We are now a few weeks into Spring Training for the White Sox, officially transitioning to the 2025 season. It will signal the end of the dreadful 2024 season, allowing the players who still remain on the roster to purge the historically bad season from their minds.
The Opening Day roster will look very different than it did last year, and as the year progresses, some of the White Sox top prospects will join the roster as they earn promotions to Chicago. There are many variables to how a player will perform in a given season, but certain baseball reference websites try to give their best evaluation on how a player will perform for the upcoming season.
Each year, FanGraphs releases their Steamer projections on how they believe each player will perform in the upcoming year. We will be taking a look at each player’s 2025 projections as we approach Spring Training.
Now, we take a look at Kyle Teel, one of the headliners in the Garrett Crochet trade.
Ranked as a top-35 prospect in Baseball according to MLB Pipeline, Teel will have high expectations, as he could be the catcher of the future for the White Sox. FanGraphs has him ranked as their 49th best prospect in baseball, so they are a bit lower on him than some of the other rankings outlets.
FanGraphs doesn’t project him to make it to the MLB until late into the summer, as they only project him to play in 45 games in 2025. In those 45 games, they project him to slash .240/.319/.352 with four homeruns.
This wouldn’t be overly impressive, but it is very difficult to come up to the major leagues and be a great hitter right away. Those numbers won’t win him rookie of the year, but they would be a decent foundation for him to build on in 2026.
To win the Rookie of the year Teel would need to come up much sooner and play better than those projections. If he doesn’t make the team out of Spring Training, he would likely have to come up within a month or so. However, that is pretty likely, as he already played very well at AAA last season and has looked solid in Spring Training so far.
Kyle Teel off Roki Sasaki 👀 pic.twitter.com/UhCRmkvJvp
— Chicago White Sox (@whitesox) February 25, 2025
Kyle Teel even took Roki Sasaki deep in the B game a few days ago, so he definitely can handle quality pitching. Teel is 0 for 3 in the real games so far, but he has drawn three walks, showing off his major league plate discipline.
Last year Teel hit .288 with a .386 OBP and 13 homeruns and 78 RBIs between AA and AAA. If he can do anything similar to that with some solid defense behind the plate, he could easily be a Rookie of the Year candidate, and if he wins, he would get the White Sox an extra 1st round pick in the 2026 MLB draft.
