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Chicago White Sox Prospects & Minor Leagues

The White Sox want another Nick Madrigal — this time, with batteries included I’ve been wrong about a great number of things, both real-life and baseball related. This isn’t the place to talk about the former, but I’m usually willing to own up my mistakes in the latter. Thinking on the many hot and cold […]

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1 month ago

April 26, 2025

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Chicago White Sox Prospects & Minor Leagues

The White Sox want another Nick Madrigal — this time, with batteries included

I’ve been wrong about a great number of things, both real-life and baseball related. This isn’t the place to talk about the former, but I’m usually willing to own up my mistakes in the latter. Thinking on the many hot and cold takes I’ve thrown into the ether over the last decade or so, rarely have I ever been more misguided than in my steadfast belief that Nick Madrigal had enough outlier skills not just to be a viable major-leaguer, but a good one.

Some of my reasoning still holds firm. At 5´6´´ with the shortest swing path you’ll ever see, Madrigal looked somewhat as advertised upon his initial debut, batting .317 with minuscule strikeout and whiff rates in a half-season’s worth of games between 2020-21. The problem was that everything else just wasn’t there. His purported 30-steal speed and elite keystone defense turned out to be a figment of scouts’ imaginations, as were his overall baseball instincts. He still didn’t strike out much, but he got fooled enough by MLB pitching to stop him from walking as much as he needed to. Luis Arráez is the only hitter in the world who can get away with something like that, and he still has enough pop to put out ~40 extra-base hits a year.

MLB: Boston Red Sox at Chicago White Sox — Could Chase Meidroth be an actualized version of Nick Madrigal?

None of that has deterred the Sox from continuing to try to make something out of this player type, albeit without blowing a Top 5 pick on it this time around. And you know what? I don’t hate it!

Chase Meidroth does not resemble Madrigal in many ways, but in terms of bottom-line production, it’s an intuitive comparison. He almost never whiffs, leading the International League in in swinging strike rate since the start of 2024 and holding serve in his first taste of the majors. He strikes out more than Madrigal, but that’s partially because he’s selective enough to run the kind of walk rates usually reserved for sluggers who can hit a mistake a country mile. Whether it’ll play is still up for debate, but the archetype is the same: An extremely short swing geared for all-fields contact — he stands as far back in the box as anyone else on the team, and his average point of contact is deep into the plate — but with a swing-decision pattern that Madrigal could never sniff. If it does all come together, it’ll look like what we were dreaming of in the middle infield back in the halcyon days of 2021.

And if it doesn’t come together? There’s a lot more where that came from. Down in Birmingham resides the runner-up on the Southern League’s swinging strike leaderboard (5.9%) in the form of shortstop William Bergolla, who’s also already swiped eight bags in nine tries. Acquired from the Phillies last year for Tanner Banks, he’s got as much game power as I do. There’s still a non-zero chance that he’s good enough at getting on base, taking extra bases, and middle infield defense for him to be a contributor to the big league club. It’s also notable that he is putting up his production having begun 2025 as one of the youngest players in all of Double-A.

Just above him on that board, the Southern League leader with a 4.5% SwStr%? That would be Rikkuu Nishida, whom I probably don’t need to tell you about, if you’re still in the weeds here. He, too is probably not a major-leaguer, but if he is, boy is it going to be a lot of fun.

Madrigal’s career might have wound up being a rebuild-tanking nothingburger, but the spirit lives on!

I refuse to give up on Nick Nastrini, dammit

That’s way more words than I planned on the Madrigal/Meidroth school of hitting, so I’ll try to keep this one brief. In a nutshell, the bottom-line results still aren’t quite there for Nastrini, but the fantastic stuff still is there — and the data shows that he continues to make adjustments that will give him more shots at being a viable starter.

Nastrini is not the kind of pitcher who’s going to slowly work his way into solidity. He’s either going to click and be an excellent mid-rotation starter from the jump, or he’s not going to make it at all; very little in-between. That’s mostly because the part that needs to click is what remains a deep struggle: To throw his fastball over the plate consistently. But the massive walk rate that Natrini flashed in the upper minors and his first taste of the majors isn’t just a matter of poor command. It’s a matter of poor command in specific counts.

