The White Sox announced Tuesday that righty Jonathan Cannon has been placed on the 15-day injured list due to a lower back strain. Right-hander Caleb Freeman is up from Triple-A Charlotte to take Cannon’s spot on the active roster.
Cannon, 24, was sharp through his first nine trips to the hill this season (3.60 ERA, 18 K%, 7.8 BB% in 50 innings) but has run into a rough patch of late. Over his past trips to the mound, he’s been roughed up for 13 runs on 17 hits and four walks in 13 2/3 innings. Yesterday’s outing against the Tigers was particularly shaky; Cannon surrendered five runs — on the strength of three homers — and walked three batters in just three innings. A recent velocity drop could underscore the fact that he’s been pitching at less than 100 percent; Cannon averaged 93.5 mph on his four-seamer and 93 mph on his sinker through May 18 but has averaged just 91.8 mph and 92 mph, respectively, since.
The South Siders haven’t yet said how long Cannon will be out. Bruce Levine of 670 The Score reports that the Sox have already had imaging performed but have not yet publicly disclosed the results. It’s also not clear who’ll replace Cannon in the rotation. The Sox are currently going with Shane Smith, Davis Martin, Sean Burke and Adrian Houser in an all-righty rotation. Swingman Bryse Wilson is stretched out enough that he tossed five innings yesterday in relief of Cannon, but he’s sitting on a 6.80 ERA this year — including 17 earned runs in his past 14 2/3 innings.
Chicago’s depth chart has thinned out in recent months. Prospects Ky Bush and Drew Thorpe are out for the season after undergoing Tommy John surgery this spring. Other once-well-regarded prospects like Jairo Iriarte, Nick Nastrini, Owen White and Wikelman González have all struggled in the upper minors. Veteran southpaw Martín Pérez is out until at least September and could miss the rest of the year due to a flexor strain.
Lefties Noah Schultz and Hagen Smith are two of the top pitching prospects in all of baseball, but neither has even reached Triple-A yet; Smith only has 25 Double-A frames under his belt. The Sox probably want both to get more development time in before bringing them to the majors — particularly since neither needs to be added to the 40-man roster this offseason in order to be protected from the Rule 5 Draft.
The South Siders do have a top prospect who’s making a compelling case for a call to the majors sooner than later, but it’s not one of their coveted young arms. Catcher Kyle Teel, the headline prospect in the trade sending Garrett Crochet to Boston, is hitting .289/.394/.491 in Triple-A (131 wRC+). Teel has walked in a massive 14.8% of his plate appearances, fanned at a 26.6% clip that the Sox would surely like to bring down, clubbed eight homers and even swiped seven bags in eight attempts.
A consensus top-50 prospect in the sport, Teel got out to a slow start this season but has only been held hitless four times in 34 games dating back to an April 12 doubleheader where he went 0-for-3 in both halves of that twin bill. In 134 plate appearances since that time, the 2023 first-rounder (No. 14 overall) is batting .331/.428/.532. Strikeouts remain an issue, and Teel’s .378 average on balls in play isn’t sustainable, but it’s hard for him to do much more to clamor for a call to the majors.
The Sox, it seems, are taking notice. Teel tells Scott Merkin of MLB.com that the organization has begun to have him work out at first base. Teel hasn’t played there in a game yet but has been taking grounders at first base the past few days and working with the staff in Charlotte to acclimate himself to a new position.
Chicago recently optioned longtime first baseman Andrew Vaughn to Charlotte. The former No. 3 pick has been a constant in their lineup for four-plus seasons but has never lived up to expectations when he was one of the top prospects in his draft class. Vaughn has been a roughly average offensive performer with poor glovework and baserunning. The Sox are surely hoping he can get on track in Triple-A and salvage some value later this summer, but sending him down and getting Teel some looks at first base signal a clear shift in the team’s plans.
Teel probably isn’t an option to be the Sox’ everyday first baseman moving forward. He’s regarded as a viable defensive catcher who blocks balls in the dirt and throws well. He’s nabbed 33% of would-be base thieves this season. Baseball Prospectus also gives him solid framing marks behind the dish in the minors.
