024, when he led all minor leaguers with 105 walks.

That’s not to suggest he doesn’t swing because he can’t hit. Meidroth is batting .273, in line with his .282 expected batting average, paired with a .396 on-base percentage to begin his career. The White Sox don’t want Meidroth to change that approach, but at the same time they feel his ceiling as a hitter could be even higher with a bit more aggression.

It’s all about finding a balance.

“Really like his approach,” White Sox manager Will Venable said. “Obviously, he’s been patient. If there’s one thing that I’ve been on him about, it's just letting it loose in the heart of the plate more and being more aggressive at times. At the same time that’s just in his DNA to be a selective hitter. I don’t want to change who he is, but I think in time he’ll learn that he needs to be aggressive and get some good swings off early in the count on pitches over the heart.”

White Sox hitting coach Marcus Thames had a similar message. When Meidroth left spring training to go to Triple-A Charlotte, Thames told him to be more aggressive after leading the team with nine walks.

“He was taking a lot of pitches [in spring training] and at the big-league level, you can't get behind a lot,” Thames said. “But he took that down to Charlotte and applied it in his game, and his approach has been solid since he’s been here. He knows what he's doing, knows what he's trying to do. And it's been great. A great leadoff guy, sees a lot of pitches. Comes back and tells the guys what he's seeing. So far, so good. “

There have been moments where Meidroth has put that into action, while still maintaining his patience overall. On Saturday against Astros ace Hunter Brown, Meidroth took a first-pitch strike, then attacked the next pitch for a leadoff single.

Brown entered that start with a 1.22 ERA, but the White Sox scored three runs off him in the first inning, sparked by Meidroth.

“If [Brown] leaves something in a place you want to hit it, you gotta go,” Meidroth said. “Obviously he’s a really good pitcher, he’s got good stuff. But it’s baseball and we gotta be aggressive in the middle of the zone.”

Eleven of Meidroth’s 12 hits have gone for singles, the outlier being a double, so he’s still waiting on his first MLB home run. He hit seven home runs with a .401 slugging percentage in 122 Triple-A games last season, following a 2023 season with nine home runs and a .391 slugging percentage across 111 games at Double-A and Single-A.

It may be unlikely that Meidroth turns into a 30-home run type of player, but the White Sox believe extra-base power is there.

“Oh yeah. We’ve seen that. We saw it in camp,” Venable said. “We’ve seen it in the past in the minor leagues with him. So it’s in there.”

With the White Sox in the midst of a rebuild, they hope Meidroth can be a big part of the future. He’s led off and started at shortstop in all five games since returning from the injured list with thumb inflammation.

They also like the energy the 23-year-old brings to the field every day.

“I think we’re seeing it. He’s going out there running hard, playing hard,” Venable said. “He competes every moment of the game like a lot of our guys do. So it’s great to have him there setting the tone.”

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