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Corey Julks

Nine Players Elect Free Agency

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Now that the season is over, we’ll start seeing several players choose to become minor league free agents. Major League free agents (i.e. players with six-plus years of big league service time) will hit the open market five days after the end of the World Series, but eligible minor leaguers can already start electing free agency.

To qualify, these players must have been all outrighted off their team’s 40-man rosters during the 2025 season without being added back. These players also must have multiple career outrights on their resume, and/or at least three years of Major League service time.

We’ll offer periodic updates over the coming weeks about many other players hitting the market in this fashion. Unless otherwise credited, these free agent decisions are all listed on the official MLB.com or MILB.com transactions pages, for further reference.

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Outfielders

Pitchers

Photo courtesy of Jonathan Hui, Imagn Images

White Sox Outright Fletcher, Julks, Peguero, White

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The White Sox announced they have outrighted outfielders Dominic Fletcher and Corey Julks, along with pitchers Elvis Peguero and Owen White, to Triple-A Charlotte. Chicago also lost Will Robertson via waivers to Pittsburgh, which brings their 40-man roster down to 35 players.

Fletcher logged the most big-league time of the foursome this season. The 28-year-old appeared in a dozen games with the White Sox after getting called up in early September. He slashed .219/.265/.469 over 34 plate appearances. Fletcher only notched seven hits, but he made them count, swatting five doubles and a home run. Power hadn’t been part of Fletcher’s game heading into this season, but he launched a career-high 17 home runs in 105 games with Triple-A Charlotte before getting called up.

Chicago acquired Fletcher in early 2024 in a trade that sent Cristian Mena to Arizona. He was coming off a strong 2023 that saw him post an .899 OPS at Triple-A Reno and then slash .301/.350/.441 over 28 games with the Diamondbacks. Fletcher failed to replicate those results in Chicago, stumbling to a .206 batting average in 72 games with the White Sox last season. The team made a point to give Fletcher and other young players more opportunities to close 2024, but it didn’t translate into a big-league role for Fletcher this past season.

Julks has the most MLB experience of the group, though the majority of his work came in 2023 with Houston. He came over in a trade midway through 2024 after the Astros designated him for assignment. Julks held down a part-time role for the White Sox after the deal, appearing in 66 games, including 45 starts. Julks got on base at a meager .275 clip while striking out at an elevated 26.5% rate. While he hardly got a look with Chicago in 2025, Julks did hit 15 home runs with 18 steals at Triple-A. It’s that type of power and speed that has intrigued multiple organizations.

A massive 2022 put Julks on the radar in Houston. He smashed 31 home runs and stole 22 bases in 130 games at Triple-A Sugar Land. The performance led Julks to break camp with the Astros in 2023. He earned regular opportunities through July, but a 79 wRC+ landed him back at Sugar Land. He’s failed to gain significant traction since then. Julks appeared in just six games with the White Sox this past year. He’s now entering his age-30 season.

Chicago claimed Peguero off waivers from the Brewers in August. He’s pitched in parts of five MLB seasons. Peguero debuted with the Angels in 2021. He’s recorded a 4.26 ERA across 141 2/3 innings at the MLB level. All but one of his appearances have come as a reliever.

Peguero scuffled to a 4.91 ERA over six outings with Milwaukee this season before getting designated for assignment. He joined the White Sox for a pair of appearances, allowing three earned runs over two innings. Peguero’s debut with Chicago marked his first career MLB start. He opened against Detroit ahead of bulk reliever Tyler Alexander, allowing a run over 1 2/3 innings.

White was also a waiver claim. The White Sox scooped him up in February after the Yankees designated him for assignment. It was the final stop on a whirlwind offseason for White, who was traded from Texas to Cincinnati, then designated for assignment and claimed by the Yankees, before finally arriving in Chicago in the span of six weeks.

It’s been a while, but White had plenty of hype as a prospect. He was a second-round pick by the Rangers in 2018. Injuries set him back, but he was a consensus top 100 prospect heading into 2023. That season went poorly for White, both at the minor league level and in his first MLB stint. White posted a pedestrian 4.99 ERA upon reaching Triple-A. His prodigious strikeout numbers from the lower levels of the minors completely dissipated. He was rocked in four innings with the Rangers, allowing five earned runs over two appearances. White continued to scuffle at Triple-A in 2024, posting a 5.64 ERA. He was crushed for eight earned runs over three MLB outings. White made it up for seven innings with the White Sox this past season, allowing seven earned runs on 14 hits.

