Although the White Sox improved last year from a historically poor season in 2024, the White Sox remain one of the league’s bottom teams in 2025, with GM’s rebuild showing little sign of ending. Chris Gates is taking on. The problem for Chicago is that they don’t have enough significant capital to make trades if they hope to speed up their rebuild. Andrew Benintendi Has the ability to be a decent corner, but he’s overpaid and may be difficult to move without eating up nearly all of his salary. louis robert jr. Has been on the trade block for a long time, but the White Sox have never been able to extract the value they were looking for.
The lack of quality deals could lead to the Red Sox looking for more unorthodox trade candidates on their roster. For all the team’s flaws, Chicago does have one legitimate area of depth on its roster: young receiving talent. Edgar Crow and Kyle Till Entering the 2025 season, both had strong rookie seasons to become consensus top-100 prospects in the sport, and both are under control through the end of the 2031 season. Six full seasons of franchise control with a proven ability to pound major league pitching from the toughest defensive positions on the diamond is arguably one of the most attractive tradeable assets in the entire game.
Current market conditions also need to be considered. The protagonists of free agency are JT Realmuto But he is expected to return to the Phillies. Even if he doesn’t, he’s about to turn 35 and some clubs would certainly prefer to pursue a young franchise catcher like the one currently with the White Sox. Besides Realmuto, men also like Victor Caratini and Danny Jensen He is the top person. Ryan Jeffers Possibly on the trade block, but it’s not entirely confirmed that the Twins will continue the sell-off they started before the deadline.
That might make it easy to imagine what kind of elite return the White Sox would get if they were willing to trade someone they both have interest in, like Till or Crowe. For a team in need of a starting rotation with multiple holes in the lineup and plenty of room for improvement in the bullpen, trading multiple players could help plug the holes and accelerate the team’s bid to compete in the American League Central Division, which appears to be more fragile than expected heading into the year. If traded, Teel or Quero does not necessarily need to be replaced, because there Li Kerui on the 40-man roster, though Lee’s record in the majors has been mixed at best.
An offer that includes a controllable starter and help with the lineup might be hard to refuse, but Gates said he’s not particularly inclined to trade Till or Cuero at this point. That’s understandable, as there’s no reason for the team to rush into a trade. Keeping Till and Cuero would allow them to better evaluate which of the two is more suitable to be the cornerstone of the team, without significantly reducing their value in the market if both players perform well. Any loss in team control will be more than made up for, and perhaps even exceeded, by the value that young players create as they prove themselves more solidly at the major league level.
What’s more, waiting for a trade could mean the players acquired will be under control for a longer period of time when the White Sox make a serious attempt to contend again. Acquiring a player with three years of team control in 2026 might only mean a year or two with the organization if the organization is competitive, but getting a player with the same control a year or two later might mean that player’s services for the majority of the team’s competitive window. Waiting would also allow the White Sox to better evaluate other talent in the system and more accurately determine which needs should be prioritized.
Of course, there are risks in waiting. Injury or poor performance can reduce the value of any player. Considering the inconsistencies that even high-end young catchers often face early in the major leagues, the potential for such a decline cannot be ignored. Perhaps future offseasons will feature more talent-attracting players in free agency and/or trades.
Even if both Teel and Quero remain productive and capture strong markets in a year or two, there are downsides to waiting. First, time is running out for the team’s existing young players. Any time spent waiting on the market is time acquired players and prospects won’t be able to spend with young up-and-comers like this Shane Smith, Colson Montgomeryas well as a long-term catcher in Chicago. Another concern is that these players and prospects themselves may not yet be fully established at the major league level, and any necessary additional development time may be better served while the White Sox are still rebuilding rather than while they are already trying to compete.
What do MLBTR readers think the White Sox should do with their catching glut? Should the team be open to trading one of its top receiving talents, or should it keep both players and continue to evaluate them in 2026? Have your say in the poll below:
