2026 Team Previews: Chicago White Sox
A detailed fantasy baseball oriented team preview of the 2026 Chicago White Sox
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The White Sox were team #1 to examine last year, and this year they move up one whole slot to #2. They were able to win more games than the Rockies, but it was still a poor season with a 60-102 record.
But that’s glass-half-empty talk. I had this public speaking class in college where the professor didn’t grade us based on how good we were at public speaking, but on how much we improved throughout the semester. So I came into the class already pretty good at public speaking. I’ve always been overly confident and good with words. I do not get nervous in front of people; never have. So my final speech was about as good as the first one. I’m not saying I was Bill Clinton or anything, but I was definitely in the top handful of speakers in the class. But this professor gave me a C in the course because I didn’t show much improvement over the semester. That was 15 years ago, and I’m still a little bit put off by the whole thing.
There was this one girl who cried her way through half of her first speech. I mean, she couldn’t even get words out. It was a disaster. But in her final speech, she only cried and wet her pants for like 20% of the speech. Marked improvement. So she gets an A.
I learned some life lessons that day. Always establish a low baseline. Build in some room for improvement. You are not compared today with the rest of the population today as much as you are compared today with what you were doing yesterday.
If that college professor were grading 2025 MLB teams, the White Sox would be given an A-Freaking-Plus.
They went +19 wins above their pathetic 2024 season. So there are two ways to look at it if you’re a White Sox fan. You could be mad that they won only 60 games last year and finished with the worst record in the American League, or you could be extrapolating that +19 and start making your plan to watch them in big games next October!
Siliness aside, the arrow is pointing up for the White Sox. There’s a good amount of young hitter talent, and we saw plenty of that come to life in the second half of last year. This has the potential to be a decent lineup next year. They might need a free agent acquisition or two to make that a reality, but the core is here.
Things aren’t so bright on the pitching side, as we’ll see, but there are reasons to be interested in the 2026 White Sox. Let us begin.
Hitters
Kyle Teel
Age: 23
Pos: C
Teel is a big part of this young and somewhat exciting White Sox offense. He received the call in early June and went on to deliver this line:
→ .273/.375/.411, 26% K%, 12.5% BB%, 8 HR, 3 SB
In this day and age, that’s a really helpful batting average and a superb OBP. A ton of the damage was done late in the year.
If we split his season in half:
→ .260/.357/.366, 24.3% K%, 11.8% BB%, 2 HR, 2 SB
→ .285/.392/.454, 27.5% K%, 13.1% BB%, 6 HR, 1 SB
Everything got better after those first 150 (or so) PAs. He did start striking out more, and the 27.5% clip is a bit alarming. But it’s worth the trade when it comes with a bunch of walks and a .450+ SLG.
Let’s take a look at his minor league profile:
He was hitting for super high batting averages despite a higher strikeout rate. What’s that mean? High BABIP driven by a strong batted ball profile. He posted a strong 26% line drive rate in the minors between 2024-2025, and that carried over to the Majors. This guy had the highest sweet spot rate in the Majors last year at 48.3%.
2025 Sweet Spot% Leaders
Kyle Teel 48.3%
Mike Trout 46.1%
Daylen Lile 45.7%
Ezequiel Tovar 45.2%
Dillon Dingler 44.2%
So he’s very good in that regard with the bat. He can rack up some base knocks, and that’s what he’s been doing for his whole professional career.
The next question is about the power. Can he develop into a 20+ homer bat? Because if he can, there is real five-category potential here.
The 103.8 EV90 is a positive sign. And his 9.6% Brl% was solid. He hit eight homers in 297 PAs. That’s a 16-18 homer pace if he were to ever play every day. As a catcher, that won’t happen, but you can feel pretty good about him being a 15-homer guy next year with some steals and some really nice batting average potential.
I’m liking what I’m seeing here. The line drive stuff and the secure playing time make me think Teel will be a solid catcher pick this year. We’ll have to see where he stacks up against the rest of the field (he’s just the second catcher I’m reviewing), but this guy looks like a sneaky value in points leagues.
