White Sox Minor Leaguers Start Spring Training Amid MLB Lockout

Sox minor leaguers start spring training amid MLB lockout originally appeared on NBC Sports Chicago

Even in the darkest days of the Chicago White Sox' rebuilding effort, the start of minor league minicamp was pretty small potatoes.

But in the midst of the baseball famine that is the ongoing lockout, they're the only potatoes we've got.

Indeed, Tuesday was Day 1 of the team's minor league minicamp, no longer a collection of buzzworthy building blocks of the future, like it might have been several springs ago. Instead, it's a more routine occurrence — and a far less interesting one for most fans. Sure, these youngsters could one day be the brightest stars on the White Sox' roster. For now, though, there's a World Series contender at the corner of 35th and Shields. At least there will be, once this lockout business is finally settled. And that's just a bit more exciting than fielding drills for the guys heading to Double-A.

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But even as the league and the players' union meet in Florida this week, there's no telling when the end of the current work stoppage will come, which is why we're talking about minor league minicamp out in Glendale, Arizona.

None of this is to say the White Sox getting their in-development players some work isn't important. It's a very valuable time for the 60-plus players who are either looking for the next step in their professional career or to salvage it with a roster spot somewhere, anywhere, with hopes of getting a call to join the big league team in some capacity during the summer.

It's a very valuable time, too, considering Tony La Russa and the White Sox' coaching staff aren't able to work with their typical charges at the moment, meaning extra expert attention directed toward the minor leaguers.

"Tony's here, and our major league staff, and there's certainly a nice opportunity to get our major league staff with our minor league staff and just quality exposure for our minor league players that perhaps aren't able to work with those staff members that perhaps wouldn't (normally) be at this minicamp," Chris Getz, the White Sox' assistant general manager and player-development boss, said Tuesday. "Tony's done such a great job of approaching this, not only as a major league manager, but really wanting to make an impact throughout the organization. He takes the time to get to know players, whether that player has a chance to play in the big leagues this year (or not). It's just his passion for teaching and his passion for this organization."

Again, the White Sox' farm system no longer deserves the laser focus it once received from fans and observers in Chicago, not with most of the players we zeroed in on back then now comprising the bulk of a championship core at the big league level. While the answer to the question "what are the White Sox doing to win the World Series?" used to be found almost exclusively in Charlotte, Birmingham, Winston-Salem and Kannapolis, now the answer is found almost exclusively on the South Side. No longer do progress reports on Eloy Jiménez and Michael Kopech involve scrolling Twitter for grainy highlights from the minor leagues.

And that's why The Athletic's Keith Law recently ranked the White Sox' farm system as baseball's worst, pointing to the mostly positive reason that all the talent that had folks buzzing is now major league talent, not minor league talent.

But the cupboard's not completely bare, and if Rick Hahn is going to achieve his rebuilding goal of creating a sustainable contender, he'll need some of these youngsters to surge toward the big leagues the same way Dylan Cease and Luis Robert did.

That's why Getz was asked Tuesday about the likes of Colson Montgomery and Wes Kath, the team's top two draft picks last summer, who could one day be manning the left side of the infield for the major league squad.

It's why he was asked about Yoelqui Céspedes and Oscar Colás, two top Cuban signees from each of the last two classes of international free agents, who fans are already wondering about in regards to the big league team's right-field situation.

It's why he rattled off a list of promising young pitchers — Norge Vera, Sean Burke, Jared Kelley, Matt Thompson and Andrew Dalquist — as the White Sox have to make plans for rotations of the future as well as their rotation of the present.

"That's the ultimate goal when you're managing the minor league system, is being able to provide players for your major league club when the need arises," Getz said, "but also perhaps making trades to strengthen your major league club or strengthen the organization.

"The system is a little bit different than perhaps it was in the past couple of years, but we've got some really young talent that has some ceiling. The expectations don't change. The standards don't change in regards to how we teach the game and the demands we put on our players. We believe in our development. We believe in our instructors.

"I'm very confident with this young crew that we have, that we believe in — whether it be international signings or guys that we drafted in 2021 — are going to start getting the attention to perhaps change our standings. But that really isn't the focus at all. ... Certainly (we) want (them) to reach their potential, but we want to supplement the major league club as best we can."

The minor leagues might no longer be must-see TV for White Sox fans, but the beat goes on throughout the organization as it tries to meet Hahn's goal of a long-term contender. Thrust into a spotlight, however brief, while the lockout drags on, those minor leagues can once more be analyzed and recognized for their importance to those long-term plans, though they're likely to fade from consciousness once there's video of Tim Anderson and Lucas Giolito walking into the facility at Camelback Ranch.

So while waiting for the present to resume, enjoy a slice of the future — the thing that used to be the whole darn pie on the South Side.

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