The Chicago White Sox had a frugal offseason, and it has showed in the standings.
While the 2025 White Sox are much better than they were during a historically awful 2024 season, the team is still dead last in the AL Central. It's also worth noting that a lot of the team's improvement has come from the club promoting prospects from a highly regarded farm system rather than the offseason additions the team made.
A bulk of the offseason moves Chris Getz made have busted. When Matt Thaiss is likely your best offseason acquisition, that is a major indication of how rough the team's veteran free agent signings and trades went.
Now that Mike Tauchman is healthy, he has been producing professional at-bats at the top of the order. Maybe bringing up veteran reliever Dan Altavilla was the correct move after all, as he has been doing a great job getting outs coming out of the bullpen.
Otherwise, the best acquisition this offseason was the team taking Shane Smith with the No. 1 overall pick in the Rule 5 Draft. He has been such a surprise during his rookie season that he is on track to be the team's All-Star representative.
However, Smith is not the only minor addition the team made when it came to adding young pitchers that have been paying off.
Mike Vasil
Mike Vasil has been outstanding on the mound since being claimed off waivers before the season started. He is the team's other Rule 5 Draft selection that is on the roster, even though the White Sox are not the team that drafted him.
Vasil was actually selected by the Tampa Bay Rays from the New York Mets organization. He was then placed on waivers after not making Tampa Bay's Opening Day roster. Since he was claimed by the White Sox, he was not officially offered back to the Mets; therefore, he has to stay on the big league roster for the entire 2025 season.
The White Sox tried to store Vail on the 26-man roster in a long relief role. He has thrived in that position.
Vasil is sporting a 2.18 ERA, 1.26 WHIP, and has allowed just 10 earned runs in 41.1 innings. He has been given chances to close games, and recently, an opportunity to start. He has provided a lot of versatility out of the pen at 25 years old.
There is some reason to be concerned about if Vasil sustain this, as some of his advanced numbers point to getting by on figurative smoke and mirrors. He has a 4.55 FIP and a 4.90 expected ERA. His 12.1% walk percentage and 16.1% strikeout percentage rank toward the bottom of the league.
What he has been good at is inducing weak contact, with a near 50% groundball percentage and an under 40% hard-hit percentage.
Vasil still finds a way to toss zeros as he has only given up runs in six of his 19 appearances. That's even more impressive when you consider he is almost always in a multi-inning role. His stuff looks good, so his numbers being all over the place just means there is still room for growth. Vasil is only 25 and he has shown that he can be a viable long-term option as a long reliever.
Brandon Eisert
Brandon Eisert got off to a rough start to the season, but is really beginning to carve out a spot for himself in the bullpen. Eisert is another pitcher the White Sox claimed off waivers after the Tampa Bay Rays placed him on waivers.
The 27-year-old left-hander has gone six of his past seven outings without giving up a run. He has a 4.30 ERA on the season, but his advanced stats show he might also be a victim of some bad luck while suffering a bad outing here and there. His FIP is 2.97. His expected ERA is just 2.86.
Eisert has a 28.1% strikeout percentage compared to a 4.7% walk percentage. Eisert has also been good at inducing weak contact with a 31.7% hard-hit percentage.
Besides pitch velocity, Eisert is elite in almost every advanced metric record on Baseball Savant. His numbers suggested he would eventually find his stride and a 1.04 ERA in his last eight appearances is now proof of that.
Hitters are batting .200 with a .525 OPS in medium leverage situations. He seems to be thriving when pitching in the seventh or eighth inning lately. Eisert calmly came in to record a save against the Astros on Tuesday.
If he keeps the pace he has been on lately, Brandon Eisert has the chance to be one of the team's go-to left-handed relief options that's under club control through the rest of the decade.