The White Sox have released outfielder Oscar Colas, according to an announcement from the club’s Triple-A affiliate Charlotte Knights. Colas was previously outrighted off the club’s 40-man roster back in March, so the move has no impact on Chicago’s major league roster.
It’s an unfortunate end to Colas’s time in the organization. The 26-year-old was a fairly high-profile player in Cuba and Japan before he came over to affiliated ball by signing with Chicago for a $2.7MM bonus in early 2022. He crushed minor league pitching that year and put himself on the map as a consensus top-100 prospect in the sport headed into the 2023 season. He broke camp with the team after a strong spring training, but ultimately struggled badly across 75 games with the White Sox that year. He hit just .216/.257/.314 in 263 trips to the plate, with an elevated 27.0% strikeout rate against a lackluster 4.6% walk rate.
Those numbers weren’t enough for the White Sox to continue riding with Colas even amid a disastrous 101-loss season, and he was shipped back to the minors. Once back in Triple-A, Colas regained his hitting prowess somewhat and slashed .272/.345/.465 with the Knights in 54 games down the stretch. As the White Sox dove headfirst into a rebuilding phase in 2024, many expected that Colas would receive another opportunity to come up and try to establish himself in the majors with the club. That never came to pass, however, as reps in right field were instead primarily split between Dominic Fletcher, Gavin Sheets, and Tommy Pham.
Relegated to Triple-A for almost the entirety of 2024, Colas hit .273/.368/.273 with a 26.3% strikeout rate and a 10.5% walk rate in the 13 games he did play in the majors last year but recorded no extra-base hits in the majors and saw his performance in the minors take a noticeable step back as he slashed just .246/.332/.400 across 400 trips to the plate. Colas did not factor into the club’s plans for the outfield this year either, as team brass added players like Mike Tauchman and Austin Slater to the mix rather than give Colas another opportunity. This year, he posted a brutal .163/.245/.255 slash line across the Double- and Triple-A levels in 29 games (110 plate appearances) before the White Sox decided it was time to pull the plug.
Now that the White Sox and Colas have parted ways, the outfielder is free to sign with any of the league’s 29 other teams. The outfielder won’t turn 27 until September and is not terribly far removed from sensational numbers in the upper minors, so it wouldn’t be a shock if an outfield needy club gave him a call to serve as a depth option or injury replacement. Another possible option would be to explore the possibility of playing overseas, building on his stint with NPB’s Fukuoka Softbank Hawks during the 2019 season. If Colas is unable to find an attractive stateside opportunity, he’s certainly young enough to find success overseas before attempting to make an MLB comeback as a handful of other players have done over the years.