Minor league affiliates remain the same for White Sox amid restructuring

Minor League Baseball is being restructured and realigned this offseason, causing much confusion and speculation about whether major league teams would be changing their affiliates at multiple levels.

Things are starting to sort themselves out now. On Wednesday, Major League Baseball formally invited minor league affiliates to join the new "system."

Nothing is official yet, because invited minor league franchises need to sign "Professional Development Licenses." The licenses are essentially an acceptance of the aforementioned invitation.

There are 120 minor league teams that received invitations -- four for each major league club. You can find a complete list of invitations here. 

What does this mean for the White Sox? Turns out, not much. The Sox on Wednesday invited Triple-A Charlotte, Double-A Birmingham, High-A Winston-Salem and Low-A Kannapolis to be their minor league affiliates for 2021.

Apparently, Kannapolis is changing its nickname from the Intimidators to the Cannon Ballers, but aside from that, the Sox's minor league affiliates are the same as they were in the good ol' pre-pandemic days of 2019.

As a matter of fact, the Sox are the only team among the 30 to have the exact same full-season affiliate alignment in 2021 that they had in 2019.

Thirteen other clubs maintained their affiliates, but there are changes in hierarchy because of league shifts.

There was some speculation that Winston-Salem and Kannapolis would end up in the same league because of realignments in the East Coast A-ball leagues. If that had happened, the Sox would have had to find at least one new Class-A affiliate.

That ended up not happening, so everything is status quo, and the Sox still comfortably have all their minor league teams tucked in the Southeast.

Eloy Jimenez, Dylan Cease among White Sox prospects to receive promotions

Eloy Jimenez

The second half of the season begins Thursday for three of the White Sox's minor-league affiliates -- Double-A Birmingham, Class-A Winston-Salem and Class-A Kannapolis -- and it has been no secret that several Sox prospects were going to receive promotions.

I trust James Fegan of The Athletic as much as anyone as a Sox source, so here are the moves that he has tweeted out Thursday afternoon.

Top prospect Eloy Jimenez, catcher Seby Zavala and relief pitcher Ian Hamilton have been promoted from Birmingham to Triple-A Charlotte.

After contributing to Winston-Salem's first-half division title in the Carolina League, starting pitchers Dylan Cease and Bernardo Flores, relievers Matt Foster and Zach Thompson and outfielders Luis Alexander Basabe, Alex Call and Joel Booker have been promoted to Birmingham.

Outfielders Luis Robert and Luis Gonzalez, shortstop Laz Rivera, starting pitchers Lincoln Henzman and Blake Battenfield and relief pitcher Tyler Johnson have been promoted from Kannapolis to Winston-Salem.

The White Sox also released veteran outfielder Michael Saunders from the organization.

And, hey, some other good news: The Sox can't lose Thursday. Thursday's game with the Oakland Athletics has been postponed because of the horrible, wet weather we are experiencing in and near Chicago.

The two clubs will play a straight doubleheader at 3:10 p.m. Friday. 

Michael Kopech named Southern League's Most Outstanding Pitcher

White Sox pitching prospect Michael Kopech has been named the Southern League's Most Outstanding Pitcher for 2017.

Kopech, 21, recently was promoted to Triple-A Charlotte, but this recognition is for the right-hander's season-long dominance at Double-A Birmingham.

In 22 starts for the Barons, Kopech went 8-7 with a 2.87 ERA. Among qualified pitchers, he led the Southern League in strikeouts (155), batting average against (.184), hits allowed (77) and strikeouts per nine innings pitched (11.69).

Kopech becomes the first Sox farmhand to win this honor since Mark Buehrle in 2000. In that season, Buehrle went 8-4 with a 2.28 ERA before receiving a July promotion to the Sox. Buehrle never returned to the minor leagues after that. The following year, in 2001, he won 16 games for the Sox, and the rest is history. The Sox retired his No. 56 in June.

I doubt Kopech will be on any fast track to the major leagues. He's thrown 129.1 innings this season combined between Birmingham and Charlotte, and that is by far a career high.

So far for Charlotte, he's 1-0 with a 2.70 ERA in two starts. He's scheduled to pitch for the Knights on Friday night, and I'm guessing that will be it for his year, since the minor-league regular season ends within a week.

There have been rumblings that Kopech will compete for a rotation spot in spring training next year, but the smart money has him starting in Charlotte in 2018. Even if everything continues to go well, I can't see Kopech coming to Chicago until after the Super Two service time issues are no longer an issue.

Keep in mind, we didn't see Yoan Moncada or Reynaldo Lopez get a call to the majors until the second half this year. Kopech is one prospect we could see in the second half of next year, but most likely not before then.