The White Sox walked away from their postseason loss to Cleveland with an even bigger question hanging over the organization than the final score: what exactly is happening with their young pitchers?
That issue was on full display over those two games against the Guardians. On October 7th, David Sandlin, Hagen Smith and Noah Schultz combined to throw 4.2 innings and allowed four runs in an eventual 9-3 loss. Then the next day, Smith got the start and could barely get through the opening frame, lasting only two outs after issuing three walks.
For a team that hoped its top arms would help carry the staff, that was a harsh snapshot. Schultz, once the Sox’s No. 2 prospect and No. 16 on MLB Pipeline’s Top 100, made 14 major league starts and finished with a 5.57 ERA.
Injury interrupted his season, but the bigger issue was that he never really looked like a starter who could hold down a rotation spot. He had only one scoreless outing before being shifted to the bullpen in September, and that came in a six-inning start against the Padres in April.
Sandlin’s year followed a similar path. Ranked No. 10 in the Sox system, he was brought up to fill in for Schultz while the latter was hurt.
He made six starts and a pair of relief appearances and ended with a 5.58 ERA across 40.1 innings. The early returns were encouraging enough, but the performance fell off sharply after that, and he spent the rest of the season bouncing between Chicago and Triple-A without really settling in anywhere.
Of the group, Hagen Smith had the best big league introduction. He posted a 1.29 ERA in the bullpen over 28 innings, and he was effective enough that his role looked clear in the short term.
But the long-term picture is less settled. A shoulder injury kept him out of the rotation, and the Sox still intend to develop him as a starter.
The problem is control: he’s battled walk issues throughout the minors, and he always carries the risk of unraveling quickly. There’s still a starter path there, but the club could easily decide the results are too useful in relief to keep pushing for more.
That’s the central tension with all of this. A bullpen arm helps, but it doesn’t replace a starter. The White Sox had rotation problems all season, and getting Smith for five or six innings would have mattered far more than one-inning bursts, even if the line score got a little uglier.
The same concern hangs over Tyler Schweitzer and Tanner McDougal. Schweitzer came into the system projected more as a back-end starter or long reliever, but after beginning his minor league career as a starter, he worked exclusively in relief this year in his 18 major league games and in Triple-A. McDougal’s route was altered by injury as well; he was recovering from a flexor strain when the Sox moved him to relief so they could get him onto the major league roster sooner.
The club still plans to use McDougal as a starter in 2027, but the larger trend is hard to ignore. The White Sox have ended up with several of their best pitching prospects in bullpen roles, and that’s a concerning place to be.
During the postseason, they leaned almost entirely on bullpen games. Chris Getz told The New York Times that he’d prefer to have a rotation, but was fine sticking with bullpen games until they stop working, pointing to the team’s winning record.
Yet the ALDS against Cleveland undercut that confidence. The Sox gave up nine runs in two separate games and lost both, and it’s difficult to call that a setup that’s working. They did complete an impressive comeback season and reached the postseason, but the margins in baseball are thin, and the loss exposed how quickly a good story can run into a hard ceiling.
The White Sox have a real chance to build something with a group of major league-ready pitching prospects, but so far they have not turned that talent into rotation pieces. That stands in sharp contrast to the way their position-player pipeline has played out. Tristan Peters, Sam Antonacci and Braden Montgomery have become fixtures in the starting lineup this year, while Chase Meidroth, Kyle Teel and Colson Montgomery were added last season.
The pitching side hasn’t followed that script. Shane Smith, who debuted in 2025, and Jonathan Cannon, who arrived in 2024, both had successful rookie seasons before their progress stalled.
Smith was a Rule 5 Draft acquisition, so the Sox may not deserve full credit for his development, but he still entered the organization ready to start major league games and did so effectively. Mechanical changes changed his path, though, and the White Sox haven’t been able to straighten it out.
Both Smith and Cannon have spent most of this season in Triple-A posting substandard numbers, and both have lost their path back to the White Sox rotation.
That’s more than a temporary slump. It’s a warning sign for the organization’s entire pitching pipeline. They aren’t just failing to graduate starters; they’re also struggling to guide young pitchers through adversity.
Something on the pitching-development side needs to change, whether that means coaching, scouting or a broader reset in the way arms are handled. The issue is obvious enough already: too many of their pitchers are missing bats but also losing the strike zone, and too many of them are ending up in short outings or relief roles. The Sox may need a different approach, and possibly different people, to fix it.
They can’t afford to miss here. The White Sox don’t operate like a club that can simply buy its way out of rotation problems, so internal pitching development has to be the answer.
If these prospects keep drifting toward relief roles, the team may wind up with a strong bullpen and very little else. That won’t be enough.
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