The White Sox on Monday announced their initial player pool for the 2020 season. Player pools can contain up to 60 players, and only players in a team’s pool will be eligible to participate in summer training camp or regular/postseason games. Teams are free to change the makeup of the pools as they see fit, but once a team’s pool reaches 60 players, a player must be removed (released, traded, waived, etc.) in order to make a new addition. That player becomes ineligible to return to that same team in 2020.
Not all players within a team’s pool are ticketed for MLB playing time, of course. Most teams will include well-regarded but still far-off prospects as a means of getting them training reps with no intention of running them onto a major league diamond this season. A comprehensive review of 2020’s unique set of rules can be found here.
Here are the 44 players in the White Sox initial pool (* indicates player not on 40-man roster)…
Right-Handed Pitchers
- Drew Anderson*
- Dylan Cease
- Steve Cishek
- Alex Colome
- Jimmy Cordero
- Dane Dunning
- Carson Fulmer
- Tayron Guerrero*
- Lucas Giolito
- Ian Hamilton
- Kelvin Herrera
- Codi Heuer*
- Tyler Johnson*
- Michael Kopech
- Jimmy Lambert
- Reynaldo Lopez
- Evan Marshall
- Jose Ruiz
Left-Handed Pitchers
Catchers
Infielders
- Jose Abreu
- Tim Anderson
- Cheslor Cuthbert*
- Edwin Encarnacion
- Leury Garcia
- Nick Madrigal*
- Danny Mendick
- Yoan Moncada
- Andrew Romine*
- Andrew Vaughn*
Outfielders
Will the White Sox be good? Maybe. Will they be entertaining? I absolutely think so.
They are going to hit really well, Robert might be another Griffey Jr. or Trout, but I’m not at all impressed with that pitching staff. 83 wins tops here.
83 wins in 60 games should get them into the playoffs.
Yeah. 83 wins in 60 games is probably good for at least one of the wild card spots.
So you don’t think any of their extremely talented, highly thought of young pitchers will develop and get any better? Got it.
@Priggs89
Now, now. You know as well as I do that if a pitcher struggles at the beginning of his career, his career is basically over. Just ask Giolito.
Dunning and Lambert but no Seby. rough break for the poor man.
Seby sucks at catching and has never hit above AA. He’s a career minor leaguer.
Agreed – I love the 4 catchers on the roster now. If you can’t catch (Collins, Mercedes), at least you need to able to hit (which they can and will in my opinion).
Seby loses out due to numbers
It’s surprising that Seby Zavala isn’t among the initial players on the roster pool considering that of the 44 players to date 24 are pitchers. It’s stranger yet that Zavala is currently a member of the White Sox 40-man roster and one would think that the team would want an extra catcher on hand July 1st to help with all the pitchers who will be reporting to their MLB camp in two days. Hopefully there is no underlying health issue for his omission from this initial pool.
@ Aaron—good point about extra catcher(s) to help with the pitchers…..I do guess other than the one on the field there are only four mounds at GR. Having only four catchers puts a lot of strain on them with the number of pitchers that need work–especially when there are no exhibition games.
It’s probably more procedural than anything at this point.
Actually, being basically three weeks from the season when they get together later in the week most teams are at this 40-50 camp size by now.
With no games, no split squads, obviously “today” they feel four is a good number, but I agree with you—at least one more would make some sense.
Basabe is an interesting addition. Engel and Leury miss time, he could end up on the roster.
yuck.
Yeah, what a crappy ~6th option.
@cysoxsale
And there are so many better options for the Sox to go with as their 6th OF, right?
Maybe you could list those options for the rest of us, cysoxsale.
There are 16 more spots. Those players will probably train elsewhere. Seby could be in that group.
I was under the impression that yesterday was the deadline to submit the league your 60 man roster. Not all teams are holding a separate camp, and those that are still announced all players (not just those in MLB camp).
“Initial Player Pool” and, “Teams are free to change the makeup of the pools as they see fit, but once a team’s pool reaches 60 players, a player must be removed (released, traded, waived, etc.) in order to make a new addition” make me believe that is incorrect. However, I do not know for sure.
If so, I’d like to see Crochet as one of the remaining 16 to get reps at the very least.
Edit: Their beat-writer posted on Twitter, “No announcement yet of the remaining players in the players pool or the alternate workout site as of yet.”
It wasn’t really much of a deadline just like get the initial names and stuff but things can be still changed I believe. A lot of teams didn’t fill out all 60 spots for flexibility later.
It’s gonna be fun watching this team develop the next 2-3 years—pitching is gonna be sick!
Funny how on both of your accounts yesterday you were bashing the Cubs for having 50 players out of 60. Dumpster divin’ Rick?
*close up of ChiSoxCity while the curb your enthusiasm music plays*
@Banesays
Every team is going to be dumpster diving to fill the 60-man roster. Even the mighty Yankees went dumpster diving yesterday for the great Matt Duffy. I forgot Duffy was still playing baseball until yesterday.
Banesays, um I’m often imitated, but never duplicated! JSYK he is right you know. Pitching is gonna be sick starting with my guy Dylan Cease
Where’s burdi on the list?
@sox2020
Yeah, I was a bit surprised by that one also. Unless he’s not fully recovered from his injury.
Kubat is definitely snubbed more so than burdi
@cysoxsale
LOL, Kubat’s another Donn Roach–a career minor leaguer.
Good numbers, something some of the pitchets on the list above cant say
@cysoxsale
Good numbers? ROTFL
If you ignore his AAA numbers, I suppose. Sorry, I can’t ignore his AAA numbers. To wit:
12 Games
5.63 ERA
1.38 WHIP
9.6 H/9
2.7 BB/9
1.4 HR/9
5.6 K/9
2.06 K/BB
Boy, those are impressive numbers. He went 5-3, maybe those were the stats you were looking at.
The guy is 27 years old. The fact he hasn’t sniffed the MLB yet tells me all I need to know–another Donn Roach. Actually I can’t say that, at least Donn Roach had one decent season in AAA, along with a horrible tasting cup of coffee in Seattle.
I would gladly pay for a bus ticket so that Nicky Delmonico never got anywhere near 35th and Shields for the rest of his career.
Would be nice to see crochet added to this list. And maybe burdi, if they can find him underneath the layers of dust
There’s still 16 spots to fill, but I’m surprised Micker Adolfo isn’t on this list, unless he’s still injured. There’s a few on the 40-man who aren’t on here besides Adolfo, such as Burdi, Zavala, Matt Foster, Rutherford and Flores (I think I got them all). Did I miss a bunch of transactions and these guys are no longer on the 40-man roster?
I’m curious, if you’re on the current 40-man roster, do you have to be on the 60-man roster? I would think you would have to be, barring injury.
***Never mind, I just read the unique 2020 rules since initially posting this, you don’t have to be on the 40-man roster to be on the 60-man roster. Strange rule–then again, everything about this season has been strange, to put it mildly.
Pretty sure that Tyler Johnson is a different one than the one linked – the one linked pitched in the majors last for the Cardinals in 2007 and last signed with someone in 2012.
http://www.milb.com/player/index.jsp?player_id=656592#/career/R/pitching/2020/ALL
That’s the right one – young kid drafted in 2017 out of South Carolina.
Two Sox players test positive for the “Rona”.
I hope that’s the end of it for the Southsiders!