White Sox Signal Confidence in Prospects with Triple-A Assignments

The Chicago White Sox started the week with another wave of roster moves on Monday afternoon, reassigning a handful of players to minor league camp and trimming the roster down to 42 with just one week remaining in spring training.

The latest transactions included several promising White Sox prospects receiving their 2026 assignments. And while they may not have made the big league roster, they did earn meaningful promotions in terms of where they’ll begin the regular season.

I want to focus specifically on infielder William Bergolla Jr. and left-handed pitcher Hagen Smith. Bergolla ranks as the No. 11 prospect in the White Sox organization, while Smith checks in at No. 4 in the system and No. 72 overall in baseball, according to MLB Pipeline.

While neither player made the big league roster—which, for what it’s worth, was not much of a surprise—White Sox on-field reporter Brooke Fletcher is reporting that both Bergolla and Smith will open the season in Triple-A Charlotte.

For each player, this will mark their first experience at the Triple-A level. It’s a notable promotion and, in my opinion, speaks volumes about how the White Sox evaluated them during camp and the timeline the organization envisions for their MLB arrivals.

Bergolla was acquired in a trade from the Phillies at the 2024 deadline, joining the White Sox organization and finishing that season at High-A Winston-Salem as a 19-year-old. In 2025, his age-20 season, Bergolla spent the entire year at Double-A Birmingham, batting .286 with a .675 OPS. He did not hit a home run but added 40 stolen bases.

Now 21 years old, the Venezuelan infielder appeared in 15 big league spring training games, hitting .313 with a .728 OPS. Interestingly enough, Bergolla owns a .378 career batting average across 25 spring training games.

It shouldn’t come as a surprise that he didn’t make the team. The White Sox have a crowded infield mix heading into 2026, and Bergolla remains a raw and relatively inexperienced prospect.

It’s difficult to project how an infielder with just one professional home run in his career will contribute at the MLB level in today’s game. And perhaps that’s exactly what the White Sox are still trying to figure out—and why Bergolla needs more development.

The lack of slugging in his profile, including a .333 slugging percentage at Double-A last season, has made it hard for me to fully buy in. But by assigning him directly to Triple-A Charlotte to begin 2026, the organization is clearly signaling that it believes he’s not far away.

That, to me, is more telling than anything he could have done in a spring training game.

The same can be said for Hagen Smith, who experienced a rollercoaster 2025 season.

Smith was drafted fifth overall by the White Sox in the 2024 MLB Draft and logged just 7.2 innings at Winston-Salem before that season came to a close. He spent all of 2025 at Double-A Birmingham, making 20 starts and finishing with a 3.57 ERA and 12.9 strikeouts per nine innings—but also 6.7 walks per nine.

At his best, he was dominant and nearly unhittable. At his worst, he was wild and unreliable. The White Sox even pulled him from game action in mid-May, sidelining him for over a month as he dealt with arm fatigue and mechanical issues.

His workload was managed carefully as the season progressed. After returning in late June, Smith did not pitch more than five innings in any start the rest of the way. Still, he was particularly impressive down the stretch.

Over his final five starts with the Barons, Smith threw 22 innings, allowed just five earned runs, and struck out 37. That’s a 2.05 ERA from August 30 through September 24. He carried that momentum into the Arizona Fall League, where he made five starts, pitched 14 innings, and posted a 2.57 ERA with 13.5 strikeouts per nine and 3.9 walks per nine.

We finally saw flashes of why the White Sox selected him in the top five.

And while he posted a 4.91 ERA in a small spring training sample, Smith continued to look like the pitcher we saw at the end of 2025. Against the Kansas City Royals on Sunday, he threw two scoreless innings with no hits, one walk, and five strikeouts. Sheer dominance.

Now, the White Sox plan to start him in Triple-A Charlotte—a testament to the progress he’s made and how close he may be to making his MLB debut.

I felt strongly last season that the baseball world gave up on Hagen Smith’s upside too quickly. A rough start to his first full professional season caused him to slide down prospect boards and drift out of the conversation for many evaluators discussing the future of the White Sox.

But let’s not forget—this is a pitcher who posted a 2.04 ERA with 161 strikeouts in 84 innings at Arkansas in 2024. That’s 17.3 strikeouts per nine with a 0.89 WHIP in the best conference in college baseball.

There’s a reason the White Sox used a top-five pick on him. That ceiling—still—is that of a frontline MLB starter.

Seeing him assigned to Triple-A only reinforces that belief. I’m more bullish on Hagen Smith now than I’ve ever been, and I feel confident that both he and Noah Schultz will have a legitimate opportunity to make their MLB debuts in 2026 if they perform at the level they’re capable of in the minors.

So while it’s always a bit disappointing to hear you didn’t make the team, it’s not surprising for William Bergolla Jr. or Hagen Smith. And more importantly, the White Sox’s plan for each of them speaks volumes about how much faith the organization has in their futures.