Veteran 1B gets non-tendered by White Sox

The White Sox are not going to tender a contract to first baseman/outfielder Gavin Sheets, per a report from Robert Murray of FanSided. Once official, Chicago’s 40-man roster count will drop to 38.

Sheets, 29 in April, was a second-round pick of the White Sox in 2017. He hit well throughout his minor league career, which made him a notable prospect in the club’s system for a while. Baseball America ranked him as one of their top-15 prospects in four straight years from 2018 to 2021. In the last of those years, he made his major league debut with a splash, hitting 11 home runs in just 54 games. That led to a .250/.324/.506 slash line and 123 wRC+.

But his production has fallen off since then. The Sox have given him 1,255 plate appearances over the past three years, but Sheets has hit just .227/.291/.368 in those. That production translates to an 84 wRC+, indicating he’s been 16% worse than league average.

The Sox have had first base largely occupied by José Abreu and then Andrew Vaughn over the past few years. That has forced Sheets to spend more time in the outfield corners, where he’s not considered a strong defender, to put it mildly. In 1,618 innings on the grass, he has -22 Defensive Runs Saved and -13 Outs Above Average.

He crossed three years of service time in 2024, allowing him to qualify for arbitration for the first time. MLBTR contributor Matt Swartz projecting him for a salary of $2.6M next year. Given his performance thus far, it’s unsurprising that the Sox have decided they’re uninterested in bringing him back at that price point.

It’s possible that the two sides could reunite on a deal with a lower salary, but Sheets will now be free to talk to all 30 clubs and assess his options. If he latches on somewhere and gets back on track, he can theoretically be controlled for three more seasons.