Kyle Teel Headlines Solid Return Package for White Sox in Garrett Crochet Trade

The White Sox finished the 2024 season with my fourth-ranked farm system, and now they’ve added four good prospects via their trade with the Red Sox centered around lefty starter Garrett Crochet, who is under contract for two more seasons. You can read about Crochet and the Red Sox here. Coming back to Chicago in exchange are soon-to-be 23-year-old catcher Kyle Teel, 2024 first-round pick Braden Montgomery, 22-year-old developmental righty Wikelman Gonzalez, and data darling 23-year-old infielder Chase Meidroth. Two of those players (Teel and Meidroth) have a good chance to debut in 2025.

I thought this deal was much better than what the White Sox got back from San Diego last March for two years of Dylan Cease. A blockbuster rule of thumb: Get back at least one high-probability everyday hitter. Teel fits the bill. He’s a well-rounded player who is a virtual lock to remain at catcher and who will probably hit for enough power to be the White Sox primary catcher a few years from now. Montgomery is a switch-hitter with immense lefty bat speed, and he may also turn into an everyday, power-hitting right fielder down the line. Meidroth (elite contact, no power) and Gonzalez (three good-looking pitches that don’t play due to poor control) each have a plus characteristic or two that should facilitate an eventual big league role, and both have a puncher’s chance to be more than that. While it’s painful to part with a talent like Crochet (who was a bold, injured draft pick in 2020), a four-for-one swap in which each prospect they acquired has a special skill and potentially meaningful upside gives the White Sox a great combination of depth and ceiling in this transaction.

The headliner is Teel, who raked in high school, opted out of the 2020 draft, raked in college, was picked in the middle of the 2023 first round, and has raked so far as a pro. He posted a 145 wRC+ at Double-A Portland in 2024, his first full pro season, and was promoted to Triple-A Worcester in mid-August. It seemed plausible Teel might debut in Boston in 2025, in part because he has played so well and in part because incumbent catcher Connor Wong has struggled. Instead, Teel becomes the most well-rounded member of Chicago’s fairly crowded catching contingent at the MLB and Triple-A levels. Projected Opening Day starter Korey Lee is a glove-first player, while fellow well-regarded prospect Edgar Quero has immature plate discipline and isn’t as polished a defender as is Teel. Neither Quero (who is likely to be rostered after 2025) nor Teel (after 2026) are currently on the 40-man roster, which means Lee, who will be 27 in July and has only been a primary catcher for one big league season, is likely to be given at least most of the 2025 calendar to show the White Sox that he can cut down on his strikeouts (31% in 2024).

Though Quero has the earlier 40-man/Rule 5 time horizon, Teel is a year older, a better defender, and less apt to give away at-bats. He may be ahead of Quero on the depth chart when camp breaks, if only because of the defense. Teel does not have the prototypical size and bulk of an everyday catcher; he’s a leaner athlete, and there are times when his lack of strength impacts his receiving and pitch framing at the bottom of the zone. But he does virtually everything else well on defense. He’s a really great ball-blocker and has sensational hands when picking balls in the dirt. Teel’s raw arm strength is average, but he is very accurate even when awkward pitch locations force him to contort his body to throw. On offense, his skillset has begun to take on a power-over-hit flavor. He takes a lot of high-effort swings and his bat path is geared for lift in that classic, low-ball lefty swing. Teel has struggled to cover fastballs up and away from him enough that his contact rates have fallen a bit below the major league average at catcher, but his playable power and selectivity (which helps him hunt pitches he can drive) should be enough for him to perform like an average primary backstop.

Montgomery was the 12th pick in the 2024 draft and probably would have gone higher if he hadn’t fractured his right ankle sliding into home during the 2024 collegiate postseason. Montgomery comes from a family of multiple Division-I athletes and was among the most prominent of the 2021 high schoolers to go to college rather than sign. He spent two seasons at Stanford, where he played both ways and showed meaningful bat-to-ball improvement as a sophomore after a strikeout-prone freshman year. He transferred to Texas A&M for his draft year and was the most talented player on the College World Series runner-up squad. Montgomery slashed .317/.428/.646 throughout his entire college career, with 20% K% as a junior.

