Fantasy Baseball Year in Review – Chicago White Sox

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  • By Paul Williamson

    The White Sox went into 2025 with a youth movement in mind. Multiple prospects made their MLB debuts this year and other former top prospects were given extended time to prove themselves. The results were not great in terms of wins and losses but there is no doubt this team took a step in the right direction. Young dudes like Edgar Quero, Kyle Teel, Shane Smith, Lenyn Sosa Grant Taylor and Colson Montgomery all showed some signs of life this year  as Luis Robert Jr. had some positive things happen as well. Fantasy managers should not totally sleep on the White Sox in 2026.

    Catcher

    Kyle Teel and Edgar Quero are two of the White Sox top prospects and both made their MLB debuts, sharing the bulk of the starts behind the plate and also each getting at bats at designated hitter for the White Sox.

    Teel came over in a trade from the Red Sox that sent this dude named Garrett Crochet over the Red Sox as Teel was the ChiSox second-ranked prospect per FanGraphs in 2025.

    Overall, his first taste of MLB-action was OK. He slashed .273/.375/.411 with a .349 wOBA and 125 wRC+ with eight homers and three steals in 297 plate appearances.

    He projects to have solid power, though not elite and ditto for his hit tool. Teel had a K% in the 22-23%  range throughout the minors as that number was a tad higher in the majors at 25.9%. He continued to draw walks at an elite clip in the majors with a 12.5% BB%.

    He limited the chase with a 22.8% O-Sw% as he had a serviceable 12.0% SwStr% as he didn’t show any sort of major red flag in the plate discipline department.

    With a solid 9.6% barrel rate, he showed he has the ability to produce power, though an improvement in the hard-hit rate of 37.6% will help that barrel rate play up and maybe get him to the 25-homer range as a big leaguer. He already kept the ball out of the dirt with a really good 37.5% ground ball rate.

    He only got to 13 homers as his career best mark in the minors in 2024 but he has 50-grade raw power, per Fangraphs. He probably isn’t someone to draft in 12-team, one-catcher leagues but should be a rock solid second catcher in most two-catcher setups.

    Quero was the ChiSox’s fourth ranked prospect per FanGraphs this  year and played most of 2025 in the majors with 403 plate appearances. He didn’t flash much power with just five homers but he did hit .268.

    He flashed his solid hit-tool with a 17.6% K% and 8.4% SwStr%, including a very nice 86.4% in-zone contact%.

    Pair that up with a solid 46.3% hard-hit rate and 21.3% line drive rate, and we have a solid basis for a good batting average.

    But converting some of his 50% ground ball rate to fly balls (28.7% fly ball rate) will go a long way to him getting close to living up to his 50-grade raw power grade.

    Like Teel, he probably doesn’t have an elite power tool, but he should be good for a solid 20-25 bombs should he realize his full potential.

    Only Teel has seen time at a defensive spot other than catcher with one start in left field as that shows that maybe they view Quero as the catcher? But it was just one start as it is not entirely known what the White Sox will do with their catcher duo. Likely, a spring camp battle may determine who enters 2026 as the starting catcher. Maybe the other finds at-bats at designated hitter?

    Both will hold only catcher eligibility for 2026 and neither are 12-team, one-catcher targets for draft season but both absolutely should be seen as a second catcher in two-catcher setups.

    First base

    Most of the year, first base was manned by a revolving door of Lenyn Sosa, Miguel Vargas and Curtis Mead after Andrew Vaughn was shipped off the the Brewers.

    Vargas mostly played a third so he will be discussed there and Sosa was at second base most of the year so he will be talked about there.

    Mead played 32 games at first, the most of any position, so let’s talk about him. He is a known for his elite power as a prospect in the Rays system as the White Sox are hoping to tap into it.

    He only hit three homers in 264 plate appearances in 2025. He did well to limit the K% to 23.9%, though he didn’t walk much with a 5.7% BB%. His avgEV was only 87.5 MPH but he did have a nice 111.0 MPH maxEV and did well to lift the ball with a 17.1 degree launch angle.

    With an 8.9% SwStr% and a very nice 91.7% in-zone contact%, he has shown the plate discipline to achieve his upside, now he just needs to consistently make solid contact.

    He shouldn’t be on many fantasy radars in 2026, even if he does earn a starting job out of spring training. But if he starts making consistent hard contact next year, he could end up on 12-team rosters.

    Second base

    With 99 games played at the position, Lenyn Sosa manned the keystone for much of 2025.

    Early in the year he was competing for ABs with Josh Rojas as he did lock up the spot fairly overwhelmingly with Rojas ending 2025 as a free agent.

    Sosa turned in a breakout campaign as a fringe 12-team option with 22 homers, 75 RBI and a .264 average.

    He showed flashes in 2024 with xStats that exceeded his surface stats as he positively regressed and met those expected stats in 2025.

    He had a solid average all year but his power really came around in the second half with an ISO jumping from .149 to .196 and 13 of his homers coming in his final 246 plate appearances.

    Sosa lived up to his first-half xSLG of .456 (.417 surface SLG%) in the second half as he had solid hard-hit data and batted ball metrics in the first half.

    But a barrel rate jumped from 8.6% in the first half to 12.8% in the second half as that led a .518 second half xSLG and a .457 surface SLG%.

    Sosa definitely deserves to be considered a near-lock to make the Opening Day lineup in 2026 and shouldn’t be a terrible late-round pick in 12-team drafts. He will have 1B and 2B eligibility unlocking CI and MI eligibility in 2026.

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    October 15, 2025, 8:00 am