White Sox Notes: Hays, Benintendi, Sosa, Vasil
The White Sox introduced free agent signee Austin Hays this afternoon. The outfielder signed a $6MM contract with the rebuilding club, in large part because they’re well positioned to give him regular playing time in the outfield.
“Going back into free agency, I really wanted to go somewhere where I would have an opportunity to do that, play every day, get back to being able to play both sides of the ball, play defense every day as well,” Hays told reporters (link via Jay Cohen of The Associated Press). Hays played a semi-regular role with Cincinnati a year ago. He started a little over half the team’s games but got a decent amount of action as a designated hitter, playing just over 500 innings in left field.
That wasn’t entirely a decision based on usage. Hays had a trio of early-season injured list stints, all related to different areas of his left leg. He had battled a kidney infection in 2024. His most recent full season came in 2023, when he hit .275/.325/.444 in 566 plate appearances with the Orioles. Hays was an above-average everyday player in Baltimore for a few seasons. His recent production has been far more platoon dependent. The righty hitter has mashed left-handed pitching at a .335/.402/.543 clip over the past two years. His .233/.273/.387 line against righties is far less imposing.
The White Sox had arguably the worst right field situation in MLB before the Hays signing. He’ll be in the lineup against pitchers of either handedness and said he’s shooting to reach 140 games played. If he’s producing, he’s likely to be a midseason trade chip and might fit in more of a complementary role on a contender, but the immediate focus is on reestablishing himself as a viable everyday player.
Andrew Benintendi will be in the opposite corner. The left fielder is going into the fourth season of a five-year deal that hasn’t gone as planned. He’s a .245/.309/.391 hitter in more than 1600 plate appearances for the club. Owed $31MM for the next two years, Benintendi isn’t going to have any appeal on the trade market. General manager Chris Getz unsurprisingly said today that an offseason trade isn’t going to be on the table.
“We haven’t had too many conversations about Andrew, so we anticipate he’s going to be on this club come Opening Day,” the GM told reporters (link via James Fegan of Sox Machine). Benintendi has battled lower half injuries over the past two seasons as well, missing time with Achilles tendinitis and calf/groin issues.
That might lead to more work as a designated hitter in an ideal world, but the Sox are likely to lean heavily on their young catching duo of Kyle Teel and Edgar Quero in that spot. Their outfield is thin enough that they don’t have many options to replace Benintendi in left (or right, if Hays slides to left) on days when he’s in the DH spot. Luisangel Acuña is expected to get primary run in center field. Everson Pereira and Derek Hill would be in that mix if they break camp, while non-roster invitees Jarred Kelenic and Dustin Harris have clear paths to jobs.
All those players are out of minor league options. The Sox have taken fliers on a number of former prospects squeezed out by other clubs, but there are only so many bench spots available. Third catcher Korey Lee and backup infielder Lenyn Sosa are also out of options, so there’s limited roster flexibility coming out of camp.
The 26-year-old Sosa finds himself in a tricky spot. He’s coming off a 22-homer season that led the team. It came with an aggressive approach that left him with a meager .293 on-base mark. Sosa also struggled defensively at second base, where Chase Meidroth enters the spring as the projected starter. Getz said that Sosa is unlikely to factor into the outfield mix and mostly remained limited to the right side of the infield. Munetaka Murakami is going to play regularly at first base. Meidroth and Miguel Vargas are right-handed bats ahead of him at second and third base, respectively.
It’s unlikely Sosa will be in jeopardy of losing his roster spot out of camp, but Getz conceded “there is a little bit of a redundancy with the right-handed corner bats” on the roster. The Sox would presumably be willing to consider trade offers if another team looking for a righty infield bat called. He’s not going to pull a huge return, but there’s enough offensive promise that he should get some attention if Chicago makes him available. Speculatively, teams like the Pirates, Padres and Rays could benefit from adding a role player with that profile.
Turning to the other side of the ball, right-hander Mike Vasil tells Rob Bradford and Courtney Finnicum of the Baseball Isn’t Boring podcast that he’s building up as a starter going into Spring Training. Vasil worked mostly out of the bullpen as a Rule 5 pick last year, only starting three of 47 appearances. He routinely worked three-plus innings and reached 101 frames altogether, so a swing role wouldn’t be much different than the one he handled as a rookie.
