Getz’s Roster Moves Fail To Inspire Hope Of A Turnaround

Chris Getz knew the 2024 season would be a rough ride for the White Sox. He kicked off his first offseason as the White Sox GM with a blunt assessment of his ballclub. 

“I don’t like our team,” Getz told reporters during the GM meetings in November,” we’ve got to make some adjustments so we improve for 2024.”

Those adjustments included trying to get more athletic and better defensively. Neither of those came to fruition. Flash forward to September and the White Sox are on the brink of the worst record in modern MLB history, reaching triple-digit losses by August. Getz's tune hasn’t changed much. He still does not think very highly of his ballclub despite the fact his fingerprints were all over an overhaul of the roster. 

“I think if you would have told me we were going to end up flirting with the record I would have been a little surprised,” Getz said on Monday, via MLB.com. “Now if you would have told me prior to the year that we would have ended up with over 100 losses, 105, 110, I wouldn’t have been as surprised. But this is the cards that we’ve been dealt at this point. You try to make the best of it, and I think it’s an opportunity to embrace the situation that we’re in.”

It’s true. Getz inherited a bad situation. But complaining about the "cards we’ve been dealt” is ironic when Getz is the one controlling the deck. This offseason Getz added over 20 players to the 40-man roster. This included trading Aaron Bummer for five players who were likely about to be DFA’d from the Braves, in Michael Soroka, Jared Shuster, Nicky Lopez, Branden Shewmake, and Riley Gowens. 

He then signed veteran shortstop Paul DeJong and took a flier on the MVP of the KBO, Erick Fedde. He also inked left-hander Tim Hill and right-hander Chris Flexen in December. In January he added catcher Martin Maldonado and right-hander John Brebbia. Getz continued his offseason bargain bin shopping by signing right-handers Jesse Chavez, John Brebbia, Corey Knebel, Dominic Leone,  and Bryan Shaw as well as infielder Mike Moustakas, outfielder Kevin Pillar, catcher Max Stassi, and outfielders Dominic Fletcher and Zach DeLoach via trades with the Diamondbacks and Mariners. 

His biggest move of the offseason came when he traded former Cy Young runner-up Dylan Cease to the Padres, for a package that included top-100 prospect Drew Thorpe, reliever Steven Wilson, and prospects Jairo Iriarte and Samuel Zavala. Just after the season started he also acquired free-agent outfielder Tommy Pham. 

The success rate on these moves has been troubling. Chavez, Moustakas, and Shaw failed to make the team. Shewmake played in just 29 games before being sent back to the minors after cracking the Opening Day roster. Knebel was released in August. Pillar, Hill, Maldonado, and Brebbia were each DFA’d. Stassi has yet to play a game for the White Sox. 

DeLoach has only appeared in 13 games. Leone posted a 6.63 ERA before suffering a season-ending injury. Wilson owns a 5.71 ERA, Chris Flexen has posted a 5.26 ERA and set a new record for consecutive losses in games that he started. Fedde pitched well but then was traded in a three-team deal along with Michael Kopech and Tommy Pham for pennies on the dollar. DeJong was also traded to the Royals, but not before leading the team in home runs, in one of the few moves that seemed to work out. Getz also took fliers on left-hander Shane Drohan and infielder Nick Senzel. Each was DFA’d. 

It is hard to sell people on optimism when fans just sat through a long rebuild only to be rewarded with a single-division title. On Monday Getz tried to point to previous teams who have flipped the script in just a few years such as the 2003 Tigers, who finished 49-119 then reached the World Series three years later. But he has hardly inspired confidence in his first season at the helm that he is capable of identifying the talent for such a turnaround.