The best-case scenario is that he adds power and goes for 22-ish homers with a .275 batting average and 10 steals while not killing anybody in counting stats in the middle of the White Sox order 4-5 times a week. The DH reps were there last year, and I don’t see why they wouldn’t keep coming next year. So he can end up among the game’s top volume catchers as well. Even more to like!
Projection
still to come
Ranking
The toughest part about ranking fantasy players is the cross-position ranking. I know Kyle Teel is behind the other catcher I have ranked (Hunter Goodman), but I don’t know where to put him in relation to Ezequiel Tovar and Brenton Doyle. They feel like they’re around the same range to me, but it’s a tough call on how to order them. Once we get some decent projections done, it will be easier.
Colson Montgomery
Age: 24
Pos: SS
Montgomery’s 2025 season was one of the most confusing ones I’ve ever seen. The best place to start is the stats by level table from the basic stats dashboard.
A .733 OPS and a 34% K% in AAA, and then major improvement in both areas after being promoted to the Major Leagues. You almost never see that.
So what is the deal? Did he just suddenly get way better right around the time he was getting promoted? Was he injured while in the minors and finally got healthy around the time of the promotion? Did he just get insanely lucky when getting to the highest level?
Weird stuff can happen in 242 PAs. But if we bring in 2024 minor league data, we still show a .717 OPS and a 30.2% K%:
29 homers in 814 PAs in the minor leagues from 2024-2025. and then 21 homers in 283 PAs in the Majors.
It makes very little sense. But let’s try to stick to the skills here as we piece this together.
That’s a lot of numbers to throw at you. It’s all from the Main MLB Dashboard, one of the greatest baseball resources on the Internet, if I do say so myself. Here’s the bottom line.
The Good
Legit pop (22% Air Pull%, 108.4 EV90, 14.5% Brl%, +0.22 xwOBA OE)
The Bad
Aggressive swinger (51% Swing%, 30% Chase%) with a low contact rate (69% overall, 80% in zone)
All the makings of a boom-or-bust player who has high highs and low lows. While I was in the middle of writing this one, I went to CHAT GPT and had it develop a quick player comparison page for me. That’s available on the web app. There are plenty of improvements to make, but here’s what we have for Montgomery right away:
Those are some pretty nice names to be mentioned with.
The difference is that those guys have all kept the K% stuff under control. Langeliers went for a 27% K% in 2024 and then 20% in 2025. Major improvement, but for these last two years, even when you combine them, it hasn’t been prohibitively high.
Colson could very well be in the mid-30% range next year. Without some improvement and development, I think a 32% K% is the best guess. But we have seen a bunch of times these young prospects come in and really figure out the K% stuff after a year or two in the league.
He hit .239 last year. And in today’s game, that’s not a killer. But he did not have the extended slump that I would have thought he would.
By month:
That .198 batting average in August was a killer, but it came with ten homers. His .363 August ISO was sixth in baseball.
And ISO isn’t all good. That usually means you’re hitting for a really poor batting average.
The splits:
We see more contact but way less thump against lefties. That is not what we saw in the minors, where his splits were much more even. It does make sense that a young lefty hitter without the platoon advantage would shorten up and just try to make something happen.
That’s a fine trade-off to make, I think.
Montgomery is a tough one. The power is intriguing, and there’s always that chance that these guys improve in a hurry (on the Langeliers ’ trajectory).
But we have to make a decision on the guy. For me, I’m going to be on the fade side. There are several big things working against him
→ The K% could be a total killer
→ He might not be able to hit lefties
→ The team context is not going to be great
→ He does not steal bases (his best work was eight in 2024 across 130 games)
I would guess that not many fantasy baseball drafters are fooled by the quick 21-homer season. His price will be reasonable since a lot of people are going to clearly see the downside that comes with the 30% K% and the lack of steals. But even then, somebody in your draft is likely to jump at him to try to grab that young power bat. But it won’t be me, I don’t think.