Vasil managed an excellent 2.50 earned run average in his debut campaign. His strikeout and walk profile wasn’t particularly impressive, though he kept the ball on the ground at a strong 51.4% clip. The Rule 5 roster restrictions are lifted in year two, so the Sox can option Vasil to Triple-A if they want him establishing a starting routine in the minors. It’d be difficult to take him out of the big league bullpen if he’s pitching at the same level he did last season, though.
The Sox are likely to open the season with a front four of Shane Smith, Davis Martin, Anthony Kay and Sean Burke if everyone is healthy. Free agent pickup Sean Newcomb can work as a starter or multi-inning reliever. They landed upper minors pitching prospect David Sandlin in the Jordan Hicks salary dump with the Red Sox, while Jonathan Cannon remains on the 40-man roster.
Poll: Will The White Sox Trade Andrew Benintendi This Winter?
After winning 19 more times in 2025 than they did last season, the White Sox are showing some signs of life for the first time in a while. The beginnings of a young core centered around top prospects Colson Montgomery and Kyle Teel, both of whom impressed in their MLB debuts this year, as well as Rule 5 pick Shane Smith, appear to be forming. Controllable pieces like Miguel Vargas, Davis Martin, Sean Burke, and Wikelman Gonzalez have the look of what could be a solid supporting cast, as well.
Even with those steps forward acknowledged, however, it must be understood that the White Sox remain a long way from contention. Even with all of that improvement over a historically disastrous 2024 campaign, they still lost more than 100 games for the third consecutive season. They finished the season a whopping 28 games back of the Guardians for the division lead and a 2-2 record in March is the only thing preventing them from having lost more games than they won in every month of this year’s campaign. A 28-37 record after the All-Star break was certainly an improvement over a 32-65 first half, but even that second half record was a 92-loss pace. They allowed the 10th most runs in the majors this year while scoring the fourth fewest.
In other words, contention in 2026 remains a pipe dream on the south side of Chicago even after this season’s improvements. That surely means another year of prioritizing a farm system that has fallen into the middle of the pack on both ESPN and MLB Pipeline’s farm system rankings after the graduations of Montgomery, Teel, and Edgar Quero. Unfortunately for the White Sox, they’re running out of tradable assets. A Luis Robert Jr. trade has been speculated upon for years now, but appears to be just as much of a non-starter now as it was over the summer. Mike Tauchman‘s impressive 2025 campaign could make him an attractive target for a team in need of outfield help on the cheap, but no journeyman outfielder headed into his age-35 season should be expected to bring back a big return. Players like Vargas and Lenyn Sosa won’t be free agents until after the 2029 season, a point by which the Sox are surely hoping to be back in contention.
With so few resources through which they can upgrade their farm system on the trade market, might outfielder Andrew Benintendi actually prove to be their best asset on the trade market? Benintendi is coming off his best season in a White Sox uniform, though that bar is quite low. He hit .240/.307/.431 (103 wRC+) in 116 games this year with 20 home runs, an 8.5% walk rate, and a 17.4% strikeout rate. Poor defense in left field limited Benintendi’s overall value, but he was still worth 1.0 bWAR in less than a full season of work. Heading into his age-31 season, it’s not completely impossible to imagine Benintendi building on last year’s performance and getting back into the 110 wRC+ range he sat comfortably in for his career prior to arriving in Chicago.
If Benintendi were a free agent this winter, an outfield-needy team without much money to spend surely would have interest in his services for 2025. The problem, then, is Benintendi’s contract. $31MM guaranteed over the next two seasons is hardly the most onerous contract out there, but it’s still far more money than the veteran’s production has been worth, and no team is likely to be eager to take that deal of Chicago’s hands, much less surrender significant prospect talent for it.
With that being said, the White Sox have reportedly expressed willingness as recently as this summer to pay down some of Benintendi’s salary in order to facilitate a deal. To get a meaningful return for him, the Sox would surely need to cover the vast majority of his salary for the next two years. That might not be as unreasonable as it would seem, given that RosterResource projects the club for a payroll of just $45MM next year as things stand. That figure doesn’t include the $20MM club option on Luis Robert Jr.’s services next year, but even so, the White Sox should have plenty of money to work with this winter. Essentially buying a better prospect return from a club acquiring Benintendi by paying down his salary could be the best use of those resources.
