Southside Prospect Weekly: Woods Finds His Groove at Charlotte, McDougal's September Slide
By Gordon Kairis ·
Southside Prospect Weekly covers the last 7 days of action for the White Sox farm system.
Woods Settling In at Charlotte After the Midseason Move
Jaden Woods (AAA, LHP, Rank: 27) worked 3.0 innings in his lone Charlotte appearance this week, allowing 1 earned run on 1 hit with 2 walks and 4 strikeouts. He threw 26 of 53 pitches for strikes and generated 7 swinging misses, which is a solid whiff total for a three-inning relief outing. The surface line is modest, but the broader September arc is the more compelling read. Over his last 30 days at Triple-A, Woods carries a 1.86 ERA across 9.2 innings with 12 strikeouts and a 30.8 percent strikeout rate. The stuff is playing. A left-hander sitting 94-96 mph with a slider that can miss bats in relief is a useful arm, and the stretch from late August through September has looked like the version of Woods that fits a setup profile.
The season-level context is worth layering in. Woods spent time at Double-A (Altoona, in Pittsburgh's system before the July trade) and has split his Charlotte innings across 18 appearances with a 2.96 ERA and a 35.4 percent strikeout rate, which is a legitimately productive Triple-A relief sample. His combined 2026 line shows a 35.0 percent K rate against a 10.5 percent walk rate, numbers that point toward a usable bullpen arm rather than a rotation candidate. Last year at Double-A with Pittsburgh he posted a 5.81 ERA with a 22.7 percent strikeout rate, so the jump in bat-missing this season is real and not just a level artifact. The changeup is still a 40-grade filler, and the command at 45 keeps the ceiling from stretching too far, but a left-handed reliever throwing 94-96 with a genuine whiff slider and a sub-2.00 ERA over the final month of Triple-A is a legitimate org asset. I'd take the over on the setup-reliever projection given what September has looked like.
McDougal's September Strike Rate Is the Number to Watch
Tanner McDougal (AAA, RHP, Rank: 7) threw 3.0 innings this week, surrendering 1 earned run on 3 hits with 1 walk and 2 strikeouts. He landed just 20 of 44 pitches for strikes and generated 4 swinging misses. The walk total is fine in isolation, but a 45.5 percent strike rate in a three-inning outing is a concern for a pitcher whose command grade is already sitting at 45. The week fits a pattern. Over his last 30 days at Charlotte, McDougal has a 6.75 ERA in 9.1 innings with a 13.3 percent strikeout rate and a 40.3 percent strike rate, the latter representing a genuine drop from his season norms. He is getting hit harder than his stuff warrants, and the secondary mix is not picking up the slack when the fastball command goes sideways.
The contrast with 2025 is sharp. McDougal posted a 3.23 ERA at Double-A Birmingham last season with a 27.8 percent strikeout rate and a 7.5 percent walk rate across 55.2 innings as a starter, genuinely encouraging numbers for a pitcher with a Tommy John history. The Triple-A jump in 2026 has been harder: a 4.34 ERA in 47.2 innings, a 14.1 percent walk rate, and a strike rate that has dipped further in September. He has a starter's frame and a five-pitch mix (four-seamer, two-seamer, slider, curve, changeup) that checks boxes on paper, but none of those secondaries have separated as a genuine put-away option at this level. The brief September call-up to Chicago, where he walked 3 of 5 batters faced, fits the command-variance story rather than contradicting it. The projection as a fifth starter or up-and-down arm still holds given the workload history and the usable package, but September has been a rough month and the strike rate needs to recover before any meaningful big-league conversation resumes.
Quick Hits
Mathias LaCombe (AAA, RHP, Rank: 23) · got his first Triple-A taste after a promotion from Birmingham on September 19, and it was a rocky one: 0.2 innings, 2 walks, 1 strikeout, and a 27.00 ERA in his Charlotte debut. The sample is too small to weight heavily, but the command has been a theme across levels. At Double-A Birmingham this year he posted a 5.66 ERA in 20.2 innings with an 11-to-27 walk-to-strikeout ratio; at High-A Winston-Salem the ERA was a tidy 2.88 across 25 innings with 35 strikeouts, so the profile can work when the stuff is sharp. The jump to Charlotte will test whether that High-A success was a foundation or a ceiling.
Pierce George (AAA, RHP, Rank: 20) · earned his Triple-A promotion on September 18 and has started cleanly: 2.0 innings, 3 strikeouts, 2 walks, and a 0.00 ERA through his first Charlotte appearance. His full-season track shows a pitcher who has pitched well in limited innings at every level below Triple-A, with a 1.32 ERA in 13.2 Low-A innings and a 3.18 ERA in 17.0 innings at High-A before settling into a 4.91 ERA role at Double-A Birmingham across 33 innings. The walk rate has climbed as the competition has stiffened, but three strikeouts in two clean Triple-A innings is a reasonable debut. One to watch as September winds down.