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The year is 2021. The world is emerging from the doldrums of COVID, the White Sox are coasting to a division title, and Sox fans have eyes on a decade of success with an impressive young core. Life is good, and one thing is sure: Rick Hahn is a top-five general manager in the MLB.
Until he wasn’t.
Flash forward to today, in May 2026, and the South Siders are finally on the ascent again after a rollercoaster of five years in between. The White Sox are 24-23, winners of seven of their last 10 games and seven of their last nine series. Their results appear to be no fluke, as the advanced stats paint the picture of a solid ballclub: Chicago is third in baseball in xwOBA and 20th in xERA since April 2.
Chris Getz may not have yet reached the heights of popularity that Hahn did, but he’s not far off on this trajectory. Faced with criticism from the jump due to his status as an inside hire, Getz has patiently built a respectable MLB roster that, despite several prospect graduations, is still complemented by an above-average farm system.
Objectively speaking, Sox fans have no grounds to be a Getz hater or skeptic at this point. The only folks left who stand in that camp are likely the same fools who posted in late March that this 2026 squad is worse than the 2024 one (search “sox worse 2024” on X for a smile).
Seriously, Getz has succeeded on all fronts despite playing with minimal cash. Let’s start with free agency.
This past offseason, the 42-year-old acquired Munetaka Murakami, Sean Newcomb, Erick Fedde, and Jarred Kelenic. Throw Randal Grichuk on there, too! Relative to money spent (and considering Kelenic’s awful luck) these have been worthy signings, even if there are likely duds in Seranthony Dominguez and Anthony Kay.
The White Sox general manager excelled in previous free agencies as well. Most notably, Erick Fedde‘s first go-around helped net budding star Miguel Vargas. Then, there’s an entire article’s worth of unusually successful cheap 2024-25 signings, namely Adrian Houser, Mike Tauchman, and Austin Slater.
Shifting to trades, the resume is commendable there, too. Acquiring Vargas looks like a brilliant move. The Garrett Crochet blockbuster is tough to fully grade yet, but it seems like an apt long-term rebuilding move. Jordan Hicks has been serviceable and promising, and starter David Sandlin has sparkled in minor league action since Chicago received the pair in a Red Sox salary dump.
Houser netted RHP Ben Peoples, who has been lights out with Triple-A Charlotte and is poised for the bigs. Two more trades with Tampa Bay brought Everson Pereira and Tristan Peters, who have both looked promising. Really, only the Andrew Vaughn and Luis Robert Jr. trades could prove to be missteps, but neither has done enough to warrant any sort of cancelling out of the many surplus-value deals.
Let’s even examine the oddities! Shane Smith is having a rough 2026 campaign, but his decent season last year was no fluke and is more than most teams ever get out of a Rule 5 pick. Then there’s the waiver wire additions—Mike Vasil, Bryan Hudson, Derek Hill, and Drew Romo have all looked like solid pickings.
Finally, prospect development has even flourished under Getz. Sure, the jury is still out on drafting acumen with only two classes under his belt, but Caleb Bonemer and Sam Antonacci look like dynamite selections with promising talent elsewhere. Meanwhile, previous-regime prospects Colson Montgomery, Grant Taylor, and Noah Schultz are development success stories.
So, great. Getz has done very well to turn around a dumpster fire of a franchise. The problem is we’ve been here before, and the job is far from done.
Hahn and Williams built a presumably winning young core by 2021, but when things started to go awry, they had no clue how to right the ship. A lot of that isn’t their fault, as a hefty amount of blame has to go to the players who were oft-injured and spontaneously lost their talent at individual random points in 2022 or 2023, like they were victims of some kind of slow-moving, MonStars-style skill virus.
Case in point, despite having MLB’s sixth-highest payroll in 2022, needs went unaddressed, bullpens went overspent, farm systems went dry, and the duo was run out of town.
As of this article’s publishing, the electrifying 2026 Sox are still only 24-23, meaning there’s much work to do to polish off a true winning roster. We are still a long way away from a title-contending squad.
So, Chris Getz: take a bow, soak in the current applause, and promptly sit yourself back down at the drawing board.
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Featured Photo: © Matt Marton-Imagn Images
