DALLAS -- The White Sox have to build a roster for their new manager Will Venable, which will need to include an actual five-man rotation. They have a clear desire to trade Luis Robert Jr. at some point over the next nine months, and at least some members of their organization had to stay locked in on the Rule 5 Draft while news broke of Garrett Crochet being traded to the Red Sox for four prospects early Wednesday afternoon.
But there's one move they had to make this offseason, with Crochet's trade value at its apex and a farm system still missing a future positional core, and general manager Chris Getz spoke like man satisfied that he had pulled it off.
"You talk about accelerating a rebuild, this was a deal that we feel like can do that," Getz said.
Only months removed from 121 losses, with most of the organizational changes happening behind the scenes and no stated target date for a return to contention to offer to fans, anything can feel like acceleration relative to a standstill at rock bottom. Mike Tauchman's one-year, $1.95 million deal going official as reports of the Kyle Teel and Braden Montgomery-fronted trade package rolled in only underscored the financial limitations in the White Sox efforts to piece together a watchable product while sending their best pitcher to Boston for the second time in eight years.
When White Sox personnel switch back from business casual to pinstripes, the hulking nature of their current challenges will surely come back into full relief.
But at least on Wednesday, the scenario necessary for them to make their biggest value add of the winter came into play. A contention-minded Red Sox team saw free agent target Max Fried sign with their archrival, and re-engaged the White Sox in negotiations with renewed vigor in response.
"We didn’t have that literal conversation, but the urgency definitely picked up last night," Getz said when asked if the Fried signing was a catalyst. "If that was a reaction to it, it was never spoken about. But it was definitely turned up."
The Phillies might disagree, but the White Sox feel the uptick in intensity finally produced the level of offer for which they had been waiting.
"There is no doubt that these things hurt," Red Sox chief baseball officer Craig Breslow told reporters. “This is the type of move, and Garrett obviously comes with two years of control, that I think screams we need to compete in 2025 and that we need to put a better team on the field. And in order to do that, sometimes you have to kind of sacrifice potential future value. I think, fortunately, our system is deep and there's a ton of quality and a ton of really, really good players, and so we felt like we were in a position to withstand the cost. But there's no doubt in the four guys that we gave up, we gave up really good players.”
Maybe not in Boston, but at least for evaluators scattered across the league, there is some doubt unless you grant the fact that everyone who makes the highest level of the best league on the planet is a really good baseball player.
If there is a league consensus on the White Sox side of the trade -- and truthfully, there isn't -- it's that there's a pretty good chance they acquired four big leaguers on Wednesday, and a pretty good chance they acquired no one who matures to a star on the level Crochet was in 2024. Teel's all-around competence could transcend a collection of average-to-plus tools and propel him to stardom. Montgomery's lack of pro exposure detracts from how confident anyone can be about him, whether they question his strikeout rates or think he would have gone top-three in the draft without his ankle injury. And most responses from scouts are colored by their skepticism that 22-year-old right-hander Wikelman González can start.
For a fan base that was promised multiple parades and instead is grappling with a reboot into an uncertain future with the ugliest start possible, that won't re-fill the seats in a ballpark the White Sox want to leave behind. For an organization that lacked the position player prospects to make great use of the thousands of low stakes major league at-bats that lay ahead of them, it's a step toward being the purposeful and improving operation they want to be. And maybe that the leaguewide response -- still colored by White Sox player development's past failures -- is less derisive and more wait-and-see represents that they're moving in the right direction.
"It can be a little bit of an adrenaline rush," Getz said. "You’ve got a team that has been working on this and that preparation allows you to be more confident in the decision. And that’s why you bring a supporting crew here and certainly surround yourself with the best people you can to make decisions."
Loyal Sox Machine readers are forgiven in advance for seeing this day as sealing a monumental failure. Crochet was supposed to be part of a second wave of talent that would reinforce the rebuild trades of 2016-2017. That having the temerity to not completely self-actualize as a starter until he was 25 years old -- itself a product of Crochet being yanked immediately into a playoff bullpen -- made him too late to be part of a competitive window is a damning statement of how quickly it fell apart around here.
It also won't be the last reminder via trade, even if they wind up being staggered by a bit.
"It’s tough to say," Getz said on whether Luis Robert Jr. will still be in the organization on Opening Day. "I just really go back to what he can bring to the table. We have to get the front end of the year right, keep him on the field. You look at what he can do on both sides of the ball. Continue to have those conversations but we’re very comfortable having Luis Robert in a White Sox uniform."
Getz felt the White Sox had five bidders that were truly sincere in their interest in Crochet, at least at the level they demanded. Among them, the resources to pursue alternatives on the free agent market or pursue Luis Castillo from the Mariners were present. The possibility of another protracted process that staggered into a spring training disruption loomed, or returns centered around players who fit less neatly into the White Sox timeline than four prospects who have yet to debut, or another struggle to find worthy talent on the positional side, or a failure to meet their own goals of landing multiple top-100 prospects.
Instead, the White Sox hit their parameters for success, and clearly feel good about it.
"When you're building a foundation like we're set out to do, to go out there and find talented players with high character, that's the direction of this organization to be able to accomplish something that I feel like it's going to put us in a really good position moving forward," Getz said.
