The White Sox’s recent failures are impossible to ignore, but separating results from process reveals a front office laying the groundwork for sustainable success under Chris Getz.
It’s easy to point to the lack of results over the last two seasons and dismiss what Chris Getz has done as general manager of the Chicago White Sox.
The record is ugly. The losses are historic. And on the surface, there is plenty of ammunition for skepticism.
Getz was a controversial hire from the moment it was announced. To many, it felt like another example of Jerry Reinsdorf allowing loyalty to cloud his decision-making — promoting from within rather than conducting a thorough, modern search across baseball.
That criticism is fair.
Even good decisions can be made as the result of a flawed process, and it is difficult to defend how quickly the White Sox landed on Getz after firing Rick Hahn and Kenny Williams late in the 2023 season. Just one week after cleaning house, Reinsdorf elevated a former White Sox player and then–director of player development into one of the most important roles in the organization.
Hiring Getz wasn’t the biggest issue. Failing to conduct a real search for outside candidates was.
Reinsdorf framed the move as one born out of urgency. He didn’t want to “waste time” with an outsider learning the organization. He wanted the White Sox back in contention as quickly as possible — ostensibly for the sake of the fans.
“The conclusion I came to is what we owe our fans and ourselves is not to waste any time,” Reinsdorf said at the time. “We want to get better as fast as we possibly can. If I went outside, it would have taken anybody at least a year to evaluate the organization. I could have brought Branch Rickey back. It would have taken him a year to evaluate the organization.”
He even went so far as to say that 2024 would not be a rebuild.
But the organization’s actions told a very different story.
That winter, the additions to a 100-loss roster were players like Paul DeJong, Nicky Lopez, and Tommy Pham — short-term veterans whose presence made sense only as placeholders. It quickly became clear that not only was 2024 a rebuild, it was a teardown of a magnitude the franchise had not seen before.
Chicago lost a record 121 games in 2024, then followed it with another 100-loss season in 2025 — the third straight year reaching that grim milestone. Since Getz took over, the White Sox are 101–223.
Those numbers matter. They cannot be ignored.
And yet, despite all of it, I would argue that Chris Getz has done a genuinely strong job — both with the hand he was dealt and within the constraints that continue to exist.
The most common pushback to evaluating Chris Getz this way is that it grades intention and process rather than outcomes — and on the surface, that criticism is understandable. Wins matter, and the White Sox haven’t come close to producing them under his watch. But process is not an abstract concept during a teardown; it is the foundation that determines whether losing is purposeful or wasted. Bad process reveals itself quickly through incoherent roster construction, stagnant player development, and an absence of direction. Good process, on the other hand, rarely shows up in the standings right away — it shows up in the quality of decisions, the talent pipeline being rebuilt, and the organizational competence that precedes sustainable success. Judging Getz solely by the win–loss record at this stage misses the more meaningful question: whether the White Sox are finally losing with a plan that makes future winning possible.
Everything starts with talent identification.
That applies both to the young core currently reaching the big leagues and to the farm system that has quietly been rebuilt beneath the surface.
Getz hit a home run with the Garrett Crochet trade. Trading away one of the best young pitchers in baseball — just as he was entering his prime — is never easy to justify. But the return speaks for itself.
In 2025 alone, the White Sox received meaningful major-league contributions from Kyle Teel, Chase Meidroth, and Wikelman González. Braden Montgomery now sits as the No. 1 prospect in the organization.
Teel already looks like one of the better young catchers in the game. Montgomery and Teel both possess legitimate star potential, while Meidroth and González project as real contributors on the next contending White Sox team. Turning one player into four meaningful assets is rare, and it is exactly the type of value extraction rebuilding organizations must execute.
Then there are arms like Shane Smith and Mike Vasil — Rule 5 Draft selections who delivered impressive rookie seasons and now look like legitimate pieces of the team’s future. Anyone can move a star for a headline prospect or hit on a top-five draft pick. The truly elite evaluators are the ones who uncover value in overlooked places.