White Sox Select Corey Julks

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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 Outright Corey Julks

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Outfielder Corey Julks has cleared waivers and been sent outright to Triple-A Charlotte, reports Scott Merkin of MLB.com. The White Sox designated him for assignment earlier this week. Since this is his second career outright, he has the right to reject the assignment and elect free agency, though Merkin didn’t indicate he would do so.

Julks, 29, has put up plenty of intriguing numbers in the minors. That has led to a few limited looks in the big leagues, but he hasn’t been able to do much with those. He has a .236/.290/.340 line in 520 career plate appearances, which translates to a wRC+ of 76, indicating he’s been 24% worse than the league average hitter.

The minor league track record is greater in both quality and quantity. Dating back to the cancelled 2020 season, he has stepped to the plate 1,630 times on the farm with a .278/.361/.486 batting line and 120 wRC+. He’s also stolen 63 bases and lined up at all three outfield spots.

That minor league track record wasn’t enough for any club to give him a 40-man spot. He still has an option remaining and could have been stashed in the minors but all clubs passed on that chance. As mentioned, since he has been outrighted before, he could decide to head to the open market now. If he passes on that opportunity, he’ll qualify for minor league free agency at season’s end.

Photo courtesy of Kamil Krzaczynski, Imagn Images

White Sox Designate Corey Julks For Assignment, Select Yoendrys Gómez

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The White Sox announced a series of roster moves today. Infielder/outfielder Miguel Vargas has been reinstated from the 10-day injured list and right-hander Yoendrys Gómez has been selected to the roster. In corresponding moves, the club optioned right-hander Elvis Peguero to Triple-A Charlotte and designated outfielder Corey Julks for assignment.

The Sox selected Julks to their roster at the start of the month. They had traded Austin Slater to the Yankees ahead of the deadline, opening some outfield playing time. It seems they never really had Julks in their plans. They have given him just eight plate appearances this month. He could hardly have done much more with that small sample of playing time, as he produced a .375/.375/.625 line. Now that he’s quickly being bumped off the roster, it seems the Sox were only viewing him as a temporary stopgap.

He now heads into DFA limbo. With the trade deadline having passed, the Sox will have to put him on waivers. Despite that aforementioned hot run, his major league results have not been great on the whole. He now has a .236/.290/.340 line and 76 wRC+ in 520 big league plate appearances.

His minor league track record is better. Dating back to the start of 2022, he has 1,258 Triple-A plate appearances with a .275/.364/.485 line and 119 wRC+. That includes a .295/.373/.470 line and 117 wRC+ this year. He’s also usually good for double-digits steals in most years, with 13 Triple-A steals so far in 2025.

He has one option year remaining and hasn’t yet burned it here in 2025. It’s therefore possible for a club to put in a claim, keep Julks in the majors for most of what remains of 2025, thereby keeping that option year intact for 2026. It’s also possible for a club to claim him and stash him in the minors for the stretch run, even if that would burn his final option. However, Julks was also passed through waivers in the offseason, so it’s possible that happens again. If he clears this time, it would be his second career outright, meaning he would have the right to elect free agency.

As for Gómez, it’s possible he’s getting a more meaningful audition, as he’s listed as tonight’s starter for the White Sox. The club recently optioned Jonathan Cannon, opening a rotation spot. The Sox did a bullpen game yesterday, with Tyler Alexander covering the bulk role by throwing 4 1/3 innings. Perhaps Gómez will get a few turns to show his bonafides.

Coming into 2025, he had posted intriguing minor league numbers as a starter in the Yankees’ system. But he hadn’t yet done much in the majors and was out of options. That left him stuck in a long relief role to begin the year and eventually got him pushed off the roster. He went to the Dodgers and then the White Sox via the waiver wire. The Sox eventually pushed him through unclaimed towards the end of May.

While no player wants to lose his spot in the big leagues, getting outrighted to Triple-A at least gave Gómez a chance to get stretched back out as a starter and the results have been good. Since clearing waivers, he has tossed 46 2/3 Triple-A innings with a 2.12 earned run average, 32% strikeout rate and 10.5% walk rate.

