Column: White Sox at a crossroads at the trade deadline with a team that has exceeded expectations
In manager-speak, the term “flush it” often follows a particularly tough loss.
Baseball is an almost-daily affair, and it’s best to look ahead than wallow in the past.
Chicago White Sox manager Will Venable typically follows that script, but Saturday afternoon he admitted the 9-5 loss to the Houston Astros on Friday was “harder to shake” than most.” The Sox held a 5-0 lead before Davis Martin imploded in the sixth, and Bryan Hudson added fuel to the fire in an eight-run inning that turned the game upside-down.
Venable questioned himself over whether “we dropped Huddy in the right place or not,” though he eventually concluded “we had the right guys” in the right spots. There were no errors or glaring misplays to point to — it was just a very bad inning.
“As someone that kind of likes to look for a reason why things don’t go well, (Friday) night there wasn’t anything that really stood out,” he said. “So a little harder to turn the page.”
The Sox returned Saturday with their most consistent starter on the mound in Sean Burke and a chance to even the series. They were still in first place in the American League Central, still one of the best stories in baseball and still playing well overall.
But there are still concerns about the Sox’ staying power with a young team full of players who haven’t gone through a major-league pennant race before, a rotation that has only one dominant starter of late in Burke and two run-producers in Munetaka Murakami and Colson Montgomery who’ve been struggling in July.
Fangraphs’ playoff projection Saturday morning gave the Sox the third-best chance to win the AL Central, even as they were 1½ games ahead of the Cleveland Guardians and 5 games ahead of the Detroit Tigers. After the Tigers loss to the Kansas City Royals, it was the Guardians on top with a 41.4% chance, the Sox second at 25.7% and the Tigers third at 21.1%.
General manager Chris Getz probably won’t be taking Fangraphs’ projections into consideration when he decides what direction he wants to take at the trading deadline. All indications are he’s going to make additions, but there is a school of thought that Getz will avoid dealing any top prospects such as Caleb Bonemer, Billy Carlson or Hagen Smith for a quick fix in the rotation or bullpen, taking a big-picture approach instead.
It was only two years ago at this point of the season that the Sox were on their way to being the worst team in baseball history with a manager waiting to be fired in Pedro Grifol. After building a contender in less than two years, does it make sense to go all-in at the trade deadline and potentially lose some of your top prospects for a a long-shot bid for a long October run?
Getz might even be better off seeing what he can get for relievers Sean Newcomb and Jordan Hicks. When he signed Newcomb and acquired Hicks, the thought was both would likely be available at the trade deadline if they were succeeding and the Sox were well back in the standings, as expected.
No one could’ve predicted the Sox would be in first place in late July or that the bullpen would be their biggest strength. Everyone will be looking for leverage guys in the next nine days, and both Newcomb and Hicks have pitched well enough of late to be valuable chips.
There’s an obvious downside, of course, if the Sox bullpen couldn’t pick up the slack after losing one or both veteran relievers and the team fell out of contention. Getz would be vilified by some, and it could spoil all the goodwill he has built up this season — he’s seen as a front-runner for MLB Executive of the Year.
Losing a game that was seemingly in the bag — like Friday night — was tough on Venable but no doubt gut-wrenching for Getz as well. He’s facing pressure at the deadline for the first time as GM after being a seller in 2024 and ’25. Does he get a frontline starter to add to Burke and Davis Martin, a catcher to fill the void of the injured Kyle Teel, another outfielder or a right-handed-hitting DH?
When I asked Getz in spring training if Chairman Jerry Reinsdorf would shell out at the deadline, he replied: “Oh, I don’t doubt that. Let’s put ourselves in that position first.”
The Sox are in that position now, so let’s see whether Reinsdorf will make his GM look prescient. History tells us the Sox have seldom made a huge splash at the deadline, except when they’re dumping players, such as the infamous White Flag Trade of 1997.
Perhaps owner-in-waiting Justin Ishbia can convince the chairman that a special season deserve special treatment.
After Sunday’s finale with the Astros, the Sox have seven games leading into the deadline — four with the New York Yankees at home and three on the road at Tampa Bay. Those are the two best teams in the American League and a potential postseason preview.
They’ll definitely need more offense out of Murakami and Montgomery, their two biggest stars. Entering Saturday, Murakami was hitting .176 with no home runs and 1 RBI in his 10 games after returning from a hamstring injury before the All-Star break. Montgomery was hitting .203 in July with three home runs and a .621 OPS in 16 games. As a whole, the Sox were hitting .225 with 13 home runs in July after hitting .255 with 38 homers in June, when Murakami was on the IL.
Whomever the Sox target, you can expect them to have the personality to fit seamlessly into the clubhouse culture, where no one is above anyone else.
The secret to their success has been their ability to put their egos aside for the good of the group. Many of them played together in the minors, and they’ve jelled under Venable when most figured they’d lose 90-100 games again.
It has been a lot of fun to watch, but as the games grow in importance, Venable’s decision-making also will be scrutinized more closely. He said Saturday that he manages no differently now than he did in March.
“The first game we played is as important as this one,” he said. “Just going out and trying to find a way. Nothing has changed other than where we’re at currently, which we know doesn’t mean a whole lot.”