White Sox Arizona Fall League 2016 Recap

To prepare you for what you’re about to read, let me preface it with this: the White Sox do not have a very good farm system. It is better than it has been, but it is not good. With that in mind…

This year’s set of Sox Arizona Fall League prospects played for the Glendale Desert Dogs, who were managed by former White Sox center fielder Aaron Rowand. Glendale, who also deployed prospects from the Astros, Dodgers, Nationals and Cardinals, finished the season at 17-15 and just missed the one-game championship game in the six-team league. Surprisingly for the AFL, everyone in the Sox contingent managed to stay on the roster for the whole season, which was… definitely an opportunity to get to see a lot of them.

Remember the thing about the farm system.

POSITION PLAYERS

Courtney Hawkins: Hawkins has already started to see his stock fall on prospect ranking lists, with a mid-season FutureSox ranking of 23rd, down from 9th entering the season. His winter in Arizona won’t help any; the 22-year-old (23 on 11/12) slashed an eye-popping .219/.266/.329 in 20 games. He walked five times against 23 strikeouts and hit one home run. He’s still young, but Courtney Hawkins looks like the latest entry on the athletic-first-round-draft-pick disappointment wall (it exists, somewhere, and Kenny Williams goes there at night and cries).

Danny Hayes: Hayes is 26 years old, drafted out of college and advancing in lurches through the system, although not quite making waves. A first baseman, he started the short season with promise, which faded quickly. He collected only four hits in his last 34 at-bats, finishing the fall with a desiccated .161/.232/.210 line. His one extra-base hit in 62 at-bats was a home run hit during the first week of games. The poor showing could in part be attributed to his missing the bulk of the regular season to a core muscle injury, and this was as much a rehab assignment as anything else for Hayes.

Zack Collins: Zack Collins Is Innocent. The Sox put him on their taxi squad, which meant he could only play two games a week, but for a catcher who’d been playing since February with his college team that’s not a bad thing. Collins was drafted just this year, and the Sox first-round pick got an opportunity to play at a highly competitive level for the first time (no offense to Winston-Salem, just that the AFL is selective AA-level talent). So, on the surface, his final slash line of .227/.393/.500 may not seem that gr- well, I guess considering what we see above, maybe it does seem that great. Even more so taking into account his inexperience and limited playing time, and the fact that few if any top year draftees play in this league. Collins walked six times and struck out only eight, and hit two home runs, both allegedly monster dongs.

Trey Michalczewski: Ah! A glimmer of hope. Third-base prospect Trey Michalczewski. A savior, perhaps. Or perhaps not. The switch-hitter played in 17 games and slashed .185/.323/.259. He did show more plate discipline than Hawkins and Hayes, drawing 10 walks, but also striking out 17 times. Fun with small sample sizes: take out Michalczewski’s 3-4 performance on November 7th, and his batting average drops to .140. This was a rough (and 2nd) AFL for the 21-year-old, and those wailing ghosts of third-basemen past are harmonizing in the background. Allowing Trey to repeat AA and not rush him yet again in 2017 seems the prudent course of action.

In conclusion: The White Sox position player prospects did not hit well in the Arizona Fall League. Collins may be forgiven since his showing was actually pretty impressive given his circumstances, but the other three deserve no such leniency. 2017 is a huge year for Hawkins and a pretty big one for Michalzcewski, but I think that Collins will end up out-performing them both.

OK, take an emotional healing break here. It gets better, I promise.

PITCHERS

Louie Lechich: Louie Lechich must succeed. Look at his name. Say it. Roll it around in your mouth. That’s a major-league name. Louie Lechich, to whom I will refer only by full name, is a very newly converted outfielder-turned-reliever. Louie Lechich, a lefty, did not let a run in until his last game of the season, leaving him with a 0.71 ERA in 12.2 IP, no small feat for such a new pitcher. In total, his scoreless streak to start his southpaw career spanned 27 innings and three leagues. For someone who was in the outfield as recently as this June, that’s pretty good, and Louie Lechich is definitely someone to keep an eye on next year.

Brian Clark: Brian Clark, like Louie Lechich, also had a good showing in the league, although not quite 27-scoreless-innings good. Clark has bounced between starting and relieving in his parts of three seasons in the minors, finding his likely final home in the bullpen, converting exclusively to that role in 2016. Clark, also a lefty, threw 13 innings and allowed three runs for a small-sample ERA of 2.08. He struck out 13, a hair higher than his career K/9 percentage, but also walked six. Clark is one of those under-the-radar guys who doesn’t blow people away with his stuff, but if he keeps it up, he could find himself playing where the rates are guaranteed.

Colton Turner: Turner came over from the Blue Jays in the Dioner Navarro trade, so it makes sense the Sox would want a longer look at him. The lefty certainly didn’t impress, but that doesn’t mean he’s an automatic write-off. He was scored upon in his outings – all from the bullpen – pretty consistently, surrendering a 5.06 ERA, but he kept his strikeouts up at a reasonable pace (10 in 10.2 IP). Also, in his stellar 2016 minor-league campaign, which spanned three levels, two teams, and 58 innings, he gave up just one home run, while giving up two in the hitter-friendly AFL. Given the strength of his 2016 overall, I’m willing to wait a little on Turner.

Nolan Sanburn: With a name like Nolan, there’s a lot to live up to here. Nolan Sanburn got a lot of experience pitching with guys on base, which is better for a reliever (which he was for most of 2016) than a starter who put them on himself, as was the case in the AFL. In 24.1 IP, Sanburn gave up 23 hits and 12 walks, while striking out 18. Again, primarily a reliever, Sanburn started all six AFL games he pitched in, which means he’ll probably see time in a starting rotation in 2017. His performance was too sporadic to really be able to tell what he’s capable of as a starter. For example, on October 26th, he pitched five innings, giving up two hits and one run, but in his next start six days later, he went just three innings and gave up seven hits and five runs. There’s a lot of “OK, he’s got it figured out!” quickly followed by “maybe not quite yet.” 2017 will be big for him.

In conclusion: Sox fans have many more reasons to feel better about their pitching prospects than the non-pitching ones (“hitting” doesn’t seem right). They’ve got some interesting pieces, especially Louie Lechich, and with the depth of pitching knowledge among Sox coaches, any one of them could develop into something productive.

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