Nastrini’s first-pitch strike rate in the majors last year was an absolutely brutal 52%, which ranked 204th out of the 207 starters who faced 150+ hitters in 2024. He was constantly working in hitters’ counts, which made it far easier for them to lay off his breaking balls. His slider/curveball combo is as good as any, and in terms of shape, they look like they’ve gotten even better this year. The curveball has added more depth and side-to-side movement, and Nastrini’s slider has gotten even more movement-neutral and cutter-like, which stops the two pitches from blending together too much. That’s a good thing — but it won’t matter if he’s always working in counts where hitters feel comfortable leaving the bat on their shoulder the whole way.

There are early signs that progress is being made. Nastrini’s first-pitch strike rate with Charlotte is up a full eight points from where it was last year, and although the bottom-line results are still ugly, he may have turned a corner in his last start, when he fired six shutout innings with just two walks and a season-high 61% strike rate. I need to see a lot more, but baby steps are still steps, and I’m hanging on the back of this bandwagon until the wheels fall off.

Moves to the bullpen could speed up MLB timeline for some

The odds of 2022 second round pick Peyton Pallette making it as a starter were always a long shot, thanks to his rawness and injury history. Now, thanks to his age, the nastiness of his breaking ball, and the velo bump you usually see when a starter moves to the bullpen, a quick path to the majors for Pallette as a reliever seems like far from a pipe dream.

Pallette’s ERA in Birmingham is a ghastly 8.31 as of this writing, but that number is skewed by a brutal two-game blowup of six earned runs in fewer than three innings of work. Remove that two-day stretch and tack on his 11-game relief stint with the Barons last year, and you get a sparkling 1.67 ERA with a 31:8 strikeout-to-walk ratio over 27 innings. What I’m saying is, Pallette is about to be 24 years old and three years removed from the Tommy John surgery that caused him to fall to the second round to begin with. Ignore what the ERA looks like right now, because he’s entering what should be his physical prime and has already shown he can mow down Double-A hitters. He’ll be a strong candidate to move to Charlotte with a few more solid outings, and given the current state of the big league staff, it won’t take too many solid outings there to put him in position to jump to the Rate Field bullpen by the end of the year.

MLB: Chicago White Sox-Media Day — If Peyton Pallette wears this uniform in a game, it’ll come with a jog out of the bullpen.

Keeping things in Birmingham, I had hoped that Wikelman González could (like Nastrini) magically find some strike-throwing juice this spring. Man is his stuff electric, enough so to play at the top of a rotation if he had any idea where it was going.

Unfortunately, González still doesn’t seem to have much idea where it’s going. He’s already punched out 18 hitters in just 12 1⁄3 innings, good for a 31% strikeout rate (MLB average hovers around 22%). He’s also already walked 10 hitters in that time, a 17% rate that’s simply unplayable in the majors, and even in the upper minors. When the ceiling is that high, I’m all in favor of giving a kid as much time as humanly possible to figure things out, because on the 5% chance that everything does actually click, you’re talking about having a true frontline starter on your hands.

That being said, this is González’s third run at Double-A, and while he’s a year younger than Pallette, it’s rare for a player to get more than three tries at meeting the goals their team has set out for them at a particular level — even when they’ve got raw talent like González. In fact, when they have that level of raw talent, sometimes you don’t even want to give them more than a couple chances. At a certain point, a 40% chance that such a pitcher can be a lockdown reliever is just a better bet to take than the aforementioned 5% that they can be an All-Star starter.

