White Sox’ Gavin Sheets non-tendered after rocky four seasons with big-league club

The major league deadline for all teams to tender contracts to their arbitration-eligible players passed Friday evening, with the White Sox taking a pass on veteran first baseman/outfielder Gavin Sheets and relief pitcher Enyel De Los Santos. Both will become free agents.

All remaining unsigned players on the 40-man roster have been tendered contracts for the 2025 season. That includes first baseman Andrew Vaughn, whose status was in some doubt until an announcement from the Sox came an hour before the 7 p.m. deadline.

Sheets, 28, a powerful lefty hitter who was a second-round draft pick by the Sox in 2017, played the last four seasons with the big-league club. As a rookie in 2021, Sheets hit a solo homer off the Astros’ Lance McCullers to put the Sox ahead 1-0 in Game 4 of the American League Division Series at Guaranteed Rate Field. It was downhill for the Sox from there; they lost that game 10-1 and were eliminated. For Sheets, there really wasn’t any uphill from there, either.

The Sox gave Sheets a shot to find more at-bats as an outfielder, but that defensive task proved too much for him. In 501 plate appearances in the team’s disastrous 2024 season, Sheets hit .233 with 10 home runs, 45 RBI and 106 strikeouts. Overall with the Sox, he hit 46 homers and 61 doubles and drove in 175 runs, with a slash line of .230/.295/.385.

One little thing for which Sheets should be remembered well: his willingness to assume a thankless role as one of the spokesmen of a 121-loss team. As awful as last season got, Sheets was a stand-up presence in the clubhouse, consistently available to reporters seeking comments on a subject without a bright side.

De Los Santos, 28, appeared in 15 games for the Sox after being claimed off waivers from the Yankees in August. The Sox were the right-hander’s sixth major league team.