The Sox are playing out the string on another losing season, so they should be able to give Gómez a little audition the rest of the way. If he’s able to post decent results and hold a roster spot into next year, he can be controlled for six full seasons after this one.

Photo courtesy of Kamil Krzaczynski, Imagn Images

White Sox Select Corey Julks

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The White Sox announced a few moves before tonight’s series opener with the Angels. They selected outfielder Corey Julks onto the roster and activated Shane Smith from the 15-day injured list. Chicago optioned outfielder Will Robertson to Triple-A Charlotte. They already had an opening on the active roster for a pitcher after trading Adrian Houser to Tampa Bay yesterday. Smith will take the ball tonight.

Robertson had just been recalled on Wednesday after the Sox traded Austin Slater to the Yankees. That subtracted a right-handed bat from their outfield. They’ll reset that balance by bringing up the righty-hitting Julks in place of Robertson, a lefty bat. Julks is a 29-year-old who made 93 appearances with the Astros as a rookie two seasons ago. Chicago acquired him last May in a minor trade. He made 66 appearances and hit .214/.275/.306 with three home runs.

That unsurprisingly was not enough for Julks to hold his roster spot all winter. He went unclaimed on waivers and remained with the organization in a non-roster capacity. Julks hit his way back to the big leagues with an impressive .295/.373/.470 slash line in Charlotte. He has connected on 10 home runs and stolen 13 bags while taking walks at a solid 10.3% clip. Julks can’t really play center field, but he can take some at-bats against lefty pitching form the left-handed hitting corner outfield duo of Andrew Benintendi and Mike Tauchman.

White Sox Outright Corey Julks

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The White Sox announced Wednesday that outfielder Corey Julks passed through waivers unclaimed and was assigned outright to Triple-A Charlotte. He’ll remain with the organization as non-roster depth and be invited to big league camp this spring.

An eighth-round pick of the Astros in 2018, Julks came to the White Sox last May after he’d also been designated for assignment in Houston. Chicago sent right Luis Rodriguez, a 20-year-old reliever in Rookie ball, to the ’Stros in that swap. Julks wound up logging 66 games and 189 plate appearances for the South Siders but hit just .214/.275/.306 with poor batted-ball metrics during that time (84.9 mph average exit velocity, 28.2% hard-hit rate). He fared quite a bit better in Triple-A last year, slashing .278/.372/.470 between the two organizations.

Julks has always hit well in the upper minors. He’s a .267/.360/.491 hitter in parts of three Triple-A seasons and sports a .275/.339/.459 slash in a pair of Double-A campaigns. He’s a good runner (80th percentile sprint speed) with above-average arm strength who’s best suited for corner outfield work but does have the experience to handle center in a pinch.

Given the state of the White Sox’ outfield, Julks could play his way back onto the big league roster. Andrew Benintendi, Luis Robert Jr. and Mike Tauchman are slated to start for rookie skipper Will Venable in 2025, but Benintendi is coming off a pair of down seasons, while both Robert and Tauchman will be trade candidates this summer if they’re healthy and playing well. Others in the outfield mix include Dominic Fletcher, Zach DeLoach and Oscar Colas, but none of that trio has established himself as a credible big leaguer yet.

White Sox Acquire Cam Booser

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6:06pm: The trade has now been announced, with Booser headed to Chicago in exchange for right-hander Yhoiker Fajardo. To make room for Booser on the club’s 40-man roster, the White Sox designated Corey Julks for assignment. Fajardo, 18, posted a 3.91 ERA in 13 starts during the Dominican Summer League this year. Julks, 28, hit .214/.275/.306 in 66 games with the White Sox this year.

4:01pm: The White Sox and Red Sox are in agreement on a deal that will send left-hander Cam Booser to Chicago, according to a report from Robert Murray of Fansided. The return headed to Boston in exchange for Booser’s services is not yet clear, though James Fegan of Sox Machine reports that a minor league player is the return and Chris Cotillo of MassLive further clarifies that the return is expected to be a minor league pitcher.

Booser, 33 in May, made his big league debut with the Red Sox back in April. After kicking off his professional career with the Twins in 2013, he climbed the minor league ladder but hit a wall in High-A during the 2017 season. He eventually resurfaced in independent ball in 2021 and bounced between indy ball and the minor leagues for the Diamondbacks until joining the Red Sox organization for the 2023 season.