With that said, there are some obstacles to that plan. For one thing, the White Sox have shown a reluctance to sell low on their players, as shown in their handling of Robert. Another problem could be that the best fits for Benintendi might be the team’s division rivals. Small-market clubs in significant need of outfield help would be the perfect trade partners for a deal like this, but both the Royals and Guardians reside in the AL Central alongside the White Sox, and it’s unclear if the the team would be willing to pay Benintendi to play for their direct opponents for the next two seasons.
The Pirates and Rockies are two other clubs that could be at least plausible fits for a Benintendi trade, but the market would surely be much softer if Cleveland and Kansas City aren’t involved. Another option could be to simply accept little to no return for Benintendi and try to offload as much of his salary as possible, though that wouldn’t do much for the team’s long-term outlook given their existing financial flexibility.
How do MLBTR readers think the White Sox offseason will play out with regards to Benintendi? Will they be able to leverage his decent 2025 season in order to get some type of return for him this winter? Will they resort to trading him in a salary dump to get a portion of his deal off the books while they can? Or will they hold onto him and hope for improvement in 2026? Have your say in the poll below:
Will The White Sox Trade Andrew Benintendi?
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Yes, but they'll do so for little return beyond salary relief. 40% (1,424)
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No, Benintendi will remain with the White Sox this winter. 39% (1,368)
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Yes, and they'll pay down his salary to get a meaningful prospect return. 21% (759)
Total votes: 3,551
White Sox Select Corey Julks
The White Sox announced today that outfielder Andrew Benintendi has been placed on the 10-day injured list, retroactive to September 21st, due to left Achilles tendinitis. Fellow outfielder Corey Julks has been selected to take his place on the active roster. The Sox had a couple of 40-man vacancies, so no further corresponding moves were necessary.
Benintendi’s injury brings another pedestrian season to a close for the former All-Star. The 31-year-old was excellent from June 1 onward in 2024 and looked to be on track for a full-fledged rebound earlier this season, but an uneven summer and multiple trips to the injured list will leave him with a .240/.307/.431 batting line that’s more or less league-average (102 wRC+).
We’re now three years into Benintendi’s five-year, $75MM free agent deal — remarkably, still the largest contract in franchise history for the White Sox — and he’s turned in a .245/.309/.391 batting line in 1613 plate appearances. Coupled with declining speed/baserunning value and defensive ratings that have tanked since signing with the South Siders, that output from the batter’s box has left Benintendi as a roughly replacement-level player since 2023 (-0.3 fWAR, 0.6 bWAR).
Earlier in the summer, the Sox were reportedly willing to pay down some of Benintendi’s contract if it meant facilitating a trade. No deal came together (obviously), and now that he’s further removed from that big finish to his ’24 season, it’s harder to take an optimistic stance on his 2026-27 outlook. He’s owed $31MM in the final two seasons of his contract, and the Sox would need to eat the vast majority of that or take on a different underwater contract to make a trade even remotely plausible in the offseason.
Julks, 29, was originally acquired from the Astros in May 2024 after he’d been designated for assignment in Houston. He’s seen minimal MLB time with the Sox since that swap and turned in a collective .221/.279/.320 batting line (71 wRC+) between the two seasons.
Chicago has already passed Julks through waivers unclaimed twice during the 2025 calendar year. He went 3-for-8 with a pair of doubles during his brief MLB look earlier this season but is a career .236/.290/.340 hitter in 520 major league plate appearances between the ‘Stros and Pale Hose. That said, he’s had a solid showing in Triple-A Charlotte this year, hitting .300/.374/.477 with 15 homers and 18 stolen bases in 487 turns at the plate.
Given the late nature of Julks’ return to the 40-man roster and the multiple outrights already in 2025, there’s a decent chance it’ll be a short stay on the roster for Julks once again. If the Sox remove him from the roster following the season, he can become a minor league free agent, though his strong work in Charlotte this year might be enough to keep him around as a depth option.
White Sox Willing To Include Cash In Trade Talks On Benintendi, Robert
The White Sox, sporting a 23-52 record, will operate as deadline sellers once again. They don’t have as much to offer as many other potential sellers around the league — partly because they’ve already sold off many desirable assets earlier in this rebuild but also due to the significant salaries of some of their remaining veterans. To that end, Ken Rosenthal and Will Sammon of The Athletic report that the South Siders are willing to include cash to help pay down the salaries on pricey outfielders Luis Robert Jr. and Andrew Benintendi.