Even as much harder as it is to find the latter than the former, sometimes it’s better to not look a gift horse in the mouth — and if it’s clear that González just can’t develop starter-level control, that might be what they’re doing. Between Hagen Smith and Grant Taylor, the Barons staff already has a critical mass of arms who could be Cy Young contenders if they can stop walking everyone and their mother. That being the case, I suspect we’ll see González make the transition to relief sooner rather than later. Several old-for-the-level starters have performed well at Winston-Salem in the early going, and it seems likely that one or multiple of Tanner McDougal, Lucas Gordon, or Jake Bockenstedt pushes for a spot in Birmingham at some point this spring. Whenever that happens, González could join Pallette on the fast track to a chance at the big league bullpen late in the campaign — results pending.

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Arkansas’ Jordan Anthony runs 9.75! Watch every men’s 100m quarterfinals from 2025 NCAA outdoor track and field championships

Arkansas’ Jordan Anthony runs 9.75! Watch every men’s 100m quarterfinals from 2025 NCAA outdoor track and field championships | NCAA.com Skip to main content Link 0

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May 31, 2025

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Arkansas’ Jordan Anthony runs 9.75! Watch every men’s 100m quarterfinals from 2025 NCAA outdoor track and field championships | NCAA.com

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New Bedford High boys volleyball beats BC High in the 2025 playoffs

NEW BEDFORD — Nick Rosa almost quit playing volleyball his freshman year. He’s glad he didn’t. The New Bedford High senior outside hitter is on the brink of breaking the school’s all-time record for kills in a career. With a team-high 21 kills in the 13th-seeded Whalers’ 3-1 win over No. 20 BC High in […]

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16 minutes ago

May 31, 2025

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NEW BEDFORD — Nick Rosa almost quit playing volleyball his freshman year.

He’s glad he didn’t.

The New Bedford High senior outside hitter is on the brink of breaking the school’s all-time record for kills in a career.

With a team-high 21 kills in the 13th-seeded Whalers’ 3-1 win over No. 20 BC High in the MIAA Div. 1 Round of 32 on Friday night, he is now just 17 kills away from surpassing Quincy Pope’s mark of 663 set in 2015.

“My basketball coach wanted me to play volleyball because I jump high,” recalled Rosa of how he first got introduced to volleyball. “Freshman year, I wanted to quit. I didn’t like the sport at all. I didn’t like the tryouts or practices, but when the season came, I loved the guys. Once the season started, I loved it.”

Over the past four years, Rosa has developed into one of the area’s most feared hitters.

Every time he slammed down a monster kill against BC High, fans chanted, “Boom!”

“He wanted to quit. Good thing he didn’t quit,” said New Bedford head coach Ben Kaeterle. “He just does whatever it takes. He just loves this sport and it’s his sport. People talk about he’s a basketball player. No, he’s a volleyball player.”

Through offseason training and participation in club volleyball, Rosa’s IQ on in the sport has soared.

Two of his biggest kills against BC High came on a pair of tips over the net down the stretch of the fourth set as the Whalers pulled out a thrilling 25-23 win to clinch the match victory and advance to the Sweet 16.

“They have a lot of size so I was getting blocked a lot so I realized I could tip too and it’s effective,” Rosa said. “It helped a lot.”

It took those kinds of scrappy plays for the Whalers to get past BC High, which had defeated them the past two years in the playoffs.

“We were talking a lot about destiny and we’re supposed to be in this spot,” Kaeterle said. “We looked in the power rankings all season and it wasn’t against them, but it was the team that we had to knock off to get past and get to this next level.

“We have to think like the best teams do. We have to make the higher IQ play.”

In the years following the pandemic, Kaeterle said he’s seen the commitment of his players skyrocket and it’s paid off on the court. Since 2022, the Whalers are a combined 64-18, including 40-3 over the past two seasons.

“It’s incredible. It’s the buy-in by the kids,” he said. “They care about it just as much as we do. That isn’t what it used to be. We’d have one or two kids that really cared and were invested, and now we have 13 guys plus the JV team that really cares. They play club. It’s not a one or two month season for them. This is their sport. It’s not other sports athletes. They’re volleyball players.