Once he finally made his big league debut last year, he pitched quite well for the club with a 3.38 ERA in 42 2/3 innings of work with a 23.5% strikeout rate with an 8.7% walk rate. That was good for a solid 3.80 FIP, though an elevated 80% strand rate and a low 8.3% home-run-to-fly-ball ratio suggest the possibility of some regression in Booser’s profile as represented by a 3.92 SIERA and a 4.40 xFIP. Despite his somewhat questionable peripherals and an unusual path to the big leagues, however, Booser profiled as a quality middle relief option from the left side.

With Aroldis Chapman and Justin Wilson already added to the bullpen from the left side in Boston and Brennan Bernadino in the fold as a more established lefty option as well, Booser had become somewhat expendable for the Red Sox. That’s evidently led him to join the White Sox bullpen, where he joins former Yankees reliever Ron Marinaccio among external additions this winter. Booser figures to be much higher on the lefty relief depth chart in Chicago than he would’ve been in Boston, as he trades the competition of established veterans like Chapman and Wilson out for less established arms like Jared Shuster and Fraser Ellard.

White Sox Acquire Corey Julks From Astros

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The Astros have traded outfielder Corey Julks to the White Sox, per announcements from both clubs. The Astros, who designated Julks for assignment last week, will receive minor league right-hander Luis Rodriguez in return. Julks has been optioned to Triple-A Charlotte. To open a 40-man spot for Julks, the Sox designated outfielder Rafael Ortega for assignment and recalled outfielder Dominic Fletcher to take Ortega’s spot on the active roster.

Julks, 28, was an eighth-round pick of the Astros back in 2017 and wasn’t really considered a very noteworthy prospect in the years following that selection. He put himself on the radar with a strong 2022 season, hitting 31 home runs and stealing 22 bases in 130 Triple-A games. In the hitter-friendly environment of the Pacific Coast League, his .270/.351/.503 batting line led to a 108 wRC+.

That got him to the big leagues in 2023 but he didn’t immediately hit the ground running in the majors. He stepped to the plate 323 times for the Astros last year and hit .245/.297/.352 for a wRC+ of 80, though he also stole 15 bases and got solid grades for his outfield defense.

He’s been back at Triple-A this year and has another five home runs and six more steals in 31 games. His 12.8% walk rate is a few points higher than the 9.5% rate he had in 2022. His overall production this year is considered to be around league average for the PCL, but it’s an intriguing combination of skills.

Despite the interesting stats, Julks is 28 years old now and was blocked by a crowded outfield mix in Houston, so they nudged him off their roster. The White Sox have far more of a need and more of an ability to take a chance on a player like Julks, given their status as a rebuilding club.

Giving playing time to a veteran can yield to a positive result, as the Sox just recently traded Robbie Grossman to the Rangers for Anthony Hoopii-Tuionetoa. A similar path with a player like Ortega would have been ideal but he hit .071/.176/.071 in his 17 plate appearances for the Sox in recent weeks and wasn’t trending towards any kind of Grossman-like return. The Sox decided it was a better use of a roster spot to grab Julks and see how things go with him, while giving Ortega’s spot on the active roster to Fletcher.

Julks still has two options, meaning he could potentially be sent to Triple-A for the rest of this year and one more. He also has less than a year of service time, meaning he can be cheaply retained for the foreseeable future.

For now, Fletcher will share the big league playing time with guys like Andrew Benintendi, Tommy Pham and Gavin Sheets. Pham is on a one-year deal and will be a trade candidate this summer. Sheets could perhaps be on the block as well since he’ll reach arbitration for the first time this winter and has been in good form this year. That could perhaps open some playing time for Julks later in the year, though the eventual return of Luis Robert Jr. from the injured list will also be a factor. Oscar Colás and Zach DeLoach are also on the 40-man but neither is performing especially well on optional assignment right now.

For the Astros, they have  Kyle Tucker, Yordan Alvarez, Chas McCormick, Jake Meyers, Mauricio Dubon, Joey Loperfido and Trey Cabbage in their outfield mix, with prospect Pedro León banging on the door as well. Since pitching depth is a greater concern for them, they recently grabbed Alex Speas off waivers and let go of Julks.

