2024 South Side Sox Top Prospect No. 80: Alex Speas

11.01.2024 21:33

South Side Sox

Thank Texas’ World Series run for the White Sox landing Alex Speas. | Aiden Shertzer/Texas Rangers/Getty Images

An MLB-ready arm who may, in fact, start the year in the majors

Alex Speas

Right-Handed Relief Pitcher
6´3´´
225 pounds
Age: 26
2023 High Level Texas (MLB)
Age relative to high level -3.7 years
SSS rank among all right-handed relievers in the system 10
Overall 2023 MiLB stats 5-2 ⚾️ 4 SV ⚾️ 49 games (1 start, 13 finishes) ⚾️ 56 2⁄3 IP ⚾️ 2.86 ERA ⚾️ 1.271 WHIP ⚾️ 85 K ⚾️ 38 BB

It was a good news and bad news situation back on October 3 for the Texas Rangers.

The good news was that they were shuffling their roster to prepare for a postseason that would eventually find them the last team standing, as World Champions. The bad was that in the process of shuffling the roster, Texas designated Alex Speas for assignment — and the White Sox pounced.

The 25-year-old Speas saw action at three levels in 2023:

Frisco RoughRiders (Double-A): 23 games, 3-0, 0.64 ERA, 0.918 WHIP, 28 1⁄3 IP, 4 GF, 2 SV
Round Rock Express (Triple-A): 26 games, 2-2, 5.08 ERA, 1.624 WHIP, 28 1⁄3 IP, 9 GF, 2 SV
Texas Rangers (MLB): 3 games, 0-2, 13.50 ERA, 3.500 WHIP, 2 IP, 1 GF

If you are curious about the escalation in horrible stats and wondering how Speas dominated at Double-A, well, he was 2.3 years older than the average player there in 2023. His Frisco performance, outstanding as it was, is mitigated by that fact. At Triple-A, Speas slid in as way more of a “typical White Sox” arm.

On the other hand, digging into the game logs, Speas did himself no favors by getting blown up in a select few games in Triple-A: 20 of his 26 games were scoreless, and in fact he never had an outing of one earned run allowed. He was either lights-out, or was hit hard for two-plus runs. Something to build on?

At 6´3´´ and 235 pounds, Speas fits the profile of recent White Sox acquisitions. He had spent his entire career in the Rangers org, drafted in the second round out of McEachern H.S. in Georgia in 2016.

His pro career has had more than its share of ups and downs, as Speas underwent Tommy John surgery midway through his first professional season (2018). Four years later, he retired from the game and sat out 2022. After coaching during his layoff, Speas decided to resume his pitching (thus, starting 2023 well older than his age level, in Double-A) and worked his way into a “roster bubble” player on a talented Texas 40-man.

He finished his Texas minors career with a 4.20 ERA over 106 games.

Speas’ Baseball Cube player ratings
Strikeouts 98
Hittable 86
vs. Power 86
Durability 49
K/BB 33
Walks 12

This is actually a pretty brutally-low ranking from the SSS brain trust, as Speas is MLB-ready and could contribute right out of camp this spring. At the very least, he’ll be a Charlotte arm ready for South Side duty at the drop of a hat.