The Chicago White Sox made a long-shot attempt to sign Japanese pitching sensation Roki Sasaki in the offseason.

While it was nice to see the Sox not committing organizational negligence by making a presentation to the young fireballer, they were eliminated very early during the courting process.

A lot of teams made presentations to the top international free agent, but it was pretty clear that Sasaki was going to sign with the Los Angeles Dodgers.

Sasaki’s signing with the Dodgers also meant the White Sox lineup would get a chance to face MLB’s top prospect during spring training.

The extra detail is Sox hitters would face Sasaki in more than just during spring training games. The Dodgers and White Sox share a spring training facility, so it also meant Sox batters could face an early favorite for NL Rookie of the Year in situations like a simulated game.

Fellow top 100 prospect, White Sox catching prospect Kyle Teel ended up stealing the spotlight from Sasaki’s simulated game.

Teel, MLB Pipeline’s No. 32 prospect, took Sasaki deep during the session. It has everyone buzzing.

Kyle Teel off Roki Sasaki 👀 pic.twitter.com/UhCRmkvJvp

— Chicago White Sox (@whitesox) February 25, 2025

Turns out Sasaki might be human after all. Even more impressive was Teel was the first batter Sasaki faced in the simulated session.

Sure, this was a simulated game, so in the long-run, it means nothing.

Considering the White Sox have shown some trends that the historically awful 2024 season is likely to continue through the first three spring training games, this might be one of the highlights of the season.

Teel is one of the players the White Sox are counting on to one day return the club to being competitive someday.

Well, at the very least stop losing with regularity.

Teel is one of the four prospects the White Sox got back from the Boston Red Sox in the Garrett Crochet deal.

By all accounts, he is having a strong spring training.

He also showed some good baserunning skills in yesterday’s spring training game against the Texas Rangers. Oscar Colas crushed a double late during the Rangers’ 11-3 blowout win. Teel read the ball perfectly off the bat and was able to score from first with ease even though it looked like he would be dead to rights on the relay throw.

Teel has a shot to make the White Sox Opening Day roster. However, the Sox can be patient with him since they have veterans Korey Lee and Matt Thaiss on the 40-man roster.

It might benefit having Teel start at Triple-A and split catching reps with Edgar Quero, another highly regarded prospect the Sox have at that position.

The other reason it makes sense to have Teel start the season at Charlotte is to allow him time to get comfortable playing some outfield or first base so the Sox have more options to get his bat into the lineup.

Teel has played some outfield during his college days. The front office views him as having more positional versatility than Quero. The Sox could potentially have a three-man rotation at catcher with Quero being the primary, Lee or Thaiss backing him up, and Teel getting some games behind the plate and then shifting to other positions or DH.

The Sox could also choose to ease Quero into the big leagues at DH along with limited reps at catcher since Teel might be the defender of the two. The good thing is the Sox have some promise at backstop and it was nice to see Teel take the most promising arm deep.