Heading into the season, GM Chris Getz surely hoped that wouldn’t be necessary with regard to Robert, in particular. The 27-year-old has performed at a superstar level in the past when healthy. As recently as 2023, Robert slashed .264/.314/.542 (128 wRC+) with 38 home runs, 20 steals and elite center field defense in 145 games. That’s the only season in Robert’s career where he’s played more than 100 games, however. Injuries have repeatedly dogged the electric young outfielder, and he’s now been hitting poorly for more than a year.
Since Opening Day 2024, Robert has turned in an anemic .212/.276/.351 batting line (75 wRC+). He’s fanned in 32.5% of his plate appearances and, in 2025 specifically, been extremely prone to harmless infield pop-ups; 11 of Robert’s 155 batted balls this season (7.1%) have been infield flies.
Despite the run of awful production, there are some reasons for cautious optimism. Robert’s strikeout rate is enormous but not too much higher than the 29% he posted during that brilliant 2023 campaign. He’s also walking at a career-high 9.8% clip and chasing pitches off the plate at a career-low 31.3% rate, per Statcast. He’s hitting the ball as hard as ever, averaging 90.3 mph off the bat with a 42.9% hard-hit rate. Both are his second-best marks in any season of his career. His 11% barrel rate isn’t far behind his career 11.9% mark.
One might expect a player with Robert’s speed to slow down after a 2023 MCL injury and a Grade 3 strain of his hip flexor in 2024, but that’s not the case. Robert is 22-for-27 in stolen base attempts in 2025, and Statcast measures his sprint speed at 28.8 feet per second. That’s actually his fastest mark since his 2020 rookie year and places him in the 87th percentile of big leaguers. Given that plus speed, it’s not surprising to see Robert way up in the 97th percentile in terms of outfield range (as measured by Statcast).
Robert is hitting the ball hard, playing strong defense, showing more patience than ever before and running better than he has since his rookie season. He’s also hitting .190/.273/.303. It’s a confounding state of affairs, but as sharp as the tools may look, the results are clearly going to weigh down his trade value. Many teams with needs in the outfield would love to roll the dice on a Robert rebound following a change of scenery — just not at his current price tag.
This is the final guaranteed season of Robert’s six-year, $50MM contract, but the deal contains a pair of $20MM club options for 2026 and 2027. If he can turn things around, there’s still bargain potential. The Sox missed the boat not trading Robert coming off that 2023 season, but if they’re willing to pay down some of this year’s $15MM salary and the $2MM buyout on Robert’s 2026 club option, they could likely find a taker who’d be willing to give up some degree of prospect value. He’s a gamble, but a high-upside one who can be controlled for two more years at reasonable rates. There’s jackpot potential for a new team, and if things don’t work out in the final couple months, said club could always hit the “eject” button and decline Robert’s 2026 option.
It’s a slightly different story with Benintendi. While Robert has been on the downswing for more than a year, Benintendi has increasingly looked like his old self at the plate for more than a calendar year now. He quietly turned things around midseason last year and is slashing .251/.321/.468 with 24 homers, 24 doubles, two triples, a 9.1% walk rate and an 18.4% strikeout rate in his past 515 plate appearances. By measure of wRC+, that’s 20% better than average at the plate.
Benintendi’s speed is down a bit since his peak, however, and at 30 years old he now grades out as a below-average left fielder. A team that buys into his production dating back to last year might view Benitendi as a serviceable multi-year option in left field. However, he’s being paid $16.5MM this year and next, and his contract calls for a $14.5MM salary in 2027.
Benintendi almost certainly would command less than the two years and $31MM he’s owed for 2026-27 if he were a free agent, but he’s also no longer the total sunk cost he looked to be a year and a half into his five-year contract with Chicago. If the Sox eat half the remaining contract or more, they might well find an interested taker. Plenty of contenders and playoff hopefuls are looking for outfield help; the Padres, Royals, Reds and Dodgers have all gotten poor production from left field this year.
The ChiSox won’t necessarily need to eat salary to move some of their other available players, but speculatively speaking, their willingness to do so on Robert and Benintendi could be a sign they’re willing to do so elsewhere. Aaron Civale‘s $8MM salary isn’t prohibitive, but a team looking for a fourth starter to supply innings down the stretch might be willing to give up a bit more if Getz & Co. pick up the tab on most or all of his salary. Mike Tauchman ($1.95MM) and Adrian Houser ($1.35MM) are even less expensive, but covering some of that cash could be particularly beneficial to teams angling to stay under the luxury threshold.
