Aram Leighton

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344 appearances 2 recordings 1 series first heard Jul 2026 last heard 13 Jul

Aram Leighton’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

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recordings per month · last 12 months

Recordings per month over the last 12 months — 2 in all, peaking in Jul 2026 with 2.

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Rahimi & Grote Show · Aram Leighton breaks down White Sox's, Cubs' draft classes · 13 Jul 2026 podcast

Ultimately, you're looking for the best player available, but it felt like this was just a great fit.

And I know you could look at the big league side of things and say, oh, well, you got these infielders and whatever.

I don't think you figure that out when the time comes.

If you have a team full of shortstops, you're in a really good spot.

And with Rock, I think that the wide range of ways that he can be successful, of course, if he hits a ceiling, he's impacting the game offensively, defensively, and is a perennial all-star.

But even in the fallback where you see, hey, maybe the offense doesn't reach the plateau that you're hoping, the defensive ability, still the feel to hit, the power that he has, even if he doesn't reach his ceiling, there's so many different ways that he can impact the baseball game.

And I think that's why the White Sox love him.

A hundred percent, because I think it was twofold with that deal, right?

I think the fun part with MLB's draft, again, is you're just trying to stockpile as much of that bonus pool as you can.

And the White Sox had the largest bonus pool in the history of the draft, especially after that, where they had $20.5 million plus to work with.

So not only did it allow them to go get Landon Tomey with that pick, it also gave them a little bit more financial flexibility to really make that selection with Rock.

second that trade went through I said okay it's rock now they're gonna try to make this thing happen because you know they really want to tell me they were tied to him through the whole cycle but Tommy's not gonna come cheap right you got to sign them away from campus so if you're trying to get to me but also trying to get rock they both have high price tags there's other

guys you like later in the draft that you want to sign away from college they also have high price tags all of a sudden that huge all-time high bonus pool starts to get smaller and smaller and smaller and that late trade there I think is one found money for the White Sox Jacob Gonzalez he has a first round pick but really struggled through the last few years of his professional career through the first few years of his career really saw it break through this year and looked like a solid piece but kind of squeezed out there with the amount of talent they have in the infield I thought it was a savvy trade by Getz and the White Sox to make that happen and

maximize this draft.

You know, we looked at him as kind of around a second round range there.

But the thing with the high school guys is there's a lot of variance, right?

Some people will, I think, push a little bit higher on that, maybe a little bit lower.

But I think the thing that stands out with Tomey is the guy can really hit.

And it

He obviously has the bloodlines, the feel for the game, the makeup's off the charts, and I think that's somebody that the White Sox are just excited to bring into the system.

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