Projection
still to come
Ranking
Here’s where I’m at so far:
I do believe this is the best way to do rankings, but I’m not saying it’s easy! It’s easier to compare Montgomery just with Tovar (the only other SS I’ve ranked). And some of that is league-dependent. I’m trying to do a somewhat blended ranking here, and then I’ll make some specific tweaks and separate off the different league formats once we’re closer to draft time.
I’m trying not to act scared, though. I don’t like Montgomery. I think he’s highly likely to bust out next year, so I want the rankings to show that. My guess is that Montgomery goes well ahead of Tovar in drafts next year. But it won’t be me causing that. I’m a Tovar fan and a Colson hater.
Luis Robert Jr.
Age: 28
Pos: OF
Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, I should probably just quit pretending to be good at fantasy baseball.
I moronically drafted Luis Robert Jr. in the home league last year. I always hated the guy when he was expensive in drafts, but last year I liked him because he was so cheap. Maybe that’s not the worst way to play things. But man, he sucked. Or I should just say he sucks, I guess.
Another batting average below .230 and more proof that the 38-homer outburst in 2023 was an outlier.
You could make the argument that he provided non-awful value for his cost last year with those 33 steals. For a minute there, it was looking like he was headed toward a 20-30 season. But at the end of the year, his roto value was right next to Ernie Clement.
The fScore update:
Robert looked like one of the best young power hitters in the game a few years ago, but that’s long gone. He still has the raw power in there somewhere, as shown by his max 115.8 EV last year. But his 106 EV90 ranks him way, way further down on the list. He’s so rarely making truly solid contact.
He’s a great example of why you shouldn’t read into max EV very much. He flashes that from time to time, but it almost never occurs. EV90 is a good way to capture that kind of stuff. But I’m now wondering if there’s a better way. A good number to represent how often a hitter is reaching near their max EV. Maybe we’ll pick that up later.
For now, let’s stick to complaining about Robert’s problems. Early in his career, he was a wild swinger. And I don’t mean like he was out there having sex with a bunch of random people (although, who knows), I just mean that he would swing the bat at a super high rate. He was above 58% from 2021 to 2023, but he has brought that under control lately:
A 53% Swing% with a 32% Chase% and an 8.6% BB%. Those aren’t bad numbers, and that’s a good sign for him. It was his best work in every discipline-related category.
The expected batting average was above .240. He hit for a career-low .274 BABIP. His xwOBA bounced back up near .330!
… this has all been good news so far. The batted ball profile progression:
A double-digit Brl%, a GB% under 40%, an EV90 well above 105, an above-average Air Pull%. And the K% was non-horrifying. I don’t really understand how this guy managed only 14 homers.
He did miss 50 games to injury, so he would have been a lot closer to 20 homers without that.
Let’s take a step back. Imagine Robert was a second-year player coming off this season. I’d probably be hyping him up as a massive breakout player. The reasons for that:
→ He made a ton of value with steals
→ The power upside (driven by bat speed, max EV, Brl%) seems super legit
→ The end-of-year numbers were down largely due to an injury
→ The plate discipline stuff was all around the middle of the pack
It would appear that there are good reasons to draft Luis Robert Jr. again next year.
Things could change this offseason as well, and we might have to come back to this. Chicago could decline to pick up his 2026 option and send him to free agency. I don’t think that happens, but it is an option on the table in case they’re just so sick of the dude. Or maybe it’s a sign-and-trade situation. I’m not the best on contract stuff. We’ve been talking about a Luis Robert trade for a couple of years now, but it gets more and more likely every year as he approaches that unrestricted free agency. A change of scenery would be almost surely be good for his fantasy value.
I don’t have the projections right now, but I can guess at them.