A super physical 6-foot-2 switch-hitter, Montgomery has monster bat speed from the left side. He has a crouched leg kick, his hands load at a conservative depth, and his hips absolutely explode though contact and help ignite his awesome hack, which has big finish in the dirt behind him. Montgomery’s lefty swing generates power to all fields, and he has some ability to alter his upper body’s posture during his swing in order to clear out the top of the zone, something that he only seemed to develop during his time at A&M. His righty swing is more generic; he has a low-ball tendency from that side and his cut isn’t especially dynamic. He’s vulnerable to changeups as a lefty, and up-and-away fastballs and back-foot breakers as a righty.

Montgomery has a huge arm in right field. He was up to 97 mph as a freshman reliever — his stuff was down during his sophomore year at Stanford and he didn’t really pitch at A&M — and, at least before his ankle injury, he had the speed to give center field a try in pro ball. Some of the changes he made at A&M improved the strikeout issues that were once caused by his lever length. This is a switch-hitter who was also a two-way player until 2023, and his performance is even more exciting given that context. Above-average plate discipline and a swing geared to get to his power will help Montgomery overcome what are likely to be elevated strikeout totals. He has the ceiling of a power-hitting right field cleanup batter, but he’ll probably be a relatively slow developmental burn for a college player.

Gonzalez became famous starting in 2021 when he and his monster stuff dominated the FCL enough to merit a promotion to full-season ball before the end of the year — while he was still just 19 years old. Since then he’s been an untameable tease and struggled pretty badly with walks. The 2024 season was Gonzalez’s first on Boston’s 40-man roster and a tale of two halves. He ran a 7.38 ERA through the end of June and a 1.98 ERA thereafter. Gonzalez even managed to limit himself to 15 walks over his final 41 innings. He pitched in 24 games during the year but was often so inefficient that several of his starts lasted only three innings, and he threw 83 2/3 total frames. All of Gonzalez’s pitches look incredibly nasty on occasion, but right now he doesn’t execute them consistently enough for any of them to generate an above-average rate of swing-and-miss. His sinking 93-95 mph fastball has always played down a bit due to ineffective shape and poor command, and his secondary stuff (which still looks like it has a ton of movement to the naked eye) has underperformed, too. It’s positive that Gonzalez has now held mid-90s velocity for the last several years, but his command needs to improve if he’s going to be a big league starter. He has fantastic arm speed and it’s plausible that, at age 22, he simply hasn’t corraled it yet. Wild pitchers whose option years start to dwindle often get moved to the bullpen, but the rebuilding White Sox have the time to let Gonzalez struggle and try to make adjustments at the big league level. His ceiling is likely higher in Chicago than in Boston because the former club is more likely to be patient in this regard.

The 23-year-old Meidroth is a fascinating player who generates wildly divergent opinions from scouts, with some considering him a potential star and others evaluating him as light-hitting utility infielder. I fall into the latter group. Meidroth has more pro walks than strikeouts, is a .285/.425/.408 career hitter in the minors, and slashed .293/.437/.401 at Triple-A Worcester in 2024. His granular contact data is absurd. Meidroth posted a 92% in-zone contact rate and 3.2% swinging strike rate in 2024, and has had among the best bat-to-ball metrics in pro baseball since he signed out of the University of San Diego. At a stocky 5-foot-10, Meidroth is able to keep his fairly elaborate swing on time enough to spray a ton of contact toward the opposite field, much of it on the ground. Meidroth has posted groundball rates near 50% since reaching the upper levels of the minors, and this issue is severe enough that, for reasons related to contact quality, it detracts from his projected hit tool as well as his power. Meidroth will tomahawk the occasional high pitch with extra base power, but most of his contact is of the low-lying variety, with lots of oppo pokes and slaps. It’s pleasing to watch, but isn’t especially impactful.

Meidroth has developed quite a bit as a defensive player in pro ball. He struggled to make accurate throws from second base in college, and it wasn’t clear at what position he might end up. He has improved as an infielder and gotten reps at shortstop and third base in addition to his native second. Meidroth still produces the occasional errant throw, but his actions and range are both fine for short. He could play there in a pinch, but that isn’t ideal due to his arm. Jamey Carroll’s offensive output is a pretty good proxy for what to expect from Meidroth — it’s enough for him to be a big league role player but probably not a Steven Kwan sequel, despite the swinging strike excellence.

Three of these four of these players should arrive in Chicago during the next two seasons. Gonzalez is already on the 40-man and entering his second option year. Teel finished 2024 at Triple-A and Meidroth played there all season. If Luis Robert Jr. ends up getting traded this offseason for the sort of package that the White Sox seem to be asking for, they might go into 2025 with the game’s best farm system.

Source