{"id":424062,"date":"2026-01-23T01:50:19","date_gmt":"2026-01-23T01:50:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/424062\/"},"modified":"2026-01-23T01:50:19","modified_gmt":"2026-01-23T01:50:19","slug":"white-sox-lamonte-wade-jr-agree-to-minor-league-deal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/424062\/","title":{"rendered":"White Sox, LaMonte Wade Jr. Agree To Minor League Deal"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The White Sox are in agreement with first baseman\/corner outfielder\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/w\/wadela01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=www.mlbtraderumors.com&amp;utm_campaign=2026-01-22_br\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">LaMonte Wade Jr.<\/a> on a minor league contract, reports <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/JonHeyman\/status\/2014431241861308761\" rel=\"nofollow\">Jon Heyman of The New York Post<\/a>. A client of Covenant Sports Group, Wade will be in MLB camp as a non-roster invitee.<\/p>\n<p>Wade is a veteran of parts of seven MLB seasons. He has spent most of the past few seasons as the Giants\u2019 primary first baseman, at least against right-handed pitching. Wade was an above-average hitter as recently as 2024, when he put up a .260\/.380\/.381 slash line across 401 plate appearances. It was his second consecutive season with excellent on-base marks in a platoon role. Wade combined to hit .258\/.376\/.401 between 2023-24. Among hitters with 800+ trips to the plate, he ranked 11th in on-base percentage.<\/p>\n<p>Everything went off the rails last year. Wade hit .167 with a .275 OBP over 50 games for San Francisco. They traded for\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/d\/deverra01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=www.mlbtraderumors.com&amp;utm_campaign=2026-01-22_br\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Rafael Devers<\/a> at designated hitter and eventually signed\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/search\/search.fcgi?pid=smithdo02,smith-004dom&amp;search=Dominic+Smith&amp;utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=www.mlbtraderumors.com&amp;utm_campaign=2026-01-22_br\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Dominic Smith<\/a>\u00a0to play first base. Wade was designated for assignment as the corresponding move for the Smith acquisition.<\/p>\n<p>The Angels rolled the dice on a change of scenery, acquiring Wade out of DFA limbo in a small trade. They got him into 30 games over two months, but he hit .169\/.260\/.215 and was released in August. That ended his season with a .167\/.271\/.254 slash over 242 plate appearances. That kind of production obviously isn\u2019t going to cut it, but there\u2019s minimal risk for the Sox in giving him a look during camp to see if an offseason gets him back on track.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/register\/player.fcgi?id=muraka000mun&amp;utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=www.mlbtraderumors.com&amp;utm_campaign=2026-01-22_br\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Munetaka Murakami<\/a> will get everyday work at first base. The designated hitter spot will probably be divided between young catchers\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/t\/teelky01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=www.mlbtraderumors.com&amp;utm_campaign=2026-01-22_br\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Kyle Teel<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/q\/queroed01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=www.mlbtraderumors.com&amp;utm_campaign=2026-01-22_br\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Edgar Quero<\/a>. A rebuilding team isn\u2019t going to press the 32-year-old Wade into the lineup over their younger hitters, but he could earn a spot as a left-handed bat on a bench that skews heavily to the right side. There\u2019s also a wide open competition for playing time in right field, though GM Chris Getz left the door open to an <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.mlbtraderumors.com\/2026\/01\/white-sox-rumors-very-active-free-agency-after-luis-robert-trade.html\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">outfield pickup<\/a> after trading\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/r\/roberlu01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=www.mlbtraderumors.com&amp;utm_campaign=2026-01-22_br\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Luis Robert Jr.<\/a> on Tuesday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The White Sox are in agreement with first baseman\/corner outfielder\u00a0LaMonte Wade Jr. on a minor league contract, reports&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":424063,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[201993,363,99],"class_list":["post-424062","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-lamonte-wade-jr","tag-mlb","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/424062","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=424062"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/424062\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/424063"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=424062"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=424062"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=424062"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}