By doing so, they were at least able to add a pitching prospect to their system. The 20-year-old Rodriguez tossed 33 innings over 15 appearances in the Dominican Summer League last year with a 3.55 earned run average, 32.6% strikeout rate and 4.3% walk rate. In January, he got a brief mention on the FanGraphs list of top White Sox prospect from Eric Longenhagen and Tess Taruskin. They noted that Rodriguez has a fastball in the 88-90 miles per hour range and a strong curveball.

The Sox will now have a week to trade Ortega or pass him through waivers. He was signed to a minor league deal this winter and added to the roster in late April. He has received sporadic playing time which hasn’t gone well for him, as mentioned. He has enough service time that he can reject an outright assignment and elect free agency. He had a strong season with the Cubs in 2021, hitting .291/.360/.463 while stealing 12 bases and spending a lot of time in center field. But he hit .241/.331/.358 the next year and got non-tendered, with only limited big league looks since then.

Astros Claim Alex Speas, Designate Corey Julks

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The Astros have claimed right-hander Alex Speas off waivers from the Athletics, per an announcement from the A’s. Oakland had designated him for assignment earlier this week. The Astros opened a roster spot by designating outfielder Corey Julks for assignment, per Chandler Rome of The Athletic. Speas has been optioned to Triple-A already.

Speas, 26, is capable of getting into triple-digit territory with his fastball. However, as if often the case for pitchers with that kind of power, controlling it has been an issue. He started last year at the Double-A level in the Rangers’ system. He tossed 28 1/3 innings at that level with a walk rate of 11.3%, but was able to work around that by striking out 40.9% of batters faced, leading to an earned run average of 0.64.

Moving up to the higher levels, he found it more challenging to overcome the lack of control. He tossed another 28 1/3 innings at Triple-A, but walked 19.2% of batters faced. His 29.2% strikeout rate was still strong but his ERA was 5.08. He also tossed two innings in the majors, striking out four batters but walking five.

He was nudged off the Texas roster in September of last year and has bounced around a bit since then. The White Sox claimed him off waivers in early October last year but designated him for assignment in early April. He was claimed by the A’s and is now changing clubs via waivers yet again.

Between the Sox and the A’s, he’s thrown 12 2/3 innings at the Triple-A level this year. He has struck out 17 opponents but walked nine, leading to rates of 26.6% and 14.4%, respectively. Those free baserunners have led to him being burned by four home runs, which is why he has a 12.08 ERA so far this year.

Despite the rough results so far in 2024, the Astros are taking a bet on the stuff. In addition to averaging 98.9 miles per hour on his fastball during his brief MLB debut last year, Statcast also lists a 91.9 mph cutter and 87.7 mph sweeper as pitches he threw for the Rangers. He still has a couple of options, so the Astros can keep him in the minors to see if he gets a better handle on that arsenal in the future.

In order to take a chance on Speas, the Astros are risking losing Julks. The 2018 eighth-rounder had a strong season at Triple-A in 2022, hitting 31 home runs and stealing 22 bases. His .270/.351/.503 batting line translated to a wRC+ of 108 in the hitter-friendly Pacific Coast League.

He cracked Houston’s Opening Day roster last year but didn’t immediately thrive in the majors and ended up back in the minors a couple of times. He finished the year with a .245/.297/.352 line in 93 big league games, translating to a wRC+ of 80. He still performed well in Sugar Land, drawing walks in 18.6% of his plate appearances and slashing .240/.388/.462 for a 110 wRC+.

Here in 2024, he was sent back to the Space Cowboys and has taken a slight step back. His 12.8% walk rate is still good but an obvious drop from last year. He currently has a .266/.358/.444 line and 97 wRC+ for the year.

Julks clearly has some skills but is now 28 years old and the Astros have a decent crop of outfielders ahead of him. Kyle Tucker, Yordan Alvarez, Chas McCormick, Jake Meyers, Mauricio Dubon, Joey Loperfido and Trey Cabbage are each on the 40-man and all are on the active roster except for the injured McCormick.

The Astros will now have a week to trade Julks or pass him through waivers. Given his strong numbers on the farm and two remaining option years, it’s possible he will garner interest from clubs looking for more outfield depth.

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