The White Sox announced to reporters, including Scott Merkin of MLB.com, that right-hander Yoendrys Gómez has cleared waivers and been outrighted to Triple-A Charlotte. He had been designated for assignment earlier this week.
While no player wants to be booted out of the major leagues, it’s possible that this is the best result for Gómez in the short term. He came into 2025 out of options, which has led to him bouncing around the league in a long relief role. He started the year with the Yankees but was designated for assignment about three weeks into the season. He was claimed off waivers by the Dodgers but lasted a little over a week with that club. The Sox then claimed him on May 10th and he was DFA’d on the 20th.
Around those transactions, he logged 17 2/3 innings over 12 long relief outings, posting a 6.62 earned run average in the process. But now that he has cleared waivers, perhaps the Sox will let him get stretched back out as a starter in Charlotte.
That’s a role in which he has shown some promise in the past. Though he made his professional debut in 2017, the canceled 2020 season and a Tommy John surgery in 2021 kept him from climbing too high on the minor league ladder. He went into 2022 without having pitched any higher than Single-A.
Over the 2022 through 2024 seasons, he went through High-A, Double-A, Triple-A and the majors. He logged 195 2/3 innings on the farm over those three seasons with a 3.36 ERA. His 11.6% walk rate in that time was certainly high but he also punched out 27.2% of batters faced. Baseball America considered him one of the top 30 Yankee prospects in each season from 2019 to 2024.
But as mentioned, his out-of-options status has had him in a sort of holding pattern for this year. He hasn’t shown enough for a proper big league rotation job, with a 5.23 ERA in 31 big league innings over three seasons. He has been bouncing around to various clubs in a mop-up role.
While losing his roster spot probably isn’t fun, it might at least be a chance to get back into a groove as a starter. The White Sox have a fairly inexperienced rotation, so there could be opportunities available later in the year. Adrian Houser was just signed but he’s on a one-year deal and should be traded this summer if he’s throwing well. Davis Martin, Jonathan Cannon, Sean Burke and Shane Smith all came into this season with less than a year of service time. Injuries are also fairly inevitable, with the Sox having already lost Drew Thorpe and Ky Bush to Tommy John surgery this year.
Photo courtesy of Jonathan Hui, Imagn Images