A little over a year ago, the Chicago White Sox were nearing the end of an abysmal season. After being hyped up all offseason, first-year skipper Pedro Grifol had the boys closing in on 100 losses. Clubhouse turmoil and ugly baseball had been the theme of the season, even though Grifol had promised preparation and chemistry. It’s safe to say many White Sox fans felt they were at rock bottom. Longtime executives Rick Hahn and Ken Williams had been relieved of their duties, and in stepped Assistant GM Chris Getz. White Sox Owner and Chairman Jerry Reinsdorf declined to do a search for a new general manager and decided to simply promote from within because he felt it would be a quicker turnaround.
Chris Getz began his tenure in rip-roaring fashion, immediately selling low on one of the team’s more talented relievers, acquiring a package of fringe major leaguers, most of whom would’ve been available to sign in free agency within the next couple of days. This trade kicked off an off-season of trading away talent and acquiring reclamation projects for the White Sox, whose best offseason acquisition was a guy who had to go to Korea to remake himself to experience big-league success. Despite the lack of significant additions, Getz refused to call it a “rebuild” and instead promised a fundamentally sound baseball team that would play the game the right way. He emphasized improvement on what was the league’s worst defense in 2023 and mentioned wanting to be a more desirable place for pitchers to sign.
Very few people were surprised when the Sox came out flat in 2024, and by the end of April, it was obvious they were a bottom-tier team in baseball. After an off-season of refusing to call it what it is, Getz finally admitted that this wouldn’t be the “quick turnaround” that Reinsdorf was calling for.
“This wasn’t going to be a quick fix by any stretch. We had a lot of areas that needed to be improved. It’s my job to do that and make good decisions for the health of the organization.”
Props to him, I guess, for finally saying what was obvious to us couch GMs from the moment we laid eyes on this team.
It hasn’t been all bad for the organization. The offseason hiring of Director of Pitching Brian Bannister, as well as an influx in minor league talent from the 2023 trade deadline has led to some very positive pitching developments on the farm system. The same cannot be said about the offense, however, as top hitting prospects Colson Montgomery, Bryan Ramos, Jacob Gonzalez, and Samuel Zavala have struggled in 2024 to go along with a historically abysmal offense on the major league club. I mean seriously, there are major league pitchers who have a higher career OPS than the White Sox entire lineup in 2024.
Despite the offensive struggles, the Sox had a couple opportunities to infuse the system with top-hitting prospects, with the trade deadline quickly approaching and the team holding the fifth overall pick in the draft. All indications were that the team was looking for a bat with the fifth pick, and although Scouting Director Mike Shirley claimed they were considering pitching as well, many fans believed this was just due diligence. But when the White Sox selected Arkansas lefty Hagen Smith in the first round, the overwhelming reaction was confusion. Nothing against Smith, as he is a very talented pitcher, but with many potential impact bats on the board and a farm system almost completely depraved of top hitting talent, the decision to take yet another pitcher was a curious one.
The White Sox had another chance to add top hitting talent at the trade deadline, and with highly desirable trade chips such as Garrett Crochet, Erick Fedde, and Luis Robert, it felt like a big opportunity to expedite this rebuild. However, instead of capitalizing on this opportunity, Getz and the White Sox elected to keep Crochet and Robert, and to deal Erick Fedde for what many around the league considered an underwhelming return. The big “prize” of the trade was 24-year-old infielder Miguel Vargas, a former top-100 prospect who had never put it together at the major league level. The hope in the White Sox organization was that with consistent playing time, they’d be able to get the best out of Vargas. Instead, Vargas has gone through the worst offensive struggles of his career in his brief time in Chicago, and has looked completely overmatched against major league pitching. While some of the other deadline acquistions are intriguing talents, they’re mostly teenagers that are several years away from making a big league impact. Not exactly a great sign of a desire to be competitive anytime soon.
