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.

20
Sean Burke
Right-Handed Starter
Chicago White Sox
Baseball Cube Rating 60.50
Simple WAR 1.1
The long road back from surgery started with 2024 rehab starts in Arizona, and ended with a stellar four games in September on the South Side. Burke recaptured his pre-injury allure and fast, although up until the moment he stepped on an MLB mound for the first time last fall, you wouldn’t have known it. He comes in to 2025 as a member of the White Sox rotation, with significant hype.

19
Aldrin Batista
Right-Handed Starter
Winston-Salem Dash
Baseball Cube Rating 69.83
Simple WAR 2.7
Cutting against normal trends, Batista was pretty average as a starter to begin the season, at Low-A — but turned it on something FIERCE over five starts in the second half, up in High-A (1.04 ERA, 0.846 WHIP).

18
Wikelman González
Left-Handed Starting Pitcher
Portland Sea Dogs (Red Sox Double-A)
Baseball Cube Rating 69.33
Simple WAR 0.1
Given how good the other three prospects in the deal were, being the “worst” of the four players coming over from Boston in the Garrett Crochet deal is nothing to feel bad about. And with significant upside (work on that control, Wikelman), González may yet be the best of the four.

17
Caleb Bonemer
Shortstop
Okemos (High School)
The 2024 second-rounder looks like a buff hitter, as well as a guy who may end up long-term at third base. He slates at 17 because, well, you gotta put a prep bat with sweet upside somewhere.

16
Jacob Gonzalez
Shortstop
Birmingham Barons
Baseball Cube Rating 63.00
Simple WAR 1.4
If we’d made this list last May or even June, boy howdy Jacob would have cracked the Top 10. He killed High-A and spent about a week or so looking like Double-A was too easy, as well. The remainder of the season with the Barons kicked his ass, so this is going to be a big bounce-back challenge for the former first-rounder.

Jacob Gonzalez photo courtesy of Birmingham Barons.

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