Player development is inseparable from that evaluation process.
We saw it most clearly with Colson Montgomery during the 2025 season. When Montgomery struggled badly at Triple-A Charlotte, the White Sox pulled him out of game action and sent him to the organization’s spring training complex in Arizona to make mechanical and approach-based adjustments.
Just months later, Montgomery made his major-league debut — and went on to launch 21 home runs after the All-Star break, earning Top 100 recognition from MLB Network. That is not an accident. That is development.
He’s far from the only example. The organization’s investment in Caleb Bonemer could alter the long-term outlook, and Miguel Vargas has shown steady improvement under the current staff. The list continues to grow.
That progress reflects not just Getz himself, but the staff he has assembled around him.
The most underrated part of Chris Getz’s tenure has been his willingness to overhaul the organization’s infrastructure.
Historically, Jerry Reinsdorf has resisted change. The White Sox have often favored continuity — keeping the same voices, the same ideas, and the same processes in place for far too long.
Getz has taken the opposite approach.
Much of the developmental progress can be traced to respected external hires: senior pitching advisor Brian Bannister, director of hitting Ryan Fuller, assistant general manager Josh Barfield, director of player development Paul Janish, and director of amateur scouting Mike Shirley.
Bannister, hired shortly after Getz took the job, previously served as vice president of pitching development for the Boston Red Sox and director of pitching for the San Francisco Giants — an organization widely regarded for its ability to internally develop arms.
Fuller, who worked one-on-one with Montgomery prior to his breakout, came from the Baltimore Orioles, where he served as a hitting coach and coordinator. Janish, a former major-league infielder, joined the organization after coaching at Rice University. Barfield, another Getz hire, spent four years as the Diamondbacks’ director of player development before becoming assistant GM.
This is what modern thinking looks like.
The White Sox have imported respected voices from winning organizations and reshaped how they evaluate and develop players. Chicago is more analytically aligned than it has ever been, with a clearer understanding of the profiles it values and how to maximize them. It’s why the young core is generating excitement — and why five to six White Sox prospects continue to appear on Top 100 lists across the industry.
The 2025–26 offseason, while still incomplete, has already drawn national praise.
The signing of Munetaka Murakami stunned the baseball world. While the wins may not immediately follow in 2026, the White Sox will be more competitive, more watchable, and far better positioned for sustained growth.
That Murakami deal, by the way, happened because of relationships — another meaningful shift under Getz. The White Sox have invested in scouts dedicated to the Far East, finally engaging a talent market that has influenced Major League Baseball for decades and one the organization had inexplicably ignored.
Now, when elite talent emerges from Japan or an intriguing reclamation project appears in Korea, the White Sox are no longer an afterthought. That matters.
Small victories have a way of turning into real ones.
And while we’re discussing the future, it’s worth remembering: the White Sox hold the No. 1 overall pick in the 2026 MLB Draft.
I will criticize ownership all day long. Payroll constraints remain the single biggest obstacle standing between the White Sox and legitimate contention.
An additional $80 million in payroll would place Chicago near league average — and radically change the team’s outlook. In that sense, the franchise remains poorly run at the top.
But that failure is not on the general manager.
In the same week that I criticize the organization for dumping Luis Robert Jr.’s salary and refusing to eat money to improve prospect return, it’s important to acknowledge that Chris Getz has quietly done real work to turn the tide.
Any lingering anger over the last several years should be directed at ownership, not the front office.
Getz may ultimately prove capable of overcoming those owner-imposed limitations and building a competitive team sooner than many expect. Not in 2026 — but perhaps not far beyond it.
And by the time that team arrives, White Sox fans may finally see the broader change they’ve long desired, with new ownership potentially ushered in.
For now, Chris Getz and the increasingly sharp baseball minds around him have earned the benefit of the doubt — even as skepticism toward ownership, payroll philosophy, and long-term commitment remains entirely justified.
But Getz is not the reason the White Sox are bad — and may be the reason they aren’t bad for much longer.