“I would tell them if you want to be there and get to the next level, you can’t just show up here in the springtime. Now it’s just part of the blueprint. You’re supposed to play travel. This is what you do. If you want to be great, you have to put the effort in.”

The Whalers (19-2) will see how they measure up against fourth-seeded Newton North (18-5) at 4:30 p.m. on Tuesday afternoon in the Div. 1 Sweet 16.

STATS

Rosa had 21 kills, 2 service aces and 7 digs while Amir Salih Tavares added 12 kills, 2 service aces and 7 digs. Abner Cun dished out 36 assists and Nyron Foster had 8 kills. Davon Centeio led the defense with 17 digs.

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Men’s Water Polo Adds Eight in 2025 Recruiting Class

Story Links SANTA CLARA, Calif. — The Santa Clara University men’s water polo program will welcome eight new student-athletes to the roster for the 2025 season. The incoming class features a strong mix of high-level high school, club, and international experience across multiple positions. “We are thrilled to welcome this […]

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28 minutes ago

May 31, 2025

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SANTA CLARA, Calif. — The Santa Clara University men’s water polo program will welcome eight new student-athletes to the roster for the 2025 season. The incoming class features a strong mix of high-level high school, club, and international experience across multiple positions.

“We are thrilled to welcome this incoming class of freshmen to the Santa Clara men’s water polo program,” said head coach Keith Wilbur. “This group contains a great combination of experience, work ethic, and character. They bring with them a wide variety of backgrounds, whether they are from strong high school and club programs, or have played at high levels internationally.”

Among the newcomers is Ashton Brown, a 6-foot-4 center from Sydney and one of the country’s top youth players. Brown brings a decorated background to the program. A product of St. Augustine’s College and the Sydney University Water Polo Club, he is a three-time national champion at the club level and represented Australia at both the 2022 FINA U16 and 2024 FINA U18 World Championships. He trained with the senior national team in preparation for the Paris 2024 Olympics and was the top scorer in multiple national title runs. Brown captained his high school team and was named MVP every year from 2017–24.

Jamie de Zwart, a 6-foot-7 utility player from League City, Texas, helped lead Clear Creek High School to a perfect 32-0-1 season and a 2024 District 11-6A UIL state championship. He was named state MVP and earned multiple All-District and All-Region honors. De Zwart also competed at the 2024 Junior Olympics and was part of the 2023 USA Olympic Development Program National and Regional Team (Southwest Zone). He carries a 4.14 GPA with AP and honors coursework.

Beck Early, a 5-foot-10 attacker from Newport Beach, Calif., competed for JSerra Catholic High School, helping the team to three straight Trinity League titles, a 2023 CIF-SS Open Division championship, and three consecutive CIF SoCal Division I Regional championships. He earned second team All-Trinity League and third team All-CIF-SS Open Division honors in 2024. Early also took home second and third place finishes at the Junior Olympics in the 16U and 18U divisions.

Dylan Hazen joins the Broncos from Mater Dei High School in Huntington Beach, Calif. A 6-foot, 190-pound attacker, Hazen was a first team All-Trinity League selection and earned Open Division third team All-CIF honors. He was a team captain as a senior and a four-time recipient of the Outstanding Academic Award. At the club level, Hazen is a Junior Olympics champion in both the Classic and Gold divisions, a member of the U20 Canadian National Team, and a three-time USA Water Polo Academic All-American.

Ryland Pierce, a 6-foot-3, 200-pound goalie from College Park High School in Pleasant Hill, Calif., was a two-time Diablo Athletic League MVP Goalie and a first team All-North Coast Section selection. He helped his club team win a bronze medal at the 2024 Junior Olympics.

Mikhail Popov, Pierce’s high school teammate, is a 6-foot, 195-pound attacker who played four years on the College Park varsity squad. Popov set school records in goals, steals, and exclusions drawn, was a three-time first team All-Diablo Athletic League honoree, a two-time team MVP, and earned All-North Coast Section first team honors in 2024. He won silver at the 2024 ODP National Championship and earned a bronze medal at the 2024 Junior Olympics.

