The White Sox Have Found a Gem in Shane Smith

For a team that lost a historic 121 games last season, it is to no one’s surprise that the Chicago White Sox have struggled in the win-loss department again to open 2025.

Entering play on April 29, the White Sox have a record of 7-21, which is the second worst in all of Major League Baseball.

Despite the struggles, there is a beacon of hope for the White Sox thanks to the emergence of their rookie starting pitcher, Shane Smith.

Smith, the first selection in the Rule 5 Draft back in December, has been very impressive through the first five starts of his career. The 25-year-old is quickly making a name for himself around the league.

The Danvers, MA native and Governor’s Academy graduate has gone toe-to-toe with his hometown team’s ace, Garrett Crochet, not once, but twice already.

Starting pitching is often regarded as the most important component of a good team, and the White Sox seem to be taking a step in the right direction in that category.

All stats updated prior to games on April 29.

Chicago’s Rotation Upside

Aside from Smith, the South Side has some other promising pieces in the rotation. Sean Burke, Chicago’s No. 14 prospect, made his first career Opening Day start for the club to begin the ’25 season.

Burke has dealt with command issues in the past and isn’t off to a great start this year, but he is still just 25-years-old and has the stuff to be a mid-rotation starter.

The real excitement is with Noah Schultz and Hagen Smith, the organizations No. 1 and No. 2 prospects, respectively.

Schultz (Just Baseball’s No. 22 overall prospect) stands 6-foot-9, 220 pounds, and he is regarded as the best left-handed pitching prospect in the sport.

Hagen Smith (Just Baseball’s No. 34 overall prospect) was the fifth-overall selection in the 2024 MLB Draft out of Arkansas. He comes at hitters with an “elite fastball, slider combination paired with deception,” per our own Aram Leighton.

Both Shultz and Hagen Smith are expected to contribute on the big-league roster at some point this season. In the meantime, Shane Smith will continue to establish himself as a key mid-rotation arm, but so far, he’s been even more than that through the first month of the season.

Shane Smith Has Been the White Sox’s Ace

Shane Smith entered the season as Chicago’s fifth starter. As of today, he’s the best of the bunch.

Through the first five starts of his career, Smith has dazzled, already racking up 0.6 fWAR. His 2.30 ERA this season is better than that of guys like Logan Gilbert, Paul Skenes, Spencer Schwellenbach, and Hunter Greene.

Among starters with at least 20 IP, Smith’s 0.95 WHIP is the 13th lowest, and opponents are hitting just .177 off him (seventh lowest).

Of the five White Sox starters with at least 5.0 IP, Smith leads in ERA, FIP (3.33), and WHIP, leaving no question as to who the No. 1 in that rotation is.

Not many saw this coming. Smith has flown under the radar throughout his career to this point, but, to his credit, he’s now blossoming into one of the most intriguing rookie arms in the sport.

How Did Smith Go From a Rule 5 Pick to a Solution to the White Sox’s Rotation Woes?

From Rule 5 pick to making the Opening Day roster. Congrats, Shane! pic.twitter.com/wejZBzkR9i

— Chicago White Sox (@whitesox) March 20, 2025

The White Sox’s scouting and pitching department deserves to be applauded for this one.

In college, Smith appeared in just 10.1 innings during his time at Wake Forest. His college career consisted of a redshirt year in 2019 and the pandemic season in 2020 before undergoing Tommy John surgery in 2021.

Smith signed with the Brewers in 2022 and rose to Triple-A within two years.

After posting a 1.96 ERA in the lower levels of the Brewers’ system in 2023 as a reliever, Smith started 16 of his 27 appearances in 2024 at Double-A with a 3.08 ERA.

He was called up to Triple-A Nashville in early September, where he appeared in five games out of the bullpen down the stretch.

After going unprotected by Milwaukee, the White Sox scooped him up with the top pick in the Rule 5 Draft. It has been regarded as one of Chris Getz’s best moves since his promotion to general manager back in ’23.

