The 2025 baseball season is winding down as September comes to a close, and some levels of the minor leagues have already wrapped up play.
The Birmingham Barons clinched their second straight playoff appearance, with the division series currently underway, but for High-A Winston-Salem and Low-A Kannapolis, the season is over and the players have headed home for the winter.
Due to the shorter season, the High-A level doesn’t play a midseason All-Star Game like they do in the Major Leagues or higher levels of the minors. The All-Star teams are not named until the end of the season.
This week, two White Sox prospects, infielders Sam Antonacci and Jeral Perez, were named to the South Atlantic League All-Star team.
Sam Antonacci & Jeral Perez are your 2025 @MiLB South Atlantic League All-Stars! 🤩 pic.twitter.com/WJj22bhomb
— Winston-Salem Dash (@WSDashBaseball) September 17, 2025
Sam Antonacci
The White Sox fifth-round pick in 2024 out of Coastal Carolina has garnered a lot of attention this season for his impressive contact and on-base skills.
Though he has since been promoted and is now helping Birmingham’s playoff push, Antonacci’s .837 OPS in 64 games with Winston-Salem were enough to earn him All-Star honors.
With just five (5) home runs on the season, Antonacci will probably need to develop some more power to be considered for an everyday role at the big league level, but his .433 on-base percentage across three levels has opened eyes.
Antonacci ends the season as the White Sox 11th ranked prospect, and assistant GM Josh Barfield recently mentioned Antonacci as a prospect to watch for the White Sox in 2026.
When Birmingham’s season ends, Antonacci will head to Arizona to participate in the Arizona Fall League as the White Sox hope to get him even more reps. It’s clear the team thinks highly of him, and an All-Star honor means it isn’t only the White Sox that feel that way.
At 22 years-old and already in Double-A, Antonacci could find himself in mix for an MLB debut as soon as next season.
Jeral Perez
First acquired from the Dodgers last season in the Erick Fedde deal, 20-year-old Jeral Perez spent the entire 2025 season with Winston-Salem, putting up a .763 OPS in 125 games.
Perez didn’t blow anyone away with the batting average this season, as he hit just .244, but his 22 home runs led the South Atlantic League. Listed at just 179 pounds, Perez isn’t a huge presence at the plate, but has surprising strength that allows him to drive the ball all over the field.
Defensively, it’s unclear where his long term home will be, as he doesn’t excel anywhere and the White Sox already have a pretty loaded infield.
Perez will need to refine his approach at the plate to make more contact and strike out less, but he’ll be just 21 years old for the entirety of the 2026 season, so there’s plenty of time for the approach to mature. He certainly has raw tools and intriguing upside, and could end up being the best player acquired in the Fedde deal.
Perez is likely still a couple years away from making an impact at the big league level, but it’s certainly worth paying attention to his growth over the next couple seasons.
The White Sox roster is already saturated with exciting young talent, All-Star seasons in the minor leagues from Sam Antonacci and Jeral Perez may be a precursor for more to come.