White Sox Option Andrew Vaughn, Tim Elko
The White Sox announced today that outfielders Andrew Benintendi and Mike Tauchman have been reinstated from the injured list. In corresponding moves, first basemen Andrew Vaughn and Tim Elko have been optioned to Triple-A Charlotte.
Looking at recent developments, Vaughn being optioned to the minors isn’t a shock. His bat has hovered around league average for most of his career but he’s been far worse here in 2025. He’s currently sporting a .189/.218/.314 line on the year. He has five home runs but the batting average is obviously rough. A tiny 3.6% walk rate means his on-base percentage is also quite low. His 44 wRC+ indicates he’s been 56% below league average at the plate this year.
Zooming out for a wider view, it’s been a pretty surprising trajectory. Vaughn was a slugger in college, hitting 50 home runs in 160 games for California, leading to a .374/.495/.688 batting line. The Sox took Vaughn third overall in the 2019 draft and signed him with a $7.2212MM bonus. The hope was that he was a potential middle-of-the-order bat who could be a key staple of the lineup for years to come.
It hasn’t played out as hoped. Vaughn cracked the Opening Day roster in 2021 but, as mentioned, his results have been fairly middling so far. He has shown a bit of pop but nothing special, finishing each previous season of his career between 15 and 21 long balls. The batting averages haven’t been great and he hasn’t drawn many walks. From 2021 to 2024, he took 2,258 plate appearances for the Sox with 72 home runs. His 20.3% strikeout rate was good but his 6.5% walk rate was subpar. His combined .253/.310/.415 batting line led to a 102 wRC+, indicating he was 2% better than league average in that time.
That’s not disastrous production but the Sox were surely hoping for more, especially because he doesn’t provide value in any other way. He’s not a burner on the basepaths, with just three career stolen bases. His defense isn’t great anywhere on the field. Earlier in his career, the Sox got him some outfield time while they had José Abreu at first. The results were disastrous, with Vaughn getting terrible grades from advanced defensive metrics. He has since settled in as the regular at first but both Outs Above Average and Defensive Runs Saved consider him to be subpar there as well.
Coming into 2025, it wasn’t even a guarantee the Sox would tender him a contract. In the end, they did, and avoided arbitration by agreeing to a $5.85MM salary for this year. For a club that lost 121 games last year, the hope was presumably that Vaughn would finally have a big breakout at the plate and turn himself into a viable summer trade candidate, but that has not happened.
For now, Vaughn will head down to Charlotte to see if there’s some way to get himself back on track, but it seems his rope with the White Sox is running out. As mentioned, he was a non-tender candidate at the end of last year. He can be retained for next year via arbitration but it’s hard to see that happening with this year’s swoon. If he’s down in the minors for a few weeks, they would gain an extra year of club control, but that’s not likely to matter if he’s a non-tender candidate anyway. If he shows any promise at all in the coming months, the Sox will surely try to flip him prior to the July 31st deadline.
Elko getting optioned isn’t a shock in a vacuum. He was only promoted two weeks ago and has a .161/.188/.452 line in his first 32 big league plate appearances. But he had been taking some of the first base playing time recently and would have been a candidate to replace Vaughn there. With both Vaughn and Elko getting optioned, the Sox are subtracting their two primary first basemen.
General manager Chris Getz says that Miguel Vargas and Lenyn Sosa will be mixing in at that position, per James Fegan of Sox Machine. Sosa is a utility player with a subpar bat. Vargas is a former top prospect who may be having a breakout at the plate. He struggled in his initial big league call-ups with the Dodgers and this year’s batting line was .139/.236/.203 as of April 21st. Since then, however, he has a .315/.379/.565 line and 166 wRC+. That’s still a small sample of 103 plate appearances but his previous prospect status perhaps gives it some credibility.
He has been the club’s regular third baseman with passable defense there. DRS considers him to be a roughly league average defender at that spot, though OAA has him at -5 in his career and -3 this year. Perhaps the Sox feel it’s better if he moves to the less-demanding first base position. Josh Rojas is playing third base for now but he’s not hitting well this year and will likely be traded if he turns his season around. Perhaps Vargas will move back to third if Vaughn earns his way back to the majors.