→ 125 G
→ .240 AVG
→ 19 HR
→ 35 SB
As for preseason projections, I am mostly focused on those three things. Runs and RBI are a big part of the roto game, of course, but they’re a bit funkier to project, and they are consequences of HR & AVG anyway. So if you just focus on HR/SB/AVG when evaluating players initially, I think you’ll be fine. The White Sox are improving, but they’ll still very likely be a below-average team at generating runs and RBI.
With the suckiness and lack of health, Robert has not crossed even 60 runs or RBI in either of the last two seasons. But okay, he can hit some homers and steal a bunch of bags. And that is worthy of a roster spot in deep leagues.
Projection
still to come
Ranking
He ranks right with Mickey Moniak right now. Those two are very similar.
Miguel Vargas
Age: 26
Pos: 3B/1B
I won’t soon forget the Miguel Vargas hype when he was in the Dodgers system. LA has had a lot of those guys. These hitters that smash in AAA but never get a real opportunity in the Majors because the organization is too loaded. That was the one that sent Michael Kopech to the Dodgers, where he would go on to continue to be a letdown.
Vargas had some moments in 2025, though. He finally proved to be a Major League player.
The top line there shows his 2025 stats. He finished with a poor .234/.316/.401 slash line but had some moments.
He posted an .899 OPS in May and then an .803 mark in August. The other four months were bad.
Credit where credit is due, Vargas got much better last year.
He went from an active fantasy team killer to just being a bad fantasy player.
The skills:
You could view Miguel Vargas as the quintessential league-average player. If you just wanted to compare other players to him to find out if they’re better or worse than average, that would work pretty well.
He’s average or close to average across the board. The best thing is the contact rate (84% Zone-Contact%), the worst thing is the raw power (103 EV90), but he air-pulls at an above-average rate and gets himself some homers.
The tiebreaker/dealbreaker for fantasy purposes might be the fact that he doesn’t steal bases. He swiped six last year on a 5% attempt rate.
Vargas… horrible at nothing, very good at nothing. He’s the type of guy you can pick up in the middle of the season if you have a ton of injuries in your infield and just need some reliable playing time. But he’s not the type of player we need to worry about drafting in standard leagues. There’s very little chance he does anything to really help your fantasy team this year.
Projection
still to come
Ranking
I’d be fine with him as a utility-type player in a draft and hold, where you’re just wanting some bench guys who will be in an MLB lineup if you need them. But in most league types, there’s no reason to worry about the Vargas-type player.
Andrew Benintendi
Age: 31
Pos: OF
Back-to-back 20-jack seasons for A-Benny! It was about halfway through that record-breaking (for all the wrong reasons) White Sox season, and Benintendi looked at himself in the mirror and said Well, if I have to be here and lose five games per week, I might as well start trying to hit some hog crankers.
So he banged a dozen long balls between August and September of that year, and carried that power over into last season, where he posted a really nice home run rate at 23.2 PA/HR.
This is really wild stuff to see.
Benintendi Home Run Rate Data
2021-July2024: 2,011 PA, 35 HR, 57 PA/HR
Aug2024-Present: 660 PA, 32 HR, 20 PA/HR
Benintendi has a better home run rate than Teoscar Hernandez since 8/1/2024. The guy is hitting bombs.
There’s no doubt in my mind that this was a conscious decision. He just started going for it. And it worked out. A 23% Air Pull% last year was really good, and the GB% bottomed out to 33%.
What else it did was kill his batting average. He added four points to his K% (up to a still very good 18%), but his fly ball ways forced the BABIP down quite a bit.
He went for an 11% Brl% with a low 103 EV90 last year. The .250 BABIP was a bit low. It will probably come up a bit next year, but these fly ball hitters who are swinging for the fences will usually have very low BABIPs.
Benny has also stopped caring about stealing bags with just four in his last two seasons. He dropped down to 30th-percentile sprint speed and played some awful defense.
So he’s a one-trick pony, and the one trick isn’t anything to get excited about. I mean, you’re probably not getting your phone out of your pocket to take a video of that pony even while it’s doing its one trick. I could see Benintendi hitting the bench, or the White Sox just moving off of him. He’s one of their nine best hitters right now, no doubt about it, but he’s not a part of the long-term plan, and he’s not much of a player overall (0.2 WAR last year).
