The White Sox made a late deadline swing on a catcher with plenty of name value, landing Joey Bart from the Braves in a move that gives Chicago another look at a former No. 2 overall pick.
According to ESPN’s Jeff Passan, the White Sox are acquiring Bart from Atlanta, though the full return going back to the Braves was not immediately reported. It’s another quick turn in Bart’s career path: Atlanta had only gotten him two months earlier from the Pittsburgh Pirates in exchange for veteran reliever Hunter Stratton.
Bart has been working in a backup role this season, and the numbers are ordinary enough to get buried on a busy trade deadline day. In 41 games and 106 at-bats, he’s hitting .226 with four home runs, four doubles, 13 RBI and a .680 OPS. But Chicago is clearly betting on more than the surface stats.
The appeal is rooted in what Bart once was and what he has shown in flashes since. San Francisco took him with the No. 2 pick in the 2018 MLB Draft, and for a while he was seen as a possible successor to Buster Posey.
That never fully took hold with the Giants, but Bart later found a groove in Pittsburgh, putting together the best offensive season of his career in 2024. In 80 games for the Pirates, he hit .265 with 13 home runs, 45 RBI and an .799 OPS.
That kind of production has been hard to sustain, which is why he’s now been traded twice in a matter of months. Still, the White Sox have a reason to keep looking.
Bart is only 29 until December, and his power remains the trait that keeps him on radar. All four of his home runs this season came against National League opponents, and over his major league career he has 32 home runs, 43 doubles and 126 RBI in 376 games.
The downside is familiar, too. Strikeouts have always been a big part of Bart’s game, and that hasn’t changed. He has struck out 375 times in 1,101 career at-bats, including 31 strikeouts in 106 at-bats this year.
Atlanta’s side of the deal is straightforward enough. Bart’s short stint there ends with rookie Drake Baldwin also on the Braves’ catching depth chart. The Braves entered Monday at 67-45 and in first place in the NL East, so Bart was squeezed into limited playing time as they pushed toward the postseason.
For Chicago, this is the kind of deadline move that doesn’t grab the loudest headlines but can still pay off if the fit clicks. Bart hasn’t lived up to the billing that followed him into pro ball, but the White Sox are giving him one more chance to tap into the pop that once made him such a highly regarded prospect.
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