The White Sox have three picks on Sunday, and pick first in every round but … the first
In some past seasons, we’ve written up every pick the White Sox make in the draft in a separate story. This year, we’ll let a Day 2 draft tracker do a lot of the heavy lifting, but overall we should have individual profiles on at least the first five White Sox picks.
To kick off our coverage of tonight’s three picks and the following 17 on Monday, here’s a How to Watch guide. But really, let us do the heavy lifting and just stay tuned to the real-time updates of South Side Sox!
2025 MLB Draft
Day 1 (Rounds 1-3) begins tonight, July 13, at 5 p.m. CT on MLB Network/MLB.com/ESPN
Day 2 (Rounds 4-20) begins Monday, July 14 at 10:30 a.m. CT on MLB.com
The 2025 MLB Draft is in Atlanta this year as part of MLB All-Star Week. Both MLB Network and ESPN will air the first 43 selections (i.e. the full first round + compensatory rounds) live. After that, MLB Network will carry each of the remaining picks on opening night, which consists of Round 2 (beginning with the White Sox at No. 44) all the way until the end of Round 3 (No. 105).
MLB Network’s opening night coverage is extensive, with interviews of newly-drafted players, highlight packages, real-time analysis from MLB’s experts, footage from team draft rooms and interviews with front office personnel. The MLB Network also runs a draft pre-show that starts at 4 p.m. CT on Sunday.
The full and rapid-fire selections of Round 4-20 will stream on MLB.com beginning at 10:30 a.m. CT on Monday.
White Sox picks
As you know, MLB now discourages tanking poor performance by disallowing teams from Top 10 lottery picks in consecutive years. Because the White Sox picked fifth overall in 2024, the best they could do in 2025 was draft at No. 10, which is their first round pick on Sunday.
The good news? Well, the penalty for being a terrible team doesn’t repeat for the entire draft, so in Rounds 2-20 the White Sox pick first, on account of going 41-121 in 2024.
First Round No. 10
Second Round No. 44
Third Round No. 76
Fourth Round No. 106
Fifth Round No. 137
Sixth Round No. 167
Seventh Round No. 197
Eighth Round No. 227
Ninth Round No. 257
10th Round No. 287
11th Round No. 317
12th Round No. 347
13th Round No. 377
14th Round No. 407
15th Round No. 437
16th Round No. 467
17th Round No. 497
18th Round No. 527
19th Round No. 557
20th Round No. 587
The pool the White Sox will have to sign their first 10 picks is $12,169,100. The total is determined by numerous factors, most directly total number of draft picks, and ranks 14th among all teams in 2025.
Each selection in the first 10 rounds has an assigned slot value. The total value for a club’s picks in those rounds equals what it can spend without incurring a penalty. If a team has a lead on a top talent who’s dropped out of the first 10 rounds, it can make a “savings” pick (often a senior player with no leverage) to spend in the lower rounds. (A recent White Sox example is George Wolkow in 2023, and by playing that hunch with their first 10 picks the White Sox could afford to lure Wolkow from his college commitment with a $1 million signing bonus instead of the $150,000 players in Rounds 11-20 are allotted.)
A team that exceeds its bonus pool faces a penalty: Outspending its allotment by 0-5% results in a 75% tax on the overage. The penalties for exceeding 105% of a bonus pool are more onerous, so much so that a team has NEVER exceeded 105% of draft spending.
Teams do routinely spend more than their draft pool funds; in 2024, 23 of 30 teams did so.
As mentioned in the Wolkow example above, players drafted after Round 10 can sign for as much as $150,000 without counting towards the bonus pool. Anything more than that does count against a team’s total pool.