Projection
still to come
Ranking
He’ll be very low on the final rankings and could be dropped entirely. His per-PA power production is pretty nice, but there’s nothing else supporting him, and I don’t think he’ll end up playing a ton.
Chase Meidroth
Age: 24
Pos: SS/2B
Meidroth was an interesting prospect called up for the White Sox last year. He was on some 2025 breakout lists and had a decent overall season in the Majors. He is certainly going to be a starter for this club in 2026. Let’s look at the minor league career:
The notable thing about him has been the plate discipline. You do not find too many guys walking more than they’re striking out, and that is what Meidroth was able to do in his almost 1,200 MiLB PAs. With a max of nine homers and 13 steals, though, it was pretty clear this was not going to be a positive player in fantasy games.
The Major League line from 2025:
122 G, .256/.331/.322, .653 OPS, 5 HR, 14 SB
He couldn’t quite get the BB% above the K%, but he still really good in that regard with a 14% K% and a 9% BB%. Meidroth has a distinct profile. He makes a lot of contact, but he does not swing the bat.
Dudes named Chase, but that’s the absolute last thing he does at the plate! And you know what Chase, that’s fine. You do what you want to do. You can go home at night and look at the chase rate leaderboard and get a nice feeling in your gut about it. It’s good to be low on the y-axis on that plot. But it gets less and less impressive in a hurry the more you move to the left of the x-axis. Anybody can have a low chase rate if they simply refuse to swing the bat. It’s not that cool.
The fScores:
He’s a bad fantasy player. We could have just posted the fScores and called it quitskies. 113 discipline… I don’t care. If you have good discipline with good power and speed, fine, but the guy is a total loser in power.
An EV90 under 102:
A Brl% under 2%… and all of that with middling steals. Meidroth stole a dozen bags last year, but that’s not hard to replace at all in today’s game. Like a million dudes stole a dozen bags last year. Okay, it was only 91, but we’ll just round that up to the nearest one million.
Draft Meidroth in your 20-team dynasty OBP leagues. Other than that, he can kick rocks.
Projection
Still to come
Ranking
Very, very low. He’s near the bottom of the list for now, but we’re still too early on to really talk about where guys line up!
Lenyn Sosa
Age: 26
Pos: 2B/1B
The 2025 season is still pretty fresh in my mind as I write this. So I remember well about a month-long period of Lenyn Sosa showing up on the “hitters to add” stuff. It was a breakout year for Sosa. He nearly tripled his previous career-high in homers, blasting 22 bombs on a .434 SLG.
The lack of steals (2) and mediocre batting average kept him out of standard league value, but he was a pretty good deep-league fantasy player in the second half.
His +4.11 standard roto value was second-best on the team (behind Robert). From July on, he slugged .460 with a .753 OPS. 16 of his 22 homers came after July 1st.
He’s 26. That’s too young to believe in a true pivot point breakout. But it’s nowhere near old enough to think he can’t improve at least a little bit more.
Sosa is aggressive at the plate with a high 51% Swing%. But naturally, he chases a lot (41%) as well. His career walk rate is less than 4%, and that comes without an elite strikeout rate (23% last year, 21% in 2024). None of the plate discipline stuff is good news. The fScores show that nicely:
The thing he’s best at is the hit tool. His 41% Sweet Spot% and 29% LD% are both high, and that got him to a .274 xBA. You could certainly see him building on his .264 batting average from last year. That line drive rate should sustain high BABIPs, and he did more than enough with the bat to keep him in the everyday lineup next year.
But we’re looking at Sosa as only a depth option in a deep league. And he’s quite bad for OBP/points leagues with that super low walk rate. I’m not sure what kind of league he would even make sense in. But hey, he hit 20 homers and could end up as a guy you get for free next year just to see him go hit 25 more homers with a .275 batting average. It’s possible!
