On July 30, 2024, the Chicago White Sox finally called it quits on the Eloy Jiménez era, trading him to the Baltimore Orioles for minor league reliever Trey McGough.
After years of consistently battling injuries, both availability and production became major issues for Jiménez in 2024. In 65 games with the White Sox, he hit just five home runs and posted a .642 OPS. As the organization entered an inevitable, full-scale rebuild, the decision was made to move on and shift toward a more fundamentally sound brand of baseball.
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For the remainder of the 2024 season, Jiménez appeared in 33 games with the Orioles, hitting just one home run with a .586 OPS. He didn’t make it to the end of the regular season before being sent down to Triple-A, and until now, that marked his most recent appearance in Major League Baseball.
Jiménez spent 2025 with the Tampa Bay Rays organization after signing a minor league deal in the offseason, but he remained in the minor leagues or on the injured list for the entire year.
For a player who once carried a 70-grade power tool on the prospect scale — and drew lofty praise from evaluators, including a 2019 MLB Pipeline report that noted, “His pop has elicited comparisons to Giancarlo Stanton, but he’s a better hitter than Stanton” — his struggles have been difficult to explain. Not only did Jiménez fail to hit consistently in the big leagues, but he also struggled to produce power even after being sent down.
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In 40 games with Triple-A Durham, Jiménez hit just three home runs with a .732 OPS. He was released in July and finished the season on a minor league deal with the Toronto Blue Jays.
The Blue Jays brought him back on another minor league deal to begin 2026, and now, Jiménez is back in the majors. With Toronto dealing with multiple injuries to key contributors, the club selected his contract from Triple-A Buffalo on Sunday. He was immediately inserted into the lineup and went 2-for-4 in his Blue Jays debut.
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It all puts White Sox fans in a complicated spot. Jiménez created plenty of memorable moments on the South Side and was, at one point, a clear fan favorite. But the White Sox invested heavily in him early, signing him to a long-term extension before he ever appeared in a major league game, and much of the previous rebuild hinged on him reaching his ceiling.
His shortcomings in Chicago are, in many ways, representative of the organization’s broader failures during that stretch. So while there may be some level of appreciation for what he brought, watching him finally put it together elsewhere could feel more frustrating than it does rewarding.
Jiménez will need to produce at a high level to stick once Toronto’s roster gets healthy, but for now, he’s getting another opportunity to prove he still belongs.
