With Braden Montgomery making his MLB debut, all four players acquired by the White Sox in the Garrett Crochet trade have now reached the big leagues.
Prior to Tuesday's game against the Atlanta Braves, the Chicago White Sox promoted top outfield prospect Braden Montgomery from the minor leagues to make his MLB debut.
And with that promotion, the White Sox have reached a really impressive milestone stemming from a blockbuster trade made by this front office.
If you're going to undergo a rebuild and have any chance of building things up efficiently, you have to hit on your blockbuster deals involving premium veteran talent. So while it was a controversial move at the time for the White Sox to trade left-handed pitcher Garrett Crochet to the Boston Red Sox, mostly because of his age and remaining contract control, the return package Chicago received from Boston is looking like a massive win.
The White Sox acquired infielder Chase Meidroth, catcher Kyle Teel, right-handed pitcher Wikelman Gonzalez, and outfielder Braden Montgomery in the deal. With Montgomery joining the White Sox this week, all four players from that trade have now reached the MLB level and provided some big league contribution to Chicago.
Acquiring four future big leaguers in the same trade is extremely difficult to do. That alone is an impressive floor for a deal that should continue to improve as each of these young players develop. The ceiling remains astronomically high depending on the output of players like Teel and Montgomery specifically, but I think it's already safe to say that Chris Getz and the White Sox did really well for themselves in the Crochet trade.
We're about a season and a half removed from the trade, and the White Sox appear to have found their franchise catcher, a potential cornerstone outfielder, and an everyday starting infielder, all from the same deal. When Gonzalez gets healthy, I think he'll have a role in the 2026 bullpen as well.
No GM is going to be perfect, and Chris Getz has definitely already made his fair share of mistakes. But your overall legacy as an executive, and the long-term health of your organization, will generally be defined by the big moves like this one. Montgomery's promotion is worth celebrating not just for what it brings on the field, but for what it says about Chicago's player development staff, scouting department, and front office.
It's an organizational win that should lead to some exciting baseball on the South Side for the remainder of 2026 and beyond.
