White Sox Call Up Jacob Gonzalez After Triple-A Power Surge
It may have taken an injury elsewhere, but the White Sox are going to see what they've got in slugger Jacob Gonzalez, who's more than earned a promotion and is set to make his MLB debut.
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Jacob Gonzalez’s Triple-A breakout was already forcing the Chicago White Sox to pay attention. Friday night made the question feel more urgent.
The White Sox are calling up Gonzalez from Triple-A Charlotte, according to ESPN’s Jeff Passan, after Munetaka Murakami suffered a right hamstring strain that is expected to cost him multiple weeks.
Gonzalez earned the move with the best stretch of his professional career, including a 104.6 mph home run off the batter’s eye Friday that extended a run of eight straight hits with four homers. He was later removed from Charlotte’s game as the White Sox sorted through their next roster move.
The former first-round pick homered three times across a doubleheader for Charlotte on Thursday, then went deep again the following night before being pulled from the game. He enters his first major league opportunity hitting .317 with a 1.087 OPS, 19 home runs and 62 RBI in 52 games at Triple-A. That is a sharp jump from the .204/.310/.293 line he posted in 45 games with Charlotte last year.
That gap has changed the way the White Sox have to talk about him.
This call-up is more than a reaction to Murakami’s injury. Gonzalez entered 2026 trying to reestablish the offensive profile that made him the No. 15 overall pick in the 2023 MLB Draft. Two months later, the 23-year-old left-handed hitter has hit his way onto the major league roster.
The production has changed his standing
At Ole Miss, Gonzalez was one of the most accomplished college hitters in the country. He hit .355 as a freshman, helped lead the Rebels to a national title in 2022 and finished his college career with 40 home runs. The White Sox drafted him expecting a polished left-handed bat with enough power and approach to move quickly.
That progression stalled in pro ball.
Gonzalez posted a .650 OPS in 2024 and followed it with a .652 OPS in 2025. The numbers were nearly identical, and neither season matched the expectations attached to a top-15 pick. Other infield prospects moved ahead of him in rankings and organizational attention. By the start of this season, Gonzalez was no longer being discussed as one of the system’s headliners.
Through 51 games in 2026 with Charlotte, Gonzalez was hitting .308/.414/.646 with 18 home runs, seven stolen bases and a 162 wRC+. He had already more than doubled his previous professional career high in home runs before adding another Friday. The production has also come with a 14.1 percent walk rate. The strikeouts have climbed, but not enough to overwhelm the rest of the profile.
That is part of what makes the breakout more interesting. Gonzalez is getting into better counts and doing more damage when he gets pitches to drive. The power spike has not come at the expense of the entire offensive approach.
The swing adjustment is showing up
The home run total is the headline, but the more important part is how Gonzalez is getting to that damage.
Earlier this season, Gonzalez told MLB.com that his old setup had him starting from a crouched position. Once his swing began, his first move took him even lower. That left him with less room to get his arms through the zone.
The change gave him a cleaner path to the ball. Gonzalez began standing more upright, using Matt Carpenter as a reference point, then moved forward into his swing. Baseball America also reported that Gonzalez worked with White Sox hitting director Ryan Fuller to find a setup that helped him stay through the ball and counter his tendency to pull off pitches.
The results have been clear.
Gonzalez’s overall contact rate has stayed around 80 percent from 2025 to 2026. The contact has become much louder. His max exit velocity has jumped from 107.2 mph to 113.6 mph, and his slugging on contact has climbed from .377 to .805.
The batted-ball profile also points to something more meaningful than a Charlotte-fueled power spike. Gonzalez is hitting the ball harder at the top end, and the damage is not limited to one pitch type or one part of the zone. That does not prove he is ready for major league pitching, but it makes the breakout harder to write off as park-driven.
Why this feels different
Charlotte is one of the most hitter-friendly parks in the minors, especially for home runs. Baseball America’s 2025 park factors had Charlotte at a 164 home run park factor, the highest mark in the International League. The environment has played that way again in 2026. Truist Field hosted the ACC Baseball Championship earlier this month, and the tournament produced 61 home runs in Charlotte.
Even with that caveat, Gonzalez’s surge has gone beyond a few pulled home runs at Truist Field. His three-homer doubleheader included balls hit at 108.5 mph, 96.3 mph and 103.3 mph, with projected distances of 440, 381 and 422 feet. According to MLB Pipeline’s game note, only one of the three was aided by the park’s dimensions.
The larger trend started before Thursday. Gonzalez won International League Player of the Week for May 11-17 after going 10-for-21 with four homers, two doubles and 12 RBIs. By the time he added the three-homer day, his breakout was already league-level news.
Baseball America’s Statcast look added more support. The outlet noted that Gonzalez’s evaluation had slipped after his first two full pro seasons, with the hit and power grades moving well below where they stood when he was drafted. This year’s data has pushed the profile back toward that original projection. The raw power looks closer to plus, and the contact has held well enough to keep the offensive ceiling alive.
Gonzalez’s season has changed the way his future reads. The early pro struggles made it fair to wonder where he fit in the organization. Now the bat is starting to resemble the version the White Sox bet on back in 2023.
The roster fit changed quickly
Murakami’s injury created the opening Gonzalez had been forcing the White Sox to consider.
The infield is no longer wide open. Colson Montgomery has taken hold at shortstop, while Miguel Vargas and Munetaka Murakami have become middle-of-the-order fixtures. Chase Meidroth has also played well enough to keep regular at-bats in the picture.
Friday’s win showed the White Sox can still find ways to survive a game without Murakami, but doing that for a couple of weeks is a different test. They needed a ninth-inning safety squeeze and a Miguel Vargas walk-off homer to overcome a night when they went 1-for-14 with runners in scoring position. If the injury forces Chicago to rebalance the infield, Gonzalez is one of the few upper-level bats who has done enough to enter that conversation.
That is a different problem than the White Sox have had in recent years. In another phase of the rebuild, Gonzalez might already be in Chicago. This version of the roster has fewer empty at-bats.
His defensive work gives the White Sox more room to consider him.
Gonzalez has played all four infield positions with Charlotte this season, including first base. That does not make him a pure utility player, but it gives him more ways to fit if the bat forces a promotion. His first big league role most likely won’t be everyday shortstop. It could be as a left-handed infield bat who moves around while the club sorts through matchups and roster needs.
Gonzalez was not on the 40-man roster entering the day, so the White Sox will need a corresponding move to complete the promotion.
That roster math became immediate Friday. Gonzalez was pulled from Charlotte’s game shortly after Murakami exited in Chicago, and Passan reported soon after that the White Sox were calling him up.
That should not stop the White Sox if they believe the bat is ready. It does mean the timing has to make sense.
Gonzalez forced the decision
Gonzalez said earlier this season that he needed to “re-prove” himself and force the White Sox into a tough decision.
Gonzalez is not getting this opportunity simply because Murakami got hurt. The injury accelerated the timeline, but Gonzalez had already done enough to make the decision feel earned. His swing changes have turned contact into damage, and his work around the infield gives the White Sox a cleaner way to fit him onto the roster.
This is the response the organization needed from him. Gonzalez had started to drift behind other young players in the system, but the best stretch of his professional career has changed that.
Now he gets the chance to answer the only question left. Can this version of his game hold up in Chicago?
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Written by
Adrian White covers the Chicago White Sox for Just Baseball and FutureSox. He studies sports management at Florida Atlantic University and focuses on player development and…