That said, the Sox entered 2025 with two of baseball’s top catching prospects: Teel and former minor league teammate Edgar Quero. It was Quero who received the first call to the majors, and he’s held his own, hitting .248/.336/.301. That’s about 13% worse than league-average overall, per wRC+, but not far off the average line posted by catchers in 2025. Quero has walked in 10.2% of his plate appearances against a 16.4% strikeout rate that’s about six percentage points better than average. He’s also making plenty of hard contact, but too much of it is resulting in grounders rather than line-drives or fly-balls. For a player whose sprint speed ranks in just the seventh percentile of MLB hitters, per Statcast, that’s not a good batted-ball trait.
Quero started quite strong and had a league-average batting line as deep into the season as May 25, so it’s not as if he’s been a lost cause at the plate. He’s in the midst of a dreadful 6-for-38 stretch, but he’d hit well prior to this slump. A cold streak spanning all of two to three weeks isn’t going to change the organization’s long-term view of Quero. The Sox are still hopeful that Quero and Teel can be their catching tandem for the next several years, and Teel getting some reps at first base only makes it easier for the Sox to get both into the lineup — assuming Teel handles the drills at first base reasonably well.
Ah, the old How Hard Can 1B Be gambit. Tell ’em, Wash.
Thanks, Steve, for finally having enough material to write a Sox Notes story. Well done.
It’s interesting that the Score, the cubs radio station, reported
The Score is not the Cubs radio station.
Cubs games are broadcast on the Score, but the Score is not owned by the Cubs.
Bruce Levine reports on both Chicago teams.
Most of the Score personalities are Sox fans: Shane, Tanny, Laurence, Mully, Marshall, Gabriel, Leila, ex-Bernsie
WRONG Caleb Freeman link. This website is so inaccurate.& they don’t care to fix it.
Find another website, Huckleberry Finn.
It’s interesting that a Sox note was contributed by someone from the Score, the cubs radio station. The Score also has regular conversations with Steve Stone and Ozzie Guillen while ESPN, the Sox’ radio station, never talks about the Sox. Thank you for letting me vent.
Have you noticed that on the Sox’ post-game show, when giving the other final scores from that day, the host doesn’t give the Cubs score, win or lose? Someone told him not to give the Cubs free publicity, and to act like the Sox are the only team in town. That is so typical of the small-mindedness of everyone connected with the Sox, and a good example of why, win or lose, they will always be Chicago’s other team. They are bush.
Alan: I noticed that a few years ago, and I have to say I don’t want to hear ANYTHING about the cubs during Sox games. If I wanted to know about that “other team”, I’d turn on Marquee, and that will NEVER happen.
@avenger: Judging from your comment, it seems like you’ve got the right team.
Just look at your phone, dumba$$
@Pain: That’s not the point. They are *journalists*. They are supposed to be communicators. Aside from the pettiness of it, it is bad journalism. When you give the out-of-town scores, as we used to call them, you should give all the scores.
I guess they had to give the scores of the three games the Sox played against the Cubs recently….How that must have hurt those small, petty people. You’ll forgive me if I chuckle a bit at their expense…
Alan, don’t talk about jotnalism. At least Chuck and Ozzie and broadcast staff are candid. The clowns at Marquee exercise as much journalistic integrity as Soviet Pravda. Like the time Marquee mgmt axed a post game comment because it deigned to be somewhat critical of the Cubbies and forced them to rerecord the segment after a call from Crane Kenny or some other mgmt hack
That’s a big stretch, calling a radio postgame show “Journalism.”
Why are you so concerned about what us peasants are doing? I couldn’t tell you what the Cubs postgame show does regarding anything because I’m almost 50 years old and I’ve never listened to it once in my life.
@Theo: You are right about Marquee. They are awful in content, style, and delivery. We read that they are not doing well financially, and it’s not hard to see why.
@Pain: Because I am one of those rarities, a fan of both teams. I go back to the days of Aparicio and Fox and Early Wynn with the Sox. I used to chat, shyly, with Bill Veeck in the apartment building in Hyde Park where we both lived. I still follow the Sox with empathy and am sad to see how far they have fallen. They have some promising young players and will be back, but it might be a slog, especially with the dislocations and interruptions that are likely to arise with the upcoming labor fight.
I’m just hoping that they stay in town, Jerry needs to go.
That’s cool you knew Bill Veeck.
The White Sox organization still doesn’t do anything well.
Wish we’d kept Quero.
