Blue Jays nab a potential power bat who was essentially pushed out by White Sox

The Toronto Blue Jays have swung a trade with the Chicago White Sox in an attempt to add some power to their labouring lineup. After a breakout season in 2025, Lenyn Sosa looked to be rising star within the White Sox system. But instead, the White Sox basically pushed Sosa out of a spot for regular playing time and the Blue Jays may have just reaped all the rewards from that decision.

Both teams announced the trade on Monday afternoon (Apr. 13) with the Blue Jays sending outfielder Jordan Rich, a 17th round draft pick from the 2025 draft, and a player to be named later in exchange for Sosa.

The Blue Jays as a team rank 20th in home runs (14), 19th in BABIP (.277) and 11th in Slugging (.375) with a total offensive fWAR of 0.8. These are numbers they'll need to improve on to try and make up the difference in their -25 run differential which ranks second last, with the only team worse than them being the team they just executed the trade with, as the White Sox currently sit at -30.

Adding Sosa to the mix gives them an interesting potential power option as the 26-year-old had a breakout season just a year ago. Sosa played in a career high 140 games with a slash line of .264/.293/.434 with 22 home runs. He profiles as a prototypical all power guy, striking out 127 times, and walking only 18 times. He had 137 hits with 45 of those going for extra-bases. He led the White Sox last year in home runs and his .727 OPS was the highest among players who appeared in at-least 100 games, ranking seventh overall on the team.

White Sox simply had no room for regular playing time for Sosa, leading him to Toronto

Coming into the season though, Sosa didn't have a permanent spot to play. Between some offseason maneuvering and other players getting healthy, the White Sox had someone ahead of Sosa on their depth chart at every position he can play. The White Sox had Miguel Vargas at third, Colson Montgomery at shortstop, Chase Meidroth at second and Muneteka Murakami at first, while Andrew Benintendi has the upper hand at DH. Sosa has played first, second and third at the big league level, and this year, he's appeared in only three games in the field, while playing as the teams' DH in seven games.

Sosa has yet to hit his first home run of the 2026 season and is slashing .212/.212/.303 with seven strike outs and no walks. There are encouraging signs though when he's made contact. His average exit velocity is at 90.7 mph and his hard hit rate is 42.3% which are both above the MLB averages. But there's also not a guarantee of where he'll get his reps in, with the Blue Jays.

Ernie Clement, Kazuma Okamoto and Vladimir Guerrero Jr., occupy Sosa's spots, while Eloy Jiménez has been called up to the be the teams main DH with George Springer on the 10-day IL due to a fractured big toe. There's also Tyler Fitzgerald, and Davis Schneider who figure to get time at some of those spots while their cavalcade of outfielders could also get reps at DH on their "off-days".

To make room on the 40-man roster the Blue Jays transferred Shane Bieber to the 60-day IL. Sosa is out of options and will need to have an active roster spot once he reports to the team, so there is likely a subsequent move coming in order to get him on the bench. Right now, the Blue Jays aren't in a spot where they can be too picky about who is on the big league team since nobody has been consistently contributing.

So it makes sense for the Blue Jays to go shopping and trying to pick up players who have potential, like Sosa, to see if it can work out and spark the offense as a whole.