Imme van der Schaaf, an attacker from Veldhoven, Netherlands, brings international experience to the class. Van der Schaaf represented the Netherlands at the U18 World Championship (2022), U17 European Championship (2023), and U19 European Championship (2024). He led the Dutch U17 league in scoring in 2022–23 and helped his team to a second-place national finish.

Hank Woodman, a 6-foot-2 utility player from Winnetka, Ill., is a two-time Illinois state champion from New Trier Township High School. He was named Offensive Player of the Year in 2023 and Team MVP in 2024. A four-time USA Water Polo Academic All-American and team captain, Woodman trained in Greece (2022), Hungary (2023), and Serbia (2024), and helped SoCal Black to a fifth-place finish at the 2024 Junior Olympics.

“We believe this group has the potential to make an immediate impact on our program,” Wilbur said. “They are stepping into a competitive environment and are ready to contribute from day one as we continue building toward our goal of winning the WCC.”

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Pavlidis Qualifies for Nationals on Day Three of NCAA West Prelims

Story Links COLLEGE STATION, TEXAS – The Kansas Track & Field team finished Day Three of the NCAA West Prelims, with Dimitrios Pavlidis qualifying to Eugene for NCAA Nationals. “D did a great job today. He stayed composed, executed the plan from the first throw, and very easily put himself in […]

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May 31, 2025

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COLLEGE STATION, TEXAS – The Kansas Track & Field team finished Day Three of the NCAA West Prelims, with Dimitrios Pavlidis qualifying to Eugene for NCAA Nationals.

“D did a great job today. He stayed composed, executed the plan from the first throw, and very easily put himself in the position to advance and be seeded in the top flight in Eugene. It was exactly what you want to do in a qualifying round,” said Kansas Throws Coach Doug Reynolds.

Kansas’ day started with Greek International Record Holder Dimitrios Pavlidis qualifying for Nationals in the Men’s Discus with a throw of 62.00m. The Senior will look to build off of his 3rd-place finish last year at NCAA Nationals in the event.

Pavlidis’ qualification for Nationals moves the total to eight Jayhawks that are heading to Eugene for the National Championship meet.

The Jayhawks will wrap up the final day at the NCAA West Prelims tomorrow, starting with Madeleine Fey & Sofia Sluchaninova in the Women’s Discus at 1 PM CT. In the Women’s Triple Jump the Jayhawks will have Kori Randle competing in the event at 2:30 PM CT. Mason Meinershagen will compete in the Women’s High Jump at 3:30 PM CT.

Emmaculate Jemutai will run in the Women’s 1500m Quarterfinals at 5:15 PM CT, Pearl Awanya will compete in the Women’s 400m at 6:50 PM CT, Aaliyah Moore will run in the Quarterfinals of the Women’s 800m at 7:05 PM CT, the the last event of the weekend for the Jayhawks will be the Women’s 4x400m Relay at 8:45 PM CT.

HOW TO FOLLOW:

Updates throughout the meet will be available on the Kansas Track and Field Instagram and X accounts. Fans who wish to watch the event will be able to stream the broadcast on ESPN+.

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Volleyball hires head coach – The Lafayette

CJ Werneke coached for nearly three decades at the collegiate level before arriving to College Hill. (Photo courtesy of Columbia University Athletics) Following a tumultuous 2024 season, the volleyball team is moving forward with a new head coach. CJ Werneke, who previously served as the associate head coach at Binghamton University, was named the next […]

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45 minutes ago

May 31, 2025

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CJ Werneke coached for nearly three decades at the collegiate level before arriving to College Hill. (Photo courtesy of Columbia University Athletics)

Following a tumultuous 2024 season, the volleyball team is moving forward with a new head coach. CJ Werneke, who previously served as the associate head coach at Binghamton University, was named the next head coach of Lafayette College volleyball on May 23.

“I’m very excited, grateful and honored,” Werneke said. “What it means to me is an opportunity to elevate the program with our current players and see what we’re capable of.”

