Our Sox Populi staff combines their prospect lists each offseason, coming up with the Top 100 players in the system. We’ll be summarizing and counting them up here, five at a time, leading up to the regular season.

60
Tommy Vail
Left-Handed Starter
Winston-Salem Dash
Baseball Cube Rating 80.67
We just addressed the greatness of UDFA Bryce Collins in the previous Prospect Countdown, and boy howdy the White Sox had some 2024 luck in that category: Vail was even better! The southpaw crushed his A-ball opposition (1.69 ERA, 1.024 WHIP) and while he picked on batters far younger than he, well, outs is the name of the game. If he cuts through Birmingham like butter this summer, uh-oh we got a problem on our hands.

59
Jackson Appel
Catcher
Kannapolis Cannon Ballers
Baseball Cube Rating 66.13
A sixth round pick in 2024, Appel got a cup of coffee in the pros after the draft and, yeah, was real good; particularly intriguing was his pickiness, with seven walks and Ks apiece.

58
Garrett Schoenle
Left-Handed Reliever
Charlotte Knights
Baseball Cube Rating 66.00
All told, this is a pretty rough rating for a guy who was part of not one but TWO no-hitters in the minors in 2024. Scuffling a bit prior, the southpaw put it all together with a devastating 2024 (1.67 ERA, 0.943 WHIP) that should land him in Charlotte for the full summer. That is, unless he gets the call to The Show …

57
Ryan Burrowes
Shortstop
Kannapolis Cannon Ballers
Baseball Cube Rating 52.75
Simple WAR 0.7
GHeading into 2024 as perhaps the most intriguing of all White Sox prospects and almost definitely the best of anyone in the low minors, Burrowes instead took a significant step back. There was some injury issues to begin the season, and the stress of a full season of Stateside ball as well. But Burrowes’ power was sapped, and he went from an average-plus offensive player to someone who looks as if he might struggle to stay in the system beyond 2026.

56
Jake Peppers
Right-Handed Starter
Kannapolis Cannon Ballers
Baseball Cube Rating 56.50
Peppers played his first full pro season this past summer, spending his entire time in Kannapolis. And he was … OK. Perhaps most intriguing was his starting all 22 games he pitched in, given the righty was drafted (ninth round, 2023) with some question surrounding his eventual role. That said, we’ll need to see a much stronger performance moving forward in 2025, whether in Low- or High-A ball.

Tommy Vail photo: Tiffany Wintz/Sox Populi

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