Alec Marsh’s next stop is Chicago, and the former Royals right-hander is taking the kind of route that can feel strange to fans but makes perfect sense in baseball. According to Scott Merkin of MLB.com, Marsh has agreed to a minor league deal with the Chicago White Sox and will also get an invitation to spring training.
For a pitcher once viewed as a meaningful part of Kansas City’s future, it’s a modest landing spot. But after the last two seasons, any chance to get back on the mound matters.
Marsh has been dealing with a stubborn shoulder injury that wrecked his momentum. He reported shoulder tightness in the spring of 2025, later developed right shoulder impingement, and that issue eventually shut him down for the year.
By November 2025, the shoulder still hadn’t improved, leading him to undergo labrum repair surgery and setting him up for what is essentially a lost 2026 season while he recovers.
That injury came at the worst possible time. Marsh had spent years climbing toward the majors after the Royals selected him in the 2nd round of the 2019 MLB Draft.
He worked his way up through the system over his first four minor league seasons and earned a spot on the American League roster for the 2022 All-Star Futures Game. The results in the minors were uneven, though, with a 6.88 ERA in 124.1 innings pitched across two minor league levels.
Marsh reached Kansas City in 2023 and showed flashes of why the organization believed in him. He struck out 85 batters in 74.1 innings, but the home runs piled up too, with 16 allowed on the season. Even so, the raw stuff was there, and the combination of above-average pitches and the ability to disrupt hitters’ timing kept the door open.
In 2024, he seemed to take a real step. Across 25 starts, Marsh cut his walks-per-nine rate by nearly half from the previous season and started to look like a useful back-end starter.
That progress is what makes the injury such a frustrating interruption. With the Royals dealing with plenty of pitching injuries in 2026, Marsh might have been in line to help them in a meaningful way.
Instead, the Royals moved on from the financial side of things, with Marsh set to make a little over $1 million in 2027. Chicago sees a different calculation.
For the White Sox, it’s a low-risk move with a chance at a useful strikeout arm if Marsh can get back to form. The big question now is how the layoff will affect him once he’s back on the mound.
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Bobby Witt Jr And Salvador Perez Define The Royals Right Now
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The awards also underscored how much the Royals still revolve around those three players, with the article laying out their season numbers and the historical context behind each honor. Witts rise, Wachas steady work on the mound and Perezs enduring place in franchise history all fit the same theme, even if the latest chapter leaves room for the bigger question of how far this group can carry Kansas City next. [Read more 🡒]