Photo courtesy of Jay Biggerstaff, Imagn Images
White Sox Notes: Robert, Wilson, Benintendi
Luis Robert Jr. has been the subject of trade rumors for well over a year. With the White Sox in a full rebuild, it has felt like a matter of time before the 2023 All-Star would head elsewhere.
That has been complicated by Robert’s recent play. He missed a couple months early last year with a hip flexor strain and hit .224/.278/.379 with 14 homers in 100 games. The Sox held him over the offseason, maintaining a high asking price in hopes that he’d rebound and emerge as a key deadline trade chip. That hasn’t happened, as Robert’s numbers have only further spiraled. He goes into tonight’s game with a .186/.281/.308 line over 180 plate appearances. Robert has taken walks at a career-best 11.7% rate, but he’s striking out 29% of the time and not hitting for his usual amount of power.
Robert acknowledged that the lack of production is tanking his trade value. “Right now, as my season is going, I don’t think anybody is going to take a chance on me,” he told reporters through an interpreter (link via Kyle Williams of The Chicago Sun-Times). There are a little over two months for Robert to turn things around before the deadline. He remains a capable defensive center fielder and leads MLB with 17 stolen bases. Robert still has intriguing physical tools, but he hasn’t come close to his 2021-23 numbers (.287/.331/.511) in the batter’s box.
The Sox owe Robert what remains of his $15MM salary. He’s controlled via $20MM club options for another two seasons, but it’s increasingly difficult to see the team exercising those.
In other news out of Chicago, the Sox finalized their one-year deal with righty Adrian Houser this afternoon. He drew right into the rotation and held Seattle scoreless over six innings in a 1-0 victory for his team debut. Manager Will Venable confirmed that the Sox were moving Bryse Wilson back to the bullpen as a result of the signing (link via Scott Merkin of MLB.com).
Wilson had begun the year in relief but drew into the starting five after the Martín Pérez injury. He had a 5.28 ERA over 10 relief appearances. He struggled in four starts, surrendering 13 runs across 17 2/3 innings. Wilson is out of options, so the Sox needed to keep him on the MLB roster or designate him for assignment. He’s likely to work as a long man.
Meanwhile, Andrew Benintendi began a rehab assignment with Triple-A Charlotte this evening. He went 0-4 with a strikeout while working as the designated hitter. Benintendi has been out for two weeks with a strained calf. He’d hit .224/.298/.400 with five homers through his first 24 games. Austin Slater is the primary left fielder in Benintendi’s absence.
White Sox Place Andrew Benintendi On IL, Select Nick Maton
The White Sox announced that outfielder Andrew Benintendi has been placed on the 10-day injured list, retroactive to May 5th, due to a left calf strain. Infielder Nick Maton has been selected to take his place on the active roster. The 40-man already had a vacancy since right-hander Penn Murfee was outrighted earlier this week.
Benintendi was removed from Sunday’s game with tightness in that calf and didn’t play in the club’s past two games, which is why this IL stint was able to be backdated. If it’s a minor issue, he could return to the club in just over a week.
The Sox don’t have any hopes of competing this year, currently sporting a 10-26 record, worst in the American League. Still, it’s less than ideal for Benintendi to be hurt again, as the club would surely love to trade him prior to the deadline.
That will be tough to do on account of his contract. He is making $16.5MM this year and again in 2026, followed by a $14.5MM salary in 2027. He hasn’t performed especially well with the White Sox overall, so other clubs won’t be too excited to take that on.
He went into the 2024-25 offseason with a bit of positive momentum. His 2024 season started rough, as he had a line of .195/.230/.284 when he landed on the IL in June with an Achilles injury. But he hit .251/.326/.470 for a 124 wRC+ after being reinstated.
The White Sox would have loved for him to roll that performance forward into 2025 but the injury bug has had other plans. Benintendi suffered a hand fracture on a hit-by-pitch in the spring. He was able to get healthy by Opening Day but then hit the IL due to an adductor strain in early April. He was reinstated fairly quickly but is now back on the shelf again. Around those injuries, he has hit .224/.298/.400 on the year, with five home runs getting that line up to league average.
For the time being, Maton will get some more at-bats with the Sox. He spent about a month with the club earlier this year but was outrighted off the roster after hitting .173/.295/.327. That brought his career batting line to .202/.302/.354 over 575 plate appearances. He has hit far better in the minors without being able to translate it to the show. From 2022 to 2024, he slashed .267/.375/.454 in the minors for a 121 wRC+. He has played all four infield positions as well as the outfield corners in his career, so he can bounce around the diamond for the Sox.
