An overlooked White Sox player is quietly producing after joining the team

He might not be driving the ball out of the park or getting much attention since he joined the team, but 24-year-old infielder Curtis Mead has quietly put together a really good stretch of baseball with the Chicago White Sox.

The White Sox acquired Mead from the Tampa Bay Rays at the trade deadline along with two pitching prospects in exchange for veteran starter Adrian Houser.

Houser was a midseason addition by the White Sox that is headed for free agency after the season. It didn’t make much sense for Chicago to hold onto him, so getting a player with the upside of Mead was a no-brainer deal for Chris Getz and the front office.

Mead is a former Top 100 prospect in all of baseball. He’s known for his bat-to-ball skills and projectable offensive tools. His numbers don’t jump off the page, but most of his pure hitting ability is translating to his time with the White Sox thus far.

Mead has quietly been very productive for the White Sox

Mead is quietly batting .286 in 26 games with the White Sox in 84 at-bats. He doesn’t walk very often, and a lack of extra base hits hurts his overall offensive numbers, but I’ve been pretty impressed with the quality at-bats Mead has put together on a regular basis.

Over the last few weeks, he’s starting to find the gap-to-gap power that he was praised for as a prospect. That’s making all the difference.

In his last 10 games, Curtis Mead is hitting .300 with five doubles and a .742 OPS.

In addition to his heating up bat, Mead has been respectable defensively all year. He has 2 defensive runs saved (DRS) and 2 outs above average (OAA) across three different positions this season, according to FanGraphs.

With the White Sox, it’s been a lot of third base and first base for Mead. He has the glove to play both, but if he’s going to stick at either of those positions long term, he’ll need to improve his slugging percentage.

Mead has the highest hard-hit percentage of his career in 2025, but he still hits too many ground balls. The White Sox will probably want to work on his launch angle over the offseason with hopes of turning some of his singles and hard-hit outs into extra-base hits.

Don’t sleep on Mead In terms of his future with the White Sox, I’d have Curtis Mead in the same conversation as Miguel Vargas, and Lenyn Sosa. He’s a lesser known name with a smaller sample size, but just like Sosa and Vargas, he has a few standout tools with imperfect production.

I think he’s showing that he’s one or two adjustments away from getting closer to that prospect ceiling and being a well above-average corner infielder.

Competition between these players will be a good thing for the White Sox moving forward. The cream will rise to the top, and Curtis Mead definitely deserves a bit more love than he has been getting since joining the White Sox.