The White Sox Are Making Short Term Roster Moves
The Major League Baseball season is, well, in one word, a grind for players, coaches, and the front office staff.
With 162 regular-season games, this sport is more of a marathon race, and there’s little real room for sprints unless a team makes a playoff run late in the season.
However, some teams cannot seem to get out of the proverbial starting blocks (sorry for all the track and field analogies here), and the Chicago White Sox almost seem to have forgotten to show up at this season’s track meet.
With a combined 14-30 overall record for the first one-quarter of the 2025 season, the White Sox are not surprisingly sitting in the dank, dark American League cellar.
The only hope at this point is that manager Will Venable can help his starting lineup find the light switch in that League cellar and lead them towards the stairs to start climbing out of baseball purgatory.
The White Sox Are Making Quick Turnaround Roster Moves
The initials that every MLB player grows to dread and fear are the seemingly ubiquitous DFA acronym. If you are unfamiliar with this moniker, it means “Designated For Assignment,” or in reality, it means a team’s front office is kicking a player to the curb.
Under MLB rules, when a player receives the DFA designation, the team has a week to either trade that player or place them on complete waivers and let another organization take their chances with the athlete. Once the week is up and nothing has happened, the DFA player can also be optioned down to the minors.
Jacob Amaya Becomes The Latest White Sox DFA
PHOTO: Katie Stratman/Imagn Images
Such is the case of utility infielder Jacob Amaya, who received the DFA “news” this week from the White Sox front office. Amaya was originally picked up off waivers last season by the Pale Hose and then cut early this year and picked up again by the White Sox for the start of the regular season. While Amaya has shown that he’s a talented defensive infielder, the White Sox are desperate for any offense this year. With a .097 batting average and a .119 on-base percentage in 68 plate appearances, Amaya has provided little firepower from the batter’s box in the 2025 campaign.
While the Amaya DFA assignment on paper doesn’t sound immediately questionable given his dismal batting average in the Show, the White Sox also picked up utility infielder Vinny Capra this week off of waivers from the Milwaukee Brewers.
If the Sox were questioning Amaya’s abilities at the plate, they settled for even less bang for buck with Capra since he’s only batting .074 with an on-base percentage of .121 in 54 plate appearances for the Brew Crew this season.
The more likely bet on Capra is the fact that in the minors he’s batted .287 with a .376 on-base percentage in 1,287 plate appearances from 2021- to 2024 and an even more telling fact is that Capra has played every single position in a game except first base while in the minors, including stints as a pitcher and even a catcher. If he can catch a whiff of his minor league batting in the Show and be able to be a plug utility player in a defensive lineup, the Capra acquisition may be able to pay some dividends this season.
The Miguel Castro Deal May Help the White Sox Bullpen
With a team bullpen ERA of 4.42, the Chicago White Sox can use any help they can scrounge around in the Show and in the minor leagues as well. The Miguel Castro deal moves the 30-year-old reliever from the Houston Astros over to the Pale Hose, and Castro has already put up decent numbers in the minors this season with 19 2/3 innings pitched and a 2.29 ERA.
While Castro has a tendency to give up a higher number of walks, his 25.3% strikeout rate and 44% ground ball rate could be a boon for the White Sox, trying to get out of a possible jam in later innings.
Interestingly enough, the Castro deal is not a cash deal per se. Still, it allows the Astros to boost their international bonus pool space to pursue amateur free agents overseas. Castro’s presence in the White Sox bullpen will be a welcome sight, and hopefully, he can help get the Sox out of potentially disastrous situations in the twilight innings.
PHOTO: Katie Stratman/Imagn Images
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