While Sox Machine is a White Sox website, podcast and now a YouTube channel, it's best described as a rolling conversation that's been carrying on every day for 20 years. We're learning about the organization and its players we go, we share and discuss what we've found out, and then we build upon, revise or scrap the themes as new information comes in. It's all made possible, financially and emotionally, by a supportive audience that's following along and offering their two cents.

This week has been a great example of that model. On the major league front, James has been writing about Jordan Leasure's attempt to develop a splitter for nearly as long as Leasure has been a part of the White Sox's major league plans, and Leasure actualized it on Thursday in the White Sox's first win at Kauffman Stadium in 15 tries.

Regarding the farm system, I've been highlighting Duncan Davitt's journalism exploits since the White Sox acquired him from the Rays in the Adrian Houser trade, so when the Sox called him up to 26-man roster for the first time in his career, we all knew the Indianola Independent Advocate would have a front-page story about it.

And then there's our draft coverage, where Josh has been documenting Roch Cholowsky's season at UCLA on a weekly basis in hopes of setting proper expectations for draft day, even if only for himself.

In just about every case, the more we learn, the more there is to learn. We're glad to have a place to put it all down, and we're happy to have readers and listeners who are picking it up.

As always, thanks for your support.

-Jim

By JIM MARGALUS

In an unusually stacked Triple-A rotation at Charlotte, Noah Schultz stands out as a cut above, and not just because he's the tallest guy around.

After slogging through an injury-plagued 2025, he's come out firing in 2026, building upon his impressive start with five more stingy innings on Wednesday against the Memphis Redbirds at Truist Field.

The outing built upon the themes Schultz established in his first two starts. He once again filled the zone with 52 of 73 pitches for strikes. Better yet, he threw first-pitch strikes to 15 of 18 batters, and 32 of those 52 strikes were called strikes or whiffs. He also demonstrated the wider variety of fastballs that diversifies what had been a pretty standard sinker-slider attack. He threw as many four-seamers as he did two-seamers (17), and mixed in 11 cutters as well.

The suddenly viable cutter is the new wrinkle he struggled to introduce last year.

"I've just been able to throw it for such a high percentage of strikes," Schultz told Sox Machine after his start in Nashville last week. "Last year, there were times that I'd throw the cutter and it'd be good, but then it would alter the shape of my slider, which we didn't really want to tinker with. [...]

"I didn't throw it for a while. I stopped throwing it in the offseason; like, I didn't even hold the grip for a while. Then, in spring, we picked it back up. It kind of did click again -- something that, you know, being such a high-strike percentage pitch, set up my other pitches, we thought it was too good to pass up."

Additional White Sox coverage that's available only to Sox Machine subscribers:

Read our latest mailbag, in which we attempt to answer questions from those who support Sox Machine at the 10 WAR tier and higher. Because many of them involve the White Sox outfield, sometimes we can only offer support.

You are receiving this newsletter as a registered member of Sox Machine. If you’ve had this email forwarded, consider subscribing to our exclusive coverage of the White Sox and their minor-league affiliates here.