The White Sox finally made their first offseason move, and it came in the form of a waiver claim on infielder Graham Pauley from the Miami Marlins.
That makes Pauley the first new addition of the winter for Chicago, after a stretch where the club’s only roster activity had been procedural. The Sox had to reinstate six players from the 60-day injured list, but those moves only replaced the six players who elected free agency, so the organization’s player count didn’t actually change until Pauley arrived.
He wasn’t exactly a popular guess. The Sox Machine Offseason Plan Project had reached 67 entrants, and none of them had Pauley on the board.
Pauley is 26 and has already logged 137 big-league games across the last three seasons. The last two years were nearly identical in the counting stats, though the production at the plate moved in the wrong direction:
Year G 2B 3B HR BA/OBP/SLG
2025 62 9 1 4.224/.311/.366
2026 62 9 1 4.211/.257/.373
The Marlins got him from San Diego in the four-player return for Tanner Scott at the 2024 deadline. Before that, the Padres had drafted him out of Duke in the 12th round, and he had built some buzz with his early work in A-ball and a left-handed swing that was widely praised for its handsomeness.
At Double-A, though, he ran into trouble turning that bat speed into power. He has kept his strikeout rates at a manageable level throughout his pro career, and he has also improved defensively at the infield corners while spending a little time in the outfield.
That gives him a utility path if he can start doing more damage on pitches in the zone.
He is also out of options, which makes him the kind of player who could bounce around on waivers during the offseason. The White Sox just happened to be first.
The more meaningful part of the day for Chicago may have been the roster space it created. The club opened two spots by outrighting Ky Bush and Junior Pérez.
Bush has not thrown a professional pitch in two years, having missed all of 2025 after Tommy John surgery and then losing what would have been his 2026 season to a strained lat. Pérez, meanwhile, had become expendable after the Brenton Doyle trade.
All of it fits into a broader roster shuffle ahead of free agency opening at 5 p.m. CT. The free-agent pool grew by 21 more names after options were declined, including Luis Robert Jr. and Lucas Giolito.
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