Chicago White Sox Adam Engel Leading the Arizona Fall League

Before the 2015 season began, Baseball America ranked the Chicago White Sox farm system 20th in baseball. After the trade deadline, Bleacher Report had them ranked 23rd. While having the best farm system doesn’t necessarily mean the future is doom and gloom, it does hinder a team’s ability in potential trades and generally shows a lack of skill (or bad luck) when drafting players. That doesn’t mean that there isn’t plenty of talent on the White Sox farm, however.

Take outfielder Adam Engel, selected in the 19th round of the 2013 Draft for instance. MLB Pipeline deems both Engel’s run attribute (70) and his fielding (60) to be his biggest assets, and rightfully so. Last season in Hi-A ball, Engel hit .251 with the Winston-Salem Dash, collecting seven homers and 43 RBIs while striking out in 24.9% of his at-bats. The bright side with Engel was that he swiped 65 bags in 76 attempts (85.5%), so when he gets on he’s a threat to take an extra bag.

While the regular season wasn’t necessarily kind to Engel, the Arizona Fall League has seen him shine. The 23-year-old is currently leading the League in batting average (.417), OPS (1.216) and OBP (.532) while placing second in steals with nine behind Toronto Blue Jays speedster Roemon Fields‘ 12. Engel has also cut his strikeout rate nearly in half, currently sitting on 13.33%.

Of course, this is just a small sample size and the Fall League isn’t necessarily known for promoting dominant pitching, but after watching Engel in action last week there was something about the way he would subtly take over a game–either with his defense or his speed on the bases–that shows that he may have turned a corner.

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Being that Engel has yet to play a game in Double-A, his estimated time of arrival in the big leagues is 2017, and if the bat that he is flashing in Arizona is just a mirage he could be seen as a defensive replacement in the outfield. Currently he could compare in some regards to Craig Gentry, who was deemed for a few years as the best fourth outfielder in baseball before a rocky 2015 campaign. If the bat picks up just a touch though, then he could become a legitimate starting option down the road.

Engel is currently ranked as the #17 prospect in the White Sox system.