Korey Lee Has Been A Revelation For The 2024 White Sox

The White Sox acquired Korey Lee from the Astros at last year's trade deadline in a relatively low-profile deal for reliever Kendall Graveman. Houston needed a reliever at the time, and Chicago needed a young catcher. The deal made sense for both sides. The rebuilding White Sox were willing to take a chance on a former first-round pick in Lee, and that trade has been aging beautifully as of late.

Lee's Tough Start With The White Sox

The trade did not seem like such a win for the White Sox initially. It felt like quite the opposite. To say that Lee had a rough 2023 season with the White Sox would be a massive understatement. He had just five hits in 70 plate appearances with the team last season, good enough for a whopping .077 batting average with a .281 OPS. His OPS+ was -22. It is hard to believe there can be negative stats in baseball, but that is how bad he was. Some people, including myself, had already written him out of the White Sox plans. At that point, he was not a major league caliber player. And that was being generous.

Drastic Turnaround

However, the 25-year-old Lee looks like a completely different player this year. His step in the right direction began in spring training when he hit .286 with a 1.097 OPS in 34 plate appearances, including three home runs and eight RBI. Yet Lee would not have made the Opening Day roster had veteran catcher Max Stassi not gotten hurt. You never want to see a player go down with an injury, but Stassi's injury was a blessing in disguise as it opened a path for Lee to show what he can do in the majors.

Lee Is Legitimately Good Now

He has continued his positive momentum from spring training into the regular season. Lee needs more plate appearances to officially qualify on the MLB stat leaderboards, which is a problem in itself. Martín Maldonado plays way too much, and that needs to change. But Lee's .824 OPS would rank sixth among all MLB catchers this season, ahead of proven All-Stars like Adley Rutschman and JT Realmuto. He also ranks first among catchers in pop time and second in arm strength and has the best wRC+ of any White Sox position player. 

Lee has not even played half a season of MLB games, yet he is already very good at certain aspects of catching and has shown ability with the bat. He does not rank as favorably in the areas of pitch framing and blocking, but he is young enough to improve over time with more experience.

Lee's Future In Chicago

Lee's role in the White Sox future catching situation is not without some cloudiness. Edgar Quero is one of the organization's top prospects and has been viewed as the catcher of the future since he arrived in a trade last July. He is having a great season in AA so far and will likely still be the White Sox primary catcher of the future. However, Lee has made his presence known this season and is making a convincing argument that he should be part of future plans on the south side in some capacity. 

Having multiple quality catchers would be a great problem, especially considering the White Sox have gotten hardly any production out of the catching position in the last few years. A catching tandem of Quero and Lee has the potential to be very exciting moving forward. In any case, Lee's growth this season has been one of the most prominent bright spots for the White Sox so far. He is turning into a quality MLB catcher in front of our eyes, and trading for him last year is looking better by the day.