It's not every day a team with baseball's best draft slot spends the night before the draft trading players instead of talking about who they're picking. But that's exactly what the White Sox did, sending infielder Jacob Gonzalez and lefty reliever Brandon Eisert to the Pirates for the 34th overall pick and Triple-A lefty Jaden Woods. Jeff Passan had the deal locked up first, and within minutes Ken Rosenthal, Mark Feinsand and Jim Callis were all confirming the same framework.
Trade news: The Pittsburgh Pirates are acquiring infielder Jacob Gonzalez and left-handed reliever Brandon Eisert from the Chicago White Sox for the 34th pick in tomorrow's draft and left-handed reliever Jaden Woods, sources tell ESPN. Deal is done.
The move only makes sense once you connect it to the bigger picture: Chicago is sitting on the No. 1 overall pick and used this trade purely to stack draft capital. By adding pick 34 on top of what they already held, the White Sox pushed their draft bonus pool to nearly $20.5 million, giving them serious flexibility to get creative at the top of the board and still have money left to overpay a bit later.
The acquisition of the 34th pick pushes the White Sox's draft bonus pool to nearly $20.5 million. Chicago, tied for first in the AL Central, will have the No. 1 overall selection in the draft, which starts at 1:30 p.m. ET. They've still yet to decide who they plan to select.
Rosenthal followed up by spelling out just how loaded Chicago's draft is now — they'll pick at 1, 34 and 41, an absurd amount of draft equity for a single class. He also cleared up the mechanics for anyone confused about how a pick even gets traded mid-draft: only competitive-balance picks, like the one Pittsburgh just gave up, can change hands under current MLB rules.
White Sox now hold 1st, 34th and 41st picks in draft, which begins tomorrow.
On Pittsburgh's end, this is about fixing an actual roster hole, not stockpiling for the future. Shortstop Konnor Griffin, one of the Pirates' top young building blocks, landed on the injured list this month with a hand injury that's expected to keep him out for close to two months. Gonzalez, the 15th overall pick back in 2023, has been raking in Triple-A this year and slides right into that void, while Eisert beefs up a bullpen that's needed the help.
The Pirates, meanwhile, plan to play Jacob Gonzalez at shortstop, filling in for Konnor Griffin, who is out with a torn tendon in his thumb. Gonzalez OPS'd nearly 1.100 in AAA and has more than held his own against big league pitching. Eisert joins a Pirates pen in need of help.
The return for Chicago isn't just draft picks, either. Woods, a former seventh-round pick out of Georgia who's spent his whole pro career in relief between Double-A and Triple-A, gives the White Sox another power bullpen arm to develop. It's a low-cost, low-risk grab for a team more focused on Wednesday's draft than its 2026 bullpen depth chart.
What happens next is the fun part. Chicago still hasn't tipped its hand on who it's taking with the No. 1 pick, and now it walks into draft day with extra ammo to either take the best player on the board and pay him under slot, or get aggressive later in the first two rounds. For a White Sox team that's somehow tied for first in the AL Central while also holding the top pick, the timeline is getting stranger — and more interesting — by the week.