White Sox To Promote Tanner McDougal, Hagen Smith

The White Sox are bringing up two of their top pitching prospects. Righty Tanner McDougal and left-hander Hagen Smith are each getting their first big league calls, reports Ian Eskridge of Future Sox.

McDougal is already on the 40-man roster, as the White Sox selected his contract last offseason to keep him out of the Rule 5 draft. He has been on optional assignment to Triple-A Charlotte this season, meaning his first promotion is technically a recall. They will need to select Smith’s contract and open one spot on the 40-man.

They’ll also need to drop two pitchers from the active roster. James Fox of Future Sox reports that Noah Schultz and David Sandlin will be optioned to Triple-A Charlotte. Sandlin was just recalled today when Chris Murphy went on the injured list. He wound up needing to eat 5 1/3 innings of relief behind Schultz, who only recorded one out. That was an unfortunate consequence of a bad error by manager Will Venable, who inadvertently forced himself to remove Schultz by going out for a second mound visit in the first inning.

Venable blanked on the fact that pitching coach Zach Bove had visited the mound earlier in the inning. “Just an inexcusable mistake by me where we had an appeal play that we wanted to execute, and in the urgency of trying to make that happen, just totally lost that we had visited, and obviously that was a mistake,” the skipper said postgame (via Scott Merkin of MLB.com). “So just messed it up.” Sandlin wound up giving up six runs in an 8-2 loss to the Guardians.

Trevor Richards threw 25 pitches across 2 1/3 innings, while Erick Fedde used 15 pitches to get through a scoreless frame. They’d also both pitched yesterday, as Venable’s mistake had the unfortunate timing of coming one day after Chicago used seven relievers in a 13-inning loss to the Red Sox (tied for the longest game all season).

Optioning Sandlin was an easy call. Schultz was a tougher decision but he and Huascar Brazobán were the only other pitchers with options whom the Sox could consider demoting. He’ll need to spend at least 15 days in Triple-A. The Sox will need a fifth starter by the middle of next week. They could move Fedde back into the rotation, recall one of Jonathan Cannon or José Urquidy, or potentially activate rehabbing righty Drew Thorpe from the injured list.

They’re not ideal circumstances for the Sox to be getting a look at two of their better prospects. Smith is the bigger name, as he was the fifth overall pick in the fantastic 2024 draft. The Arkansas product went one pick after Nick Kurtz and shortly before Jac Caglianone, JJ Wetherholt and Konnor Griffin.

While the selection looks underwhelming in that context, Smith remains a talented young arm. He has spent this season at Triple-A Charlotte, working to a 4.32 ERA across 58 1/3 innings. Smith has punched out an excellent 34.5% of batters faced but has walked 16% of opposing hitters. He spent a month on the injured list and has pitched single-inning relief since returning. Smith walked three batters in his first relief appearance but has since reeled off five straight scoreless outings with eight punchouts.

The scouting report on Smith has been the same since college. He has a plus fastball and a wipeout slider but has neither developed a third pitch nor adequate command. Many scouts have projected him to the bullpen for a while, albeit as a high-end reliever.

Baseball America ranks him fifth in the Sox’s system, noting that Smith has some similarities to a young Josh Hader — though he’ll still need to take a sizable step forward with his command to approach that level. Eric Longenhagen and Brendan Gawlowski of FanGraphs had Smith as Chicago’s #2 prospect and just inside their overall Top 100. They similarly pointed to a potential bullpen future but project him as a back-end weapon.

BA has McDougal one slot behind Smith on their farm rankings. They credit the 6’5″ righty with a plus fastball-curveball combination but write that he has below-average control. That’s again been borne out in the Triple-A production. The 23-year-old has a 2.86 ERA across 34 2/3 frames with Charlotte, working mostly in relief. He’s running a 28% strikeout rate while walking 14% of opponents.

McDougal, who missed May and June with an injury, has scaled back on the curveball this season in favor of a mid-80s slider which FanGraphs also graded as a plus pitch. He’s averaging 98.2 mph on his four-seam fastball. Both youngsters will bring high-end stuff with spotty present control to Venable’s relief group. They might be optioned back down before long, but given the state of Chicago’s bullpen, there’s a good chance they’ll each make their MLB debuts before the weekend is out.