With the playoffs drawing closer, the White Sox are going to be judged on one big question: did Chris Getz do enough at the trade deadline?
Getz was far more aggressive than most people expected him to be when the season began, bringing in outfielder Brenton Doyle, catcher Joey Bart, reliever Huascar Brazobán and starter Luis Castillo. On paper, it was a busy deadline. In practice, the results have been all over the map.
The biggest swing - and maybe the biggest miss - was Castillo. Chicago brought him in to help stabilize a rotation that badly needed help, banking on a veteran arm with playoff experience.
Instead, the move unraveled quickly. Castillo had already been sitting on a 5.06 ERA before the trade from Seattle, and things got even uglier in Chicago.
He posted an 8.42 ERA in nine games, six of them starts, before landing on the injured list before the regular season ended. The White Sox also absorbed a sizable chunk of his contract, which runs through 2027.
What the White Sox gave up makes the deal look even harsher. Boston Smith, the key return piece and a top-15 prospect in the organization, has kept rolling in his first pro season.
With Seattle’s Double-A club, he owns a .238/.363/.516 line with nine homers in 33 games. Seranthony Dominguez, who was described as unusable in Chicago, has turned things around with the Mariners, putting up a 3.18 ERA in 23 games and allowing just one run over his last 15 appearances.
Taken together, it has the feel of a deal that could land among the worst in franchise history, especially with Chicago still desperate for starting pitching.
Brazobán was supposed to help the late innings after arriving from the Mets, where he had been excellent with a 2.56 ERA in 46 games, including six starts. His underlying numbers were among the best in baseball, and even at 36, he looked like a sharp pickup.
That hasn’t fully translated yet. In 13 games with the White Sox, he has a 4.85 ERA and spent some time on the taxi squad after an injury.
Chicago didn’t surrender much to get him, and he remains under team control through 2029, but the early return hasn’t matched the expectation.
At catcher, the White Sox were scrambling after Kyle Teel’s injury and Edgar Quero’s inconsistency. Bart wasn’t the splashy answer, but he was supposed to give them defense and a workable bat.
Instead, his stint was over almost immediately. He appeared in just three games, went 0-for-6 with a walk and four strikeouts, and then a fractured hand ended his regular season.
Given the low cost to acquire him, it’s not a move that can be pinned on Chicago’s front office for the injury, but it still wound up as a letdown.
Doyle may have been the strangest addition on the surface, since Chicago traded a rising top-10 prospect for a player who wasn’t even locked into a starting job. So far, though, he may have been the White Sox’s best deadline pickup.
He has delivered the expected glove in center field and a solid bat against lefties, and in 39 games he’s hit .253/.253/.402 with three home runs. Over his last 15 games, he has been even better, hitting .314/.314/.486.
Tristan Peters has ended up as the primary center fielder, which is not exactly what anyone would have predicted in spring training. Even so, Doyle has handled his role well enough.
As for Adams, who was coming back from Tommy John surgery, he has a 4.03 ERA in six starts for the Rockies, who have the worst record in MLB. Pitching at Coors is one of the toughest jobs in the sport, and he has managed it pretty well so far.
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