After selecting Arkansas ace Hagen Smith in the first round and using the next two picks on high school players Sunday, the White Sox spent the second day of the 2024 MLB draft selecting college players, with an emphasis on the outfield.
In addition to the lack of later draft picks, you’ll also notice a dearth of ranked players. That might give you an idea of where the White Sox will fit in with second-round pick Caleb Bonemer and third-round left-hander Blake Larson, something Mike Shirley suggested during the Day 1 discussion.
Next Tuesday, you’ll likely see most of the White Sox’s Day 3 picks sign for more than several of the Day 2 guys below, as those picks don’t start counting toward pool money until after $150,000.
Third round (78th overall): Nick McLain, OF, Arizona State
Ranks: BA: 208 | ESPN: 222 | MLB: 129 | Law: 83
Matt’s brother, Reds infielder and former first-round pick Nick McLain, had his rise slowed by two hamstring injuries, but he eventually got a healthy stretch of playing time out of high school and ended up hitting well in Cape Town, going on to hit .342/.457/.663 with 33 extra-base hits, 33 walks and just 27 strikeouts in 230 plate appearances. His short track record and his frame (he’s 5’10”) help explain the skepticism of the rankings, because if he has the skills to play right field, it’s the pop that should win out. Writing that down – short, brother of an MLB player, corner outfielder who has to overcome “tweener” traits – he sounds like a version of Dominic Fletcher, though his ability to hit with both arms makes him less of a natural for a platoon candidate.
Fourth round (107th): Casey Saucke, OF, Virginia
Ranks: BA: 145 | ESPN: 103 | MLB: 127 | | PA: 53
Baseball Prospectus thought very highly of Saucke, a 6-foot-3 right fielder who has made steady progress in his three years at Virginia, aside from a disappointing performance on Cape Cod. He hit .344/.407/.578 while stealing nine bases in 10 attempts and playing strong right field. He can turn over good fastballs and the exit velocities are strong. The summer league line (.185/.254/.241) and 18.2 percent strikeout rate suggest that will translate to wood bats.
Fifth round (140th): Sam Antonacci, IF, Coastal Carolina
Ranks: BA: 299 | ESPN: 193 | MLB: 201
Forget it, Zach Remillard: There’s a new versatile Chanticleers infielder who’s going to steal the hearts of a coaching staff. Antonacci, a Springfield native who used a solid JuCo season to find his way to a top-tier college program, hit .367/.523/.504 with 50 walks in 306 plate appearances. Discipline is his calling card, as he doesn’t hit with much power and has been stretched to shortstop.
Sixth round (169th): Jackson Appel, C, Texas A&M
It took seven picks, but the White Sox ultimately selected Jackson, along with an unranked player. He transferred from Penn—where he graduated from the Wharton School of Business—to Texas A&M for his senior year, and hit .331/.422/.534 with 34 walks, 33 strikeouts and 16 stolen bases.
Seventh round (199th): Phil Fox, right-handed pitcher, Pittsburgh
Fox, a 5-foot-9 right-hander, has struck out 45 batters and walked just three in 36 2/3 innings for the Panthers, and is 41 innings into a pair of scoreless, walkless appearances in Cape Town. He does most of the damage with a deceptive flat angle fastball.
He hails from Greensburg, Pennsylvania, about 2 hours west of St. Thomas, Pennsylvania, where Nellie Fox was born and laid to rest. Coincidence? It seems so, because this in-depth story about his Pittsburgh ties doesn’t mention it. Sorry to waste your time.
Eighth round (230th): Aaron Combs, right-handed pitcher, Tennessee
I asked Josh if he’d seen Combs pitch while covering SEC games, and he had a lot to say:
Trailing 1-0 in the fifth inning of Game 2 of the College World Series, Tennessee turned the ball over to Aaron Combs in hopes of getting them out of a tight spot. Volunteers starting pitcher Drew Beam (a third-round pick by Kansas City) put runners on first and second with no outs. The Aggies were eager to win their first national championship.
Combs stuck with his two primary pitches: a 94 mph fastball and a 70 mph curveball. Combs throws from an odd three-quarter angle, which creates some sinkage on his high pitches and throws opposing hitters off balance when breaking pitches come. It looks like another high fastball coming out of the hand before it falls off the table, and Combs mastered the pitch well to throw five straight pitches against opposing Aggies hitters.
It was at that crucial moment that Combs struck out back-to-back batters and got a fantastic steal in the back, hitting the runner on first base to break the deadlock. Combs pitched four scoreless innings in relief as the offense rallied to earn the win and force Game 3, which Tennessee won for its first national championship.
If Combs doesn’t do his job, maybe the story will turn out differently for A&M and Tennessee.
Ninth round (259th): Jack Young, right-handed pitcher, Iowa
It took an extra level of research to determine Young’s position, because here’s how his pick appeared on MLB.com’s draft tracker:
Turns out he’s a right-handed reliever who struck out 47 batters against 38 runners over 32⅔ innings in his fifth senior season with the Hawkeyes.
10th round (289th): Cole McConnell, OF, Louisiana Tech
McConnell, another fifth-year senior, hit .378/.461/.671 with 18 home runs, earning him Dick Howser Trophy semifinalist honors. The left-handed center fielder doubled his home run total in as many plate appearances as he did in 2022. As for 2023, he played in just four games before the school suspended him for the rest of the season due to a team rules violation. That makes the top of this otherwise useful Twitter thread age poorly in hindsight.
Scouting Director Mike Shirley Explains It All
Some key takeaways from your friendly local reporter:
- Both Day 1 high school picks required slot-over bonuses, something Shirley strongly suggested Sunday night and is generally a safe assumption with Day 1 prep players. As a result, much of Day 2 was devoted to college players who could sign at the slot level or more economical picks toward the second half.
- There should still be some wiggle room in the bonus pool to take another swing above the 11th-round slot, but Shirley once again made it seem like Day 1 accounted for the majority of their draft budget.
- Rather than being able to aim for the ceiling on the prep market, McLain and Sauke represent an attempt to capitalize on proven players from major conferences/programs. Both have some history of power production, but Shirley particularly praised their makeup, craft and baseball sense over their raw tools when she highlighted them.
- Shirley projected Antonacci as an ordinary second baseman with a feel for the ball, rather than a future as a utility player as his history at other positions and his Remillardian origins might suggest.
- With the ACL season coming to a close soon, Shirley was confident there would be bridge leagues and intra-squad games at the complexes to keep the prep candidates active.
- All the talk about the White Sox trying to draft players before No. 5 sometimes makes Hagen Smith sound like a consolation prize. In addition to praising Smith, Shirley explained that the Sox draft room is 60/40 in favor of Smith over Chase Burns, which presumably only applies to college pitching prospects.
- When Brian Bannister spoke last month in Arizona, he talked about his desire to be deferential to Shirley and the scouting department’s preferences and to offer his opinions on pitching prospects when asked. Shirley said nice things about a lot staff members, but he also echoed those sentiments about the workflow, calling Bannister a “great teammate” who was respectful of scouting observations, helped them organize the list of targets they had already built.
White Sox Previous Draft Coverage
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