Former UVA Baseball star Kyle Teel, a first-round pick in 2023, is doing everything asked of him in Triple-A Charlotte, with a .758 OPS and 13 punchouts of would-be base-stealers, but his path to the bigs with the Chicago White Sox is blocked for the time being by a logjam of guys ahead of him at the catcher position.
The White Sox already had another top catching prospect, Edgar Quero, acquired from the Los Angeles Angels in the Lucas Giolito trade at the 2023 trade deadline, when they got Teel back in the Garrett Crochet trade, and it was Quero who got the call-up when starting catcher Korey Lee was sent to the injured list last month.
ICYMI
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Quero has been great since getting the promotion, with an .851 OPS in 56 at-bats, and a 44.4 percent caught-stealing rate.
Matt Thaiss, another UVA Baseball alum, is splitting time with Quero at catcher, with the advantage of being 30, with 267 games in MLB over seven seasons.
Lee, 26, had 12 homers and a .591 OPS in 2024, with 25 caught-stealings, though his fWAR at -0.4 suggests he was not even replacement-level.
Long-term, you’re not going to go with basically two replacement-level guys (Thaiss has a career 0.3 fWAR) over two guys with huge upsides.
Going with that line of thinking, the Sox would seem to be better off going with a tandem of Quero and Teel and seeing what happens with those two.
It’s just a matter of getting there.
I don’t see the front office going with two young guys this early in the season, but with the Sox sitting at 10-24 as of this writing, on the heels of a 121-loss season in 2024, there’s going to be an incentive as another subpar season plays out to try to flip one or both of Thaiss and Lee at the trade deadline for whatever they can get back in terms of prospects.
It likely won’t be much, but I’m expecting Thaiss, as long as he’s productive, to split time with Quero, and then when Lee is healthy, because he has minor-league options left, he’s the one who would be maneuverable, probably joining Teel down in Charlotte until we get into July.
Unless Teel bombs, or gets hurt, I’m expecting him to be up at or just after the trade deadline, to finish out 2025 on the South Side.
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Chris Graham