But how did Smith go from a borderline starter to a legitimate rotation piece? It started with an arsenal tweak.

Addition of the Changeup

Over the offseason, Smith worked on adding a changeup to his mix, and the decision is paying off.

In a conversation with Just Baseball’s lead White Sox writer, Elijah Evans, Smith told Evans that he’d been working on the changeup during the winter but tweaked it a little further since joining the White Sox.

At first, it appeared that Smith was throwing a kick change, but that’s not the case. Smith doesn’t exactly throw one, but his changeup is as filthy as any changeup there is in baseball right now.

In an article by James Fegan of soxmachine.com, Smith is quoted: “It’s seam-shifted: no spike, no kick, I’m just throwing the hell out of it.” He’s letting the seams do the job, and it sure is working.

In September, Fangraphs’ David Laurila sat down with Smith’s teammate, Davis Martin, to discuss the kick change. Martin told Laurila that the variation he throws is “almost like a lefty slider at 90 mph.”

Despite not being a kick change, Smith’s seam-shifted changeup is the same velocity and moves relatively similar to what Martin said. However, Smith’s sometimes even resembles a lefty sweeper, which gives Smith a huge upper hand against lefties that he wouldn’t have had otherwise.

This season, Smith is throwing his changeup as his secondary pitch to lefties, using over 30% of the time to lefties compared to just under 14% to righties.

On average, Smith’s changeup gets 32.9 inches of vertical drop and 14.5 inches of horizontal arm-side break, which are both narrowly more than what Martin gets on his kick change. At times, Smith’s changeup can get up to 19 inches of run. That’s when it starts to look like a lefty sweeper.

Shane Smith, Disgusting 89mph Changeup. ?

19 inches of run. pic.twitter.com/g0cE106vfI

— Rob Friedman (@PitchingNinja) April 24, 2025

Against Smith’s changeup, lefties are hitting—and slugging—just .105, while whiffing at a 32.4% clip. Somehow, it’s actually been even tougher in moderation against righties, who are 0-for-23 off it with a 50% whiff rate.

It gets a run value of four, which falls in the 98^th percentile among league-wide offspeed pitches. It’s truly one of the best pitches we’ve seen a rookie throw this season. The thing is, you need to have more than one pitch, and Smith certainly does.

Rest of the Arsenal

With the addition of the changeup, the other pitches in Smith’s arsenal have all reaped the benefits of having an extra weapon in the mix.

His primary pitch is his four-seam fastball which sits around 95 mph and can get up to 98-99 mph. Although it doesn’t get a ton of vertical break, he gets well-above-average extension that helps it play up beyond its true velocity. It checks in at the 85th percentile in run value, and opponents are hitting a lowly .179 off it, whiffing at a 25% rate.

To lefties, he sticks to the four-seam and changeup for the most part at 46.9% and 30.4% usage, respectively, before rounding it out with a curveball, slider, and sinker around 10% usage to keep hitters honest.

When facing righties, Smith still uses the four-seam the most, but he drops the changeup usage to below 15%, bumping the slider up to over 36%. Off the slider, righties are whiffing at a 27.6% clip while hitting .222 with an xBA that is even lower at .188, pointing to some bad luck.

Having the changeup at his disposal has helped Smith keep hitters off balance, making his other pitches even more effective. It’s a small sample size, for sure, but not many saw it coming in the first place.

If there’s one area of improvement to point out, it’s getting more swings out of the zone. He’s getting the whiffs, but only 21.1% chase (10th percentile). If he can expand the zone a little bit, especially with two strikes, we could see those strikeout numbers start to climb and potentially push him to more than just a mid-rotation piece long-term.

Final Thoughts

Although things may look dim for the White Sox right now, Shane Smith has been a surprise gift for a team that could have one of the most talented rotations in the American League very soon.

Noah Schultz and Hagen Smith are not too far behind. Their time will come. For now, Shane Smith is giving White Sox fans a reason to tune in every fifth day.