Photo courtesy of Rick Osentoski, Imagn Images
White Sox Designate Omar Narvaez For Assignment
The White Sox announced Thursday that they’ve designated veteran catcher Omar Narvaez for assignment. His spot on the 40-man and active rosters will go to top catching prospect Edgar Quero, whose previously reported promotion to the majors is now official; his contract has been formally selected. Chicago also reinstated outfielder Andrew Benintendi from the injured list and optioned fellow outfielder Greg Jones to Triple-A Charlotte in a corresponding move.
Narvaez returned to the White Sox — the team with which he made his major league debut — when he signed a minor league contract back in January. He was selected to the 40-man roster earlier this month when Korey Lee suffered an injury, but with the presence of top catching prospects Quero and Kyle Teel in Triple-A, the potential for the reunion to be short-lived was always present. The 33-year-old Narvaez wound up appearing in only four games, during which he went 2-for-7 with a pair of singles and a couple of walks.
Narvaez’s days as a regular behind the plate look to be in the past. He was a solid option behind the dish from 2017-21, batting a combined .266/.351/.403 in 1670 plate appearances. That was effectively league-average offense (101 wRC+), but catchers tend to be well below-average hitters. Relative to his position, Narvaez was a comfortably better-than-average hitter. Though he posted below-average defensive grades early in his career, his glovework — framing in particular — has improved considerably over the years.
Since a nice showing with the 2021 Brewers, however, Narvaez’s production has tanked. He struggled with Milwaukee in 2022, signed a two-year contract with the Mets the following offseason, and wasn’t able to right the ship. Overall, he’s posted a .201/.278/.286 line in his past 521 plate appearances (including his brief look with the ChiSox this year).
The White Sox can place Narvaez on waivers or trade him at any point in the next five days. Waivers themselves are another 48-hour process, meaning the max length of his stay in DFA limbo will be one week. While he’s struggled quite a bit in recent seasons, Narvaez could still hold appeal to clubs seeking catching depth in the wake of injuries. The Red Sox (who currently roster his cousin, fellow catcher Carlos Narvaez) are without Connor Wong for the foreseeable future due to a broken finger. The Tigers (Jake Rogers), Reds (Tyler Stephenson) and Marlins (Nick Fortes) have all seen their starting catchers go down with an oblique strain — quite recently in the case of Detroit and Miami.
The Sox won’t get a prospect back for Narvaez, but he could be flipped for cash or claimed off waivers. If he clears waivers, he has enough service time to reject an outright assignment and elect free agency.
Quero will be the first of Chicago’s touted catching prospects to get a look in the big leagues. He’s out to a terrific start in Charlotte, having slashed .333/.444/.412 through his first 63 trips to the plate. That performance follows up last year’s stout .286/.366/.463 batting line in a combined 402 plate appearances between Double-A and Triple-A. The switch-hitting Quero isn’t considered a plus defender, but he has the chance to be a bat-first regular behind the plate. He and Teel have big enough offensive ceilings to envision a scenario where both are on the same roster and splitting time between catcher and designated hitter.
Benintendi’s stay on the injured list due to an adductor strain proved minimal. That’s good news for the Sox, as the former All-Star has gotten back on track in a major way dating back to the midpoint of last season. Benitendi caught fire last summer and closed out the year with a .251/.325/.473 slash over his final 317 trips to the plate. Coupled with an even stronger start to his 2025 season, he’s now hitting .255/.326/.475 with 18 homers, a 9.4% walk rate and a 19.1% strikeout rate over his past 350 plate appearances.
Benintendi’s contract once looked immovable, but if he continues to produce along these lines for another couple months, he could emerge as a viable summer trade candidate. He’s being paid $16.5MM in 2025 and is owed a total of $31MM in 2026-27 as part of his five-year, $75MM contract.
White Sox Place Andrew Benintendi On IL With Adductor Strain
The White Sox announced that outfielder Andrew Benintendi has been placed on the ten-day injured list, retroactive to April 7, with a left adductor strain. Fellow outfielder Greg Jones has been recalled to take his place on the active roster.
The news isn’t significant for the Sox in the short-term. They were unprecedentedly bad last year, setting a modern era record with 121 losses. They are out to a 2-8 start this year. They’re one of the few teams in the majors not actively trying to compete.