Projection
still to come
Ranking
He is the first second baseman I’m ranking, so he’s at the top of that particular list for now. It’s shaping up as another pretty weak 2B season. That isn’t nearly enough to push Sosa into standard leagues, but it will boost him up the overall ranks a little bit once we weigh the projections for position. For now, I have him below Moniak/Beck, but above teammate Miguel Vargas.
Edgar Quero
Age: 22
Pos: C
Quero was one of the White Sox top prospects. But we saw in 2025 that such a fact was mostly due to his defense and contact abilities. He came up to the Major Leagues in mid-April and ended up playing 111 games.
The good news was a .276 batting average and .335 OBP. Those two things were backed by a strong 16.5% K% and a decent 7.3% BB%. That’s a sub-10% gap between the K% and BB%, which isn’t always easy to find. The guy limits the strikeouts and takes some walks.
But nothing else in the profile makes you want him anywhere near a fantasy team. Maybe we should be gracious here as we’re reviewing just a 22-year-old player. But the power and speed indicators are not there.
His EV90 finished at 102.3. He maxed out at 109.8. Both of those can (and probably will) grow with experience, but there is a long way to go there to make you think he can be a 20-homer guy.
The steals aren’t going to happen. He has a career 4.1% attempt rate (including all minor league games going back to 2021).
And you have the issue of him not even being the clear option for them. Kyle Teel appears to be the better player (although neither of them graded out very well defensively). The best guess would be that those two guys form some sort of split of catcher and DH reps. That’s what happened last year.
With Quero’s lack of thump, I’m not sure why they’d continue to DH him if they have some other option. And this team is getting better. So I don’t find it likely we get a 120+ game season from Quero. If we were getting that, he wouldn’t be of interest to me outside of two-catcher points leagues.
Projection
still to come
Ranking
Bottom of the list. I don’t think he’ll be a guy considered in any non-super-weird fantasy league in 2026.
Pitchers
Shane Smith
Age: 25
Smith was the White Sox All-Star representative in 2025. And that was probably only because every team is required to have one. Which is a little bit too “participation-trophy-ish” for me. But I get it. Growing up as a Pirates fan, I get it more than most people. I remember those Jack Wilson, Jason Bay, and Mike Williams pity selections well. And it did make me want to watch the game more. Because I was a dumb kid with nothing better to do on a random July Tuesday than sink my entire life’s purpose into an exhibition baseball game.
That rule can stay. I’m sure there were plenty of young White Sox fans happy to see Smith take the mound in the Midsummer Classic.
Smith was far from the least deserving All-Star in history. His season:
29 GS, 146 IP, 3.81 ERA, 1.20 WHIP, 23% K%, 9% BB%
In some ways, he was a pleasant surprise. Smith was a Rule Five pick. The White Sox snatched him from the Brewers. It’s not often you see such a player make an immediate impact like that. Kudos to the White Sox.
He was not drafted in many fantasy leagues last year and went on to have some very good stretches.
He went for a 15.6% K-BB% with a 3.39 JA ERA in May, and then finished very strong with a 25% K-BB% and a 2.36 JA ERA in September.
That final month is the most interesting part, probably. It could be a trap since those final months are easy to weigh too heavily. But let’s take a looksie:
A 23:5 K:BB in those final three. Two of those were in “gimme” matchups as the Orioles and Nationals were both drawing dead (and he gave up nine hits and six runs to the Orioles anyway). Let’s not get too hung up on a strong final three starts.
The fScores:
→ 101 fStuff
→ 94 fControl
→ 106 fERA
→ 150 fDurability
The pitch mix:
Immediately, there are two things to like.
→ 54% Strike% on the four-seamer
→ 15.8% SwStr% on the changeup
I like a pitcher who earns strikes with the fastball and has a really nice putaway pitch. He even kicked in an 18% SwStr% on 15% curveball usage. The fastball velo is there as well, and we like that 102 JA Stuff+ on the pitch.