The team’s previous head coach, Christian Kiselica, resigned almost two months ago, with Werneke’s hiring concluding the search for the program’s next leader.

“CJ emerged from a deep applicant pool and brings a wealth of experience,” Director of Athletics Sherryta Freeman said in a statement for GoLeopards.

In addition to the past few years at Binghamton, Werneke’s career included stops at Columbia University, Rutgers University and Fairfield University, reaching nearly three decades of collegiate coaching experience.

Werneke’s longest stretch came at Rutgers from 2008 to 2019 during the program’s move from the Big East Conference to the American Athletic Conference and then to the Big Ten.

“Building programs, transforming programs into better programs, he has experience at a high level, which will definitely translate to our training,” rising sophomore outside hitter Destiny McKenzie said. “I feel like him having that Big Ten experience with bigger programs, more competition, it’ll just translate really well with us and have us compete better.”

With the Leopards coming off a 7-18 season, including a 2-14 record in Patriot League play and a losing streak in the double-digits, Werneke said that he would be looking to empower his players.

“When you give players a sense of purpose and value, I think that’s when you get the most out of them,” Werneke said.

McKenzie noted that Werneke had been setting up phone calls to get to know the team over the summer.

“For me personally, I was looking for a coach who could create an environment, a very competitive environment for not just me, but for the whole team,” McKenzie said. “Someone who could push us, who could drive us in a positive direction.”

In addition to the technical skill development, Werneke noted that he would be looking to foster a team of “intrinsically motivated” workers.

“You gotta have a lot of intangibles and a lot of emotion to play this sport,” he said. “The style of play is going to be fast and precise, we’re going to play with a lot of efficiency and then defensively, it’s all about heart and will.”

Looking towards the future of the program, Werneke cited recruitment as another method to bring out the “intangibles,” looking for leadership qualities outside of athletic skillset.

“The coach I am today wasn’t the coach I was at Fairfield at 28 years old, full of brim and vigor,” Werneke said. “Now, I’m a little bit more mature, know who I am, what I want, what the environment is, how to run a program successfully rather than just with energy.”

Philip LaBella, the director of athletic communications, declined to comment on behalf of Freeman.

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Women’s Water Polo Trio Named ACWPC All-America

LONG BEACH, Calif. – After helping Long Beach State Women’s Water Polo reach the Big West Championship finals for the second consecutive year, stars Elisa Portillo, Martina Cardona, and Chelsea Oliver were all named All-Americans, as announced by the Association of Collegiate Water Polo Coaches (ACWPC) on Friday. Elisa Portillo was named to the Second […]

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49 minutes ago

May 31, 2025

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LONG BEACH, Calif. – After helping Long Beach State Women’s Water Polo reach the Big West Championship finals for the second consecutive year, stars Elisa Portillo, Martina Cardona, and Chelsea Oliver were all named All-Americans, as announced by the Association of Collegiate Water Polo Coaches (ACWPC) on Friday.

Elisa Portillo was named to the Second Team All-America after leading the Beach offense with 109 points, combining 67 goals and 42 assists over the season. The junior currently ranks fifth in program history in goals scored, with 177. A Third Team All-American in 2023, the Spaniard becomes the third individual in Long Beach State history to earn Second Team honors, joining Lara Luka in 2024 and Cassie Azevedo in 2005 and 2006.

Martina Cardona earned her third consecutive Honorable Mention All-America recognition after an impressive final season at the Beach. The senior led the team in goals with 70 and added 33 assists. During the season, Cardona was named to the Peter Cutino Award Watch List, which honors the best player in the country annually. After three years at the Beach, Cardona ranks in the program’s Top 10 in career goals, with 155.

Goalkeeper Chelsea Oliver earned Honorable Mention All-America honors after a standout season. The senior recorded 224 saves, along with 29 steals and 12 assists. Oliver concluded her career at the Beach with 720 saves, ranking third in program history. She is just the second goalkeeper in Long Beach State history to earn All-America recognition.

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