As the season winds down, the White Sox are closing in on history. The 1962 New York Mets currently hold the record for most losses in the modern era with 120. Six games remain, and the White Sox have already tied the record. A sudden hot streak pushing them to a 6-0 finish seems highly unlikely, so all indications are that the 2024 White Sox will finish with the worst record in Major League Baseball in over 100 years. The so-called improved defense still ranks last in baseball in Fangraph’s defensive rating, though they are up to 29th in Outs Above Average, so improvement, I guess?
In a recent interview, Getz expressed a lack of surprise at the team’s awful record, which is interesting considering his preseason comments about believing there would be improvement.
It’s a somewhat respectable thing to accept that your team isn’t going to be good and rebuild from the ground up. Many teams forego potential opportunities to improve their team in the short-term in order to set themselves up for the future and target a top player in the draft. Surely, Getz just had potentially generational hitter Ethan Holliday in his sights when he put this disgrace of a team on the field, right? Nope. According to MLB’s new lottery rules created in the CBA prior to the 2022 season, the White Sox are a big market team, whether they act like it or not. Big market teams are not allowed to pick at the front of the draft multiple years in a row, so regardless of how historically awful the White Sox are, they can’t pick higher than 10th in 2025. That is why tanking this season never made sense.
Let me be clear, there was never a scenario in which the 2024 White Sox were going to be a serious World Series contender, regardless of what moves they’d made during the offseason. But they didn’t have to be this bad. There were several free agent and trade options available that would’ve brought this from a complete dumpster fire to borderline respectable. Chris Getz reflected that “this is the hand we were dealt,” which is partially true, but Chris failed to mention the fact that he was the dealer. While there is still some leftover stink from the previous regime, don’t forget that Chris Getz was part of that regime. How big his role in assembling that failed project was is unclear, but he was there and he is, to some extent, complicit in how we got here. He is absolutely right in saying that reshaping this franchise is going to be a process and will not happen overnight, but it could’ve been done without becoming the laughing stock of the league and ostracizing his fans.
The 2024 season will be coming to a merciful end in just a few days. Some White Sox fans may be happy to be able to put this dreadful season behind them and turn their eyes toward 2025. But is there any reason to believe that 2025 will be better? Prior to the season, Getz expressed confidence that financial resources would be available to him when it came time to start building up the team. Will a historically bad season motivate a team to make meaningful acquisitions to improve? Well, Chris Getz seemed to dash those hopes when he joined the White Sox TV booth during the September 13th game against Oakland.
In case you were hoping to turn on a White Sox game in 2025 and watch a different, improved ball club, here’s a reality check. Chris Getz has no plans to make the next iteration of the White Sox any better than the current one. Is there a chance that some of the young players could take a step forward in 2025? Yes, of course. With some talented young starters in tow, the pitching may even be respectable. There will undoubtedly be more prospects coming to the majors as well, but the White Sox have done nothing to provide fans with confidence that they know how to develop hitters.
As a lifelong baseball and White Sox fan, this year’s been different for me in a lot of ways. This is by far the least interested i have ever been in baseball, and I’m sure many fans share in my sentiment. I am so exhausted from watching this team and giving myself false hope, that I just have no desire to do it anymore. My anger and frustration toward the White Sox has turned to indifference, and I have better things to do with my time than to give any energy into an organization that does not care about its fans. At this point, I’m not planning to watch the 2025 White Sox. I’m not planning to speculate and hold my breath for every potential offseason acquisition, and I’m not planning to live and die by the result of every game, because it’s not worth my time. Chris Getz and Jerry Reinsdorf clearly don’t care, so why should I?
Here’s my message to Chris Getz: You can earn me back. You can put fans in the seats again. You can stop the national clowning of your team. You can make people excited about the White Sox again. But words aren’t going to do it. We want you to take meaningful action, make meaningful acquisitions, and put a winning baseball team back on the field at 35th and Shields. It really is that simple.
And to my fellow uninterested Sox fans, I say: take heart, it’s football season. Bear down.
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Featured Image: Kamil Krzaczynski-USA TODAY Sports