The splits are nothing to note, but we should be looking at these with all pitchers we’re reviewing. It matters:
Lefties did more damage (that WHIP+ mark is a good way to judge such things), but he still generated plenty of whiffs against them, and the presence of that changeup makes you think he can have success even without the paltoon advantage.
The issue is, of course, the command. His minor league career:
16 GS, 154 IP, 2.63 ERA, 1.01 WHIP, 32% K%, 8% BB%, 0.64 HR/9
It all makes you wonder why the Brewers made him subject to the Rule Five draft. I’m guessing there’s some decent reason, the Brewers management has earned the benefit of the doubt.
A lot of his short minor league career was in relief or very short outings. He pitched 5+ innings just seven times in his minor league career. To me, that makes it all the more impressive that he was able to pile up 146 innings of pretty good work on a Major League mound.
Remember that SIERA/xFIP/JA ERA, fERA basically have three components to them:
Strikeouts
Walks
Home Run Suppression
Smith has been good at the first and third. But we should spend some time on this home run suppression. Because he posted just a 41% GB% last year. That doesn’t match up. The average PA/HR allowed for qualified SPs below a 43% GB% last year was 29.3 (one homer allowed every 29.3 batters faced). Smith was at 36.2. That was the 16th-best in the league. Not a total outlier, but it still shows that he could very well give up a handful more homers next year.
There is a lot to like here. Good fastball, great changeup, solid minor league history, guaranteed job in the rotation in 2026. I’m down with Shane Smith.
Projection
Still to come
Ranking
All Smith had to do to take the #1 spot was be better than Chase Dollander. And he has done it.
Sean Burke
Age: 26
Burke was the White Sox Opening Day starter and the only pitcher on the team anybody considered in standard league drafts last year. And it didn’t go well:
→ 25 GS, 153 IP, 3.93 ERA, 1.40 WHIP, 23% K%, 10% BB%
We should note the PROGRESS.
In a case like this, I do find it useful to look at the time splits. Something changed after those first two months.
→ March-May: 17% K%, 12% BB%, 4.83 JA ERA
→ June - Sep: 27% K%, 9% BB%, 3.24 JA ERA
That’s a +10 in K% and a -3 in BB%. There were injuries in there, so this was just a twelve-start sample after the calendar turned to June. Let’s check the pitch mix stuff from those final dozen starts:
Above-average SwStr% and Strike% (not a ton above average, but above nonetheless), and he got the Ball% and walk rate stuff very close to the league average.
At the end of the day, a 12.5% SwStr% and a 36% Ball% with a 37% GB% is not a trio you want to invest in. That’s a lot of balls thrown and a lot of balls hit in the air without getting much swing-and-miss in between.
His minor league numbers from 2022-2024:
→ 28.2% K%, 12% BB%, 1.52 HR/9, 5.10 ERA, 1.42 WHIP
The story would seem to be that Burke has had his moments, but really does not seem like a guy who can hang as a good Major League starting pitcher.
You can forgive a mediocre control profile (although his 82 fControl score is horrible) if you have reliable strikeout rates above 26%. Maybe Burke can elevate to a 26% K% next year like we saw late last year from him, but there’s too much bad stuff to overcome to make me believe.
Projection
still to come
Ranking
Burke isn’t going to come close to a standard league guy. There’s some upside with the good fastball and the nice finish to the year we saw. He’s not completely off my list for those 50-rounders, but he’s not someone you need to worry about in your normal leagues.
Here’s where things sit after reviewing the Rockies and the White Sox!
Prospects
Here’s the top 20 prospects overview that Tim and I did early on. He has a ton of stuff coming this winter on the prospect front. Redraft ranks, short-term ranks, long-term ranks, top 150 list, and more!
The Prospect Warehouse: 2026 White Sox Prospect Preview
We’re getting it started! When you want to cover all 30 organizations in depth and finish well ahead of draft season, you have to start early.