Chicago White Sox Rookie Kyle Teel Producing At Plate, Providing Energy

CHICAGO –– Trading a Cy Young contender like 26-year-old Garrett Crochet meant the return had to be fruitful, or the rebuilding White Sox would be even further from competing.

The headliner coming over from the Red Sox was catcher Kyle Teel, ranked No. 25 among all MLB prospects in December, and also included Chase Meidroth, Braden Montgomery and Wikelman Gonzalez. It's too early to draw any major conclusions about the trade, but the White Sox feel good about what Teel has done so far.

The 23-year-old from Ridgewood, N.J. has been especially hot over his last nine games, slashing .500/.541/.706 with two home runs, nine RBIs and six multi-hit games entering Saturday's 6:10 p.m. CT contest against the New York Yankees at Rate Field.

"It's the quality of swing decisions and to me, just the willingness to use the whole field," White Sox manager Will Venable said. "You see a lot of base hits to the middle of the field, the opposite field, late in the count where he just seems to be committed to just having quality at-bats and not trying to do too much. So yeah, he just continues to stack quality at-bats one after the other."

Teel's at a natural disadvantage in the American League Rookie of the Year race, given that he didn't debut until June 6. No one is catching Athletics first baseman Nick Kurtz, either, as he's tied for 17th in MLB with 27 home runs.

But look at several non-counting stats, and Teel has been one of the top rookies in MLB this season. He's third in on-base percentage (.385) and wRC+ (128), fourth in batting average (.300) and OPS (.802) and ninth in slugging (.418) among qualified rookies.

Forget narrowing it down to rookies, and he still shows up on several leaderboards. Post-All-Star break, Teel ranks sixth in MLB in batting average (.347), 15th in on-base percentage (.394), tied for 21st in wRC+ (152) and 27th in OPS (.899) among hitters with at least 100 plate appearances. He's also fifth in WAR among catchers (1.2).

And in a unique way, Teel's impact is also felt in the way he shows up to the ballpark every day.

"His energy is interesting," Venable said. "The best way I could describe it right is, the genuine enthusiasm for being at the baseball field that sometimes can be lost in the daily grind of being a professional baseball player. He brings that kind of energy that always reminds us that how special it is to be at the ballpark playing baseball, whether it's in the clubhouse, in the dugout, on the field."

"With the way he plays, it's just high energy, but the kind of energy that is really wholesome, right? 
It's just the genuine enthusiasm for being a baseball player, which is what it's all about, and I think everyone feeds off of."