The White Sox have signed shortstop Billy Carlson, reports Jim Callis of MLB.com. The Sox selected Carlson with their first-round pick, 10th overall, in last week’s draft. The signing bonus is $6,235,900, effectively slot value for the 10th overall pick. Jesse Rogers of ESPN reported the signing first, noting the bonus would be “about” $6.2MM.
Pre-draft rankings from MLB Pipeline, Baseball America, ESPN, FanGraphs and The Athletic’s Keith Law all had Carlson ranked from #7 to #12 in the class. All evaluators heap praise on his glovework, with many considering him the best defender in the class. BA mentions his “silky smooth actions in the field with clean hands.” His arm is strong enough that he was considered a potential two-way player for a while, hitting 97 miles per hour with his fastball when on the mound.
Offensively, there’s a bit more hesitation. His hit tool gets more praise than his power, as he generally has a contact-oriented line-drive swing. Whether he will develop into more power as he matures seems to be the key question here.
The White Sox don’t have an answer at shortstop at the moment. Chase Meidroth is currently getting most of the playing time and is performing well enough this year, but he’s expected to be a multi-positional guy in the long run. Colson Montgomery has had a challenging year and is currently playing more third base.
As a high school pick, Carlson won’t be a short-term solution. He doesn’t even turn 19 years old until next week. He’s years away from helping at the big league level, but based on the reports, he seems like a lock to stay at shortstop in the long run. The only question is what he will be able to provide at the plate.
Photo courtesy of Patrick Gorski, Imagn Images
