Draft signing season is usually background noise, but this one's worth pausing on. The White Sox took Alex Weingartner, an outfielder out of St. Augustine Prep in New Jersey, in the 6th round at pick No. 166, and instead of squeezing him for savings, they just wrote the full slot check.
Jim Callis broke down the numbers on Weingartner's deal and the tools that got him drafted.
Per Callis, Weingartner signed for $1.4 million against a slot value of $413,900 — full slot, no discount, no games. That's the kind of number that tells you a team fell in love with the upside and didn't want to risk him walking to college instead.
And the tools track. This isn't your average 6th-rounder. Weingartner ran a 6.24 in the 60-yard dash, a legit plus-plus grade that reportedly turned heads at a showcase and got him on the map in the first place. He was a two-way prospect in high school, sitting 94-96 mph on the mound, before scouts started leaning toward his bat and center-field speed/power combo as the more projectable profile.
He was committed to Penn State, and that commitment was real leverage — the White Sox weren't just buying a 6th-round arm/bat, they were buying him off a Big Ten roster spot. Full slot is the price of doing business when a kid this athletic has a real college option on the table.
The bigger picture: Chicago's front office has leaned into betting on raw, projectable athletes over safer college performers in this class, and Weingartner is the clearest example of that swing. If the power ever catches up to the speed, this is the kind of pick a rebuilding org points back to in five years — for better or worse.