Road to The Show™: White Sox infielder Womack

Each week, MiLB.com profiles an elite prospect by chronicling the steps he's taken toward achieving his Major League dream. Here's a look at White Sox prospect Alsander Womack, who will be spotlighted each month as a Nationwide Road to The Show "featured player" in 2024. For more stories about players on The Road to The Show, click here.

Alsander Womack was born into professional baseball, went undrafted out of college and got into the family business anyway.

Womack has been a regular contributor for Double-A Birmingham since joining the club last April. This season, he’s batting .268 with 10 runs scored in 71 at-bats. It’s a limited role compared to his workload for the Barons in 2023. But throughout his career, Womack has shown an ability to capitalize on opportunities.

The 25-year-old grew up in big league clubhouses, spending time with his father, Tony, who was about to begin his first season with the D-backs in 1999 when Alsander was born. At a very young age, Alsander spent time around ballplayers, like Ken Griffey Jr., whom he would eventually consider heroes.

As he matured and began to make a push toward college ball, the 5-foot-8, 205-pound infielder did not share an identical skill set to his father, who led the National League in stolen bases in three consecutive seasons. But he was a contact-first infielder, just like his father.

The Greensboro, North Carolina native played three seasons of varsity ball at Charlotte Catholic, earning all-conference honors his last two years and all-state honors his senior year.

He hit the ground running in his first year with Norfolk State and was named to the Louisville Slugger Freshmen All-American team in 2018. Womack led the team with 31 RBIs while batting .314 with five homers, two triples, 13 doubles and 13 stolen bases. He recorded 15 multi-hit games and hits in 40 of the 48 games in which he played.

That summer, he played with the Kernersville Bulldogs of the Carolina-Virginia College League before returning to NSU. As a sophomore, Womack was first-team All-MEAC, finishing with a .377/.441/.503 slash, three homers and 31 RBIs. He maintained a 19-game hitting streak that lasted from February to April and led the nation in batting for much of the early part of the season.

He was the MEAC Preseason Player of the Year going into his junior season, which was limited to 16 games by the pandemic. In that short span, he hit .284 with five doubles, 10 RBIs and four stolen bases.

With a shortened Draft and limited games in 2020, he had to make the most of his final college season. And he seemed to do just that.

Womack scored the game-tying run and delivered the walk-off hit that brought Norfolk State its first conference title. He was the MEAC Tournament Most Outstanding Performer and again named to the All-MEAC first team and the Black College Baseball Elite first team. He finished the season batting .364/.433/.472 with three homers, 37 RBIs and 17 stolen bases.

As a college hitter, Womack produced a .344 career average with more walks (75) than strikeouts (59). But it still wasn’t enough to get drafted in 2021.

In November, Womack signed a Minor League deal with the White Sox and made his pro debut five months later for Single-A Kannapolis. He played just seven games with the Cannon Ballers before being elevated to High-A Winston-Salem. He finished his first pro season with a .268 average, 17 extra-base hits, including eight homers, 43 RBIs and 40 walks.

He returned to Winston-Salem for the start of the 2023 season and played in just 14 games before being promoted to Birmingham at the end of April. Womack maintained consistency at the plate, finishing the year with a .263/.360/.362 slash line while setting personal bests with nine homers, 14 doubles and 57 RBIs.

This year, he’ll likely be the only HBCU alum to be rostered during the MiLB at Rickwood Field game later this month between the Barons and the Biscuits.

In April, during Birmingham’s HBCU celebration at Regions Field, Womack delivered his best game of the season, providing the game-tying hit that set up a walk-off homer for No. 4 White Sox prospect Edgar Quero.

Although he’s had a reduced role so far in 2024, he’s proven that he’s likely to step up when the opportunity arises.