But they would surely love for their veteran players to build trade value and Benintendi is one of the most interesting guys to watch in that regard. Broadly speaking, his signing has not worked out well. The Sox gave him a five-year, $75MM pact ahead of the 2023 season but he hit just .246/.309/.374 for a wRC+ of 90 over the first two seasons.
However, he did have a strong finish last year. He started out with a brutal .195/.230/.284 showing, carrying that line when he headed to the IL in June due to an Achilles injury. He came off the IL and then hit 16 home runs in his final 322 trips to the plate. He drew walks at a 9.9% clip and only struck out at an 18.9% pace. His .251/.326/.470 line in that time translated to a 124 wRC+.
That gave him a bit of momentum coming into 2025, which has been up-and-down so far. He was hit by a pitch early in spring and fractured a bone in his hand, putting him on ice for a few weeks. He was able to get healthy by Opening Day and has a strong .290/.333/.484 line in his first 33 plate appearances this year. Unfortunately, he’ll now have to be put on the shelf for a while.
It may not be an extended absence. Benintendi departed Sunday’s game due to this adductor issue. The Sox didn’t initially put him on the IL, perhaps suggesting it was more of a day-to-day thing. But after a few days, he’s now been placed on the IL after all. Since it’s been backdated by two days, he could theoretically be back in just over a week.
Once he’s back, he would ideally pick up where he left off. He’s making $16.5MM this year and will be owed $31MM over the final two years of the deal. That will leave about $37MM left to be paid out when the deadline is approaching. Given his inconsistent performance in recent years, the Sox would probably have to eat a bunch of that to line up a deal, but they should be able to do that easily since they have almost nothing else on the books. How much they have to eat will depend on what kind of health/performance they get from Benintendi in the coming months.
For now, White Sox fans can get their first look at Jones, who was claimed off waivers from the Rockies just before Opening Day. He has only six big league plate appearances but has huge speed. He stole 46 bags in the minor last year, despite only playing in 89 games.
Andrew Benintendi To Miss Four To Six Weeks Due To Hand Fracture
The White Sox announced that outfielder Andrew Benintendi has a non-displaced fracture in his right hand and will miss four to six weeks. He departed today’s spring training game after being hit by a pitch.
It’s an unfortunate blow for Benintendi and the White Sox. With the spring just getting going, he’ll now be shut down and miss the remainder of camp. Once healthy, he’ll have to head out on a rehab assignment and effectively start his spring training over again.
The Sox weren’t going to compete this year. They set a modern-day record with 121 losses in 2024. They aren’t likely to be significantly better in 2025. They did sign a few veterans to fill some roster spots but also traded Garrett Crochet to the Red Sox in exchange for prospects.
However, Benintendi had a chance to play himself into being a trade candidate, something that MLBTR looked at just yesterday. With three years and $15.83MM left on his deal and the Sox deep in a rebuild, they would surely love to move him. Any improved performance would have helped them do that while allowing Benintendi to play for a contender, a win-win for both sides.
Since signing with the Sox ahead of the 2023 season, Benintendi has hit just .246/.309/.374 for a wRC+ of 90 with poor defensive metrics to boot. But his 2024 season finished on a strong note. He had a stint on the injured in June due to left achilles tendinitis. He had hit just .195/.230/.284 before that IL stint but then slashed .251/.326/.470 the rest of the way. That latter line translated to a 124 wRC+, indicating he was 24% above league average at the plate.
That led to some hope that he could return to form in 2025, since he had hit .279/.351/.431 for a 109 wRC+ before joining the White Sox. If Benintendi has a bounceback in him, it will have to stay on ice until he gets over this injury.
The Sox will now have some early-season playing time to reallocate. Luis Robert Jr., another trade candidate that the Sox are hoping to see build value, will be the everyday guy in center. Mike Tauchman and Austin Slater could perhaps form a platoon in one corner. Michael A. Taylor is on the roster, likely viewed as a fourth outfielder/defensive replacement/pinch runner type.
Oscar Colás and Dominic Fletcher are on the 40-man roster. Each still has an option remaining and seemed ticketed for time in Triple-A but perhaps this opens some big league time for one of them. Joey Gallo is also in camp as a non-roster invitee, so this could lead to his contract being selected. Other NRIs with some big league experience include Corey Julks and Calvin Mitchell. If the Sox decide they want to bring in some more depth, players like Alex Verdugo, David Peralta and Robbie Grossman remain unsigned.