I think ultimately he’ll hit more line drives and his slash line will improve.
If Quero does pan out it would be a Wsox player development win.
Why? Quero could hit without issue.
A lot going on with Chicago White Sox as the trade deadline approaches, four controllable starters that aren’t top tier prospects, all have pitched well this season. With the three or four prospects in AA all pitching well, another three on the IR in Bush, Thorpe and Adams, they will likely count on that depth to trade a young starter or two this season.
We have had some good hitting from Sosa, Tauchman, Vargas and Benintendi too. And there’s Luis Robert and his sub .200 BA.
Who will they trade, what will the return be? Should be an interesting one to follow. Would you throw in Edgar Quero for a big time prospect at 1st base or in the OF? Korey Lee and Teel could be a good backstop duo.
They don’t really need 1B prospect whatsoever. Sox are reportedly giving Teel reps at 1B and they have Elko. If I were the Sox, I would trade the some of the bullpen plus Tauchman and Houser for bats.
Elko isn’t Frank Thomas or Paul Konerko, or Jim Thome for that matter. We’re used to having a good first baseman on this team. Be nice to find one.
I like Teel but why move a good defensive catcher off the position. You have to look at trading either Teel or Quero at some point.
They could also trade Lee as well. Sox don’t really view Lee as a long term option at C. He’s basically upgraded Seby Zavala.
30 years of exceptional 1b play: Big Hurt, Paulie, Jose. That’s quite a run
Obviously Cannon was heading to the IL with back issues after every twist, turn, whiplash necessary after the Tigers repeatedly mashed every meatball he threw last night.
Cannon had to delay his last start prior to the Tigers b/c of this. Something is wrong, though you do see many others go on IL after a horrible start that looks phony.
Teel’s promotion should still be about his readiness to catch well. OTOH, Quero should play very little catcher since weak at it and DH a lot since he has more value as a hitter big picture with less wear and tear. The more he catches, he’ll wind up good at nothing.
Edgar was always a “bat first” prospect. Also. the auto umpire thing is coming sooner rather than later which makes his bad framing devalued over time.
hopefully it gets shot down because of the margin for error flaw, or because its all together ridiculous for the players to be challenging the umpires. Replay on a close call is one thing, to overturn a ball or a strike sucks – teust the umpires to domtheir jobs honestly and keep the game moving. I followed a number of the spring training games and it was a big distraction.
They institute a pitch clock to keep the games moving and then they want to challenge balls and strikes all game long.
ELko didn’t get a fair shot He only played in 10 games with 3 homers stretch that out to 120 games and he would hit 36 homers.they have nobody that will get close to that many on this roster.
Elko misses… A LOT, he did in the minors and Major league pitchers tend not to throw pitches down the middle. Ask Robert.
I would take Elko for Vaughn in 2026 all day. The K rate is serviceable as long as he deletes baseballs.
Well apparently he is getting a chance to strike out in the majors more as he was called up for Sosa being on the IL To be fair, its not all Elko’s fault, again he has to rely on..ahem.. ‘experts’ to help him cut down on his K rate.
I think the information in the article does well to pinpoint the issue, that the White Sox developmental coaching sucks (specifically for position players), that they have sucked for some time, and continue to suck, especially when ‘The Mummy’ fails to pump money and talent into that area of his org.
Heck look at most of the guys on the major league roster with a hitting coach so inept that he helped the Sox to an all time worst W-L record (for them anyway) last season and yet somehow kept his job and now the Sox are poised to do the same this season if not officially break the all time losses in the season record.
If the Sox really want to have consistent windows to win, it would do them well to build from within, especially the minor league org and scouting, but that takes talent and -more importantly- cash, to do this and start with firing the current GM that as supposed to have fixed this a few seasons ago. It would be no more painful than what they are going through now really.
Anyway, it would be better than what they are failing at now, flipping players every few years for prospects, many of which they fail to develop or were never good to begin with.
Correct on the second sentence. Sox seem to be above average in developing pitching, but the polar opposite in hitting. It would be extremely refreshing if they could develop Quero, the Montgomery bros, Wolkow, plus others.
Red Sox might as well trade for Quero
Quero isn’t getting traded.
I think we need to talk about why a 6’6” guy named Cannon is only averaging 93 on his fastball when at full strength.