The White Sox re-signed righty Juan Carela to a minor league deal, per the team’s transaction log at MLB.com. Chicago designated Carela for assignment and released him earlier this month, though that was only done because of the fact that Carela was injured and on the 40-man roster. Injured players cannot be passed through outright waivers, by rule, so Carela was released and will now return on a non-roster pact with an eye toward contributing in 2026, when he’s hopefully recovered from last month’s Tommy John surgery.
Carela, 23, came to the White Sox in the 2023 deadline trade that sent reliever Keynan Middleton to the Yankees. He pitched well for Chicago’s High-A club down the stretch that year and delivered a strong performance — 3.71 ERA, 25.2% strikeout rate, 9.9% walk rate, 43.2% grounder rate — in 106 2/3 innings between High-A and Double-A in 2024. That performance netted Carela a spot on the White Sox’ 40-man roster as they sought to protect him from being selected by another organization in December’s annual Rule 5 Draft.
Heading into the season, Carela looked primed to make his big league debut at some point in 2025. He’d pitched well in more than 100 innings of High-A work and handled himself well in a late-2024 bump to Double-A. A healthy Carela could’ve opened the season either with Double-A Birmingham or Triple-A Charlotte and pushed for a roster spot this summer or later in the season. Unfortunately, both he and fellow righty Prelander Berroa were diagnosed with torn ulnar collateral ligaments in their pitching elbows this spring and will now be out until midway through the 2026 campaign.