First-day costs create rest-of-draft depression
Our every-pick-in-real-time trick that has been pulled off successfully by Brett and staff for about five years running was completed again, just not here. If you want greater detail on every player the White Sox picked, Brett did so, but you are just going to have to do a quick search because I can’t link you here.
Anyway, director of scouting Mike Shirley intimated to assembled media last night that the White Sox would be overspending on both Caleb Bonemer and Blake Larson to lure them away from their college commitments (Bonemer to Virginia, Larson to TCU). The part he was probably less enthused about was the resulting punt of the next 17 picks of the draft.
Around draft time, everyone wants every pick to be a home run. Of course, that is not realistic. But no home runs? Hmm.
Here’s how Day 2 of the draft played out.
2024 Chicago White Sox Draft Picks
McLain is a switch-hitter who broke his hamate bone not once, but twice, and not the same hand, but both hands. He’s got pop, but has little track record to dream on, at least for a third-rounder. Jonathan Mayo on the MLB Network projected him as a fourth outfielder.
If there is a major upside player in this bunch, it’s Saucke, who has size, speed, and the ability to mash. If you look at composite rankings of players taken by the White Sox, Saucke is almost certain to end up as promising as anyone not named Hagen Smith.
He’s a Springfield native and, sorry to dive right into a trope, but a grinding overachiever. Comps might include Zach Remillard or Danny Mendick, but those aren’t just depressing, those describe players taken much farther down in the draft. Most of the hitters taken today, with the exception of Saucke and the 10th-rounder below, follow in the footsteps of last year’s draft of heavy bat-to-ball guys. Antonacci boasts that as his best asset. Love it to an extent, but at some point very soon we’ll have enough Remillards, Mendicks and Chris Getzes in the system.
To that end, even when it comes to catchers this year, the White Sox are drafting contact over power guys. Appel is lauded for his defense and handling of pitchers. He can hit “a little bit,” per MLB. This is our sixth-rounder.
At the end of Day 2 things got a little interesting with the reliever mix. Fox seems like a perfect Brian Bannister pick, and having starred in the ACC in a stellar fourth-year junior season, this might be our quick-pick for the majors in 2025.
And if not Fox, then Combs. Metrics magic might be the only advantage Fox has over this pick, who boast championship-level pedigree in pitching the Tennessee Volunteers to a College World Series title in 2024; he saved one CWS game, won another. Like Fox, Combs could move fast through the system.
And, of course, we gotta throw in an oddball reliever. Young put it all together at Iowa this past season, which was fortunate because it is the first and only season in college he has done so. He’s a sidewinder, and while I cannot recall which recent relievers have been similarly weird (Haylen Green? Zach Franklin? Fraser Ellard?), seems Young is the wild card this draft.
It’s hard to say that the personal issues (?) that led to breaking team rules and being suspended for essentially all of the 2023 season at Louisiana Tech means McConnell dropped in the draft or any such thing, but it probably didn’t help him. He’s a lefty masher who, yeah, basically mashes. He might have some Caden Connor in him (2023 draft), but again, Connor was taken in the 19th Round so what exactly are we doing here.
