Early returns from White Sox trade deadline show just how badly Chris Getz blew it

It’s been exactly three weeks since the 2026 MLB trade deadline. With the extended nature of the baseball season, three weeks isn’t enough time to draw any sweeping conclusions about players, but it’s enough of a sample to get an idea of whether a team did enough. In the case of the White Sox, the trade deadline was active, but questions about whether they’d filled all their needs appropriately surfaced. After three weeks of contributions from their deadline acquisitions, one thing has become abundantly clear: the White Sox could’ve and should’ve done more. 

The White Sox deadline consisted of four primary moves. The main pieces they added were right-hander Luis Castillo, right-hander Huascar Brazoban, outfielder Brenton Doyle, and catcher Joey Bart. They also added righty Jose Urquidy in a smaller deal, which has looked like one of their stronger moves at this point. 

The White Sox four main trade deadline acquisitons have not produced early

Let’s start with the highest-profile move of the deadline: the addition of Luis Castillo to the starting rotation. Over the past three weeks, Castillo has made four starts for the White Sox. In those games, he’s posted a 5.89 ERA and has thrown just 18.1 innings, averaging less than five innings per start. Castillo’s seven shutout innings against Cincinnati was easily his best start of the season, but his other three have been rough. He couldn’t make it out of the third inning in Friday’s outing against the Mets, struggling to put away hitters and allowing too much hard contact. At this point, the White Sox can’t rely on him for quality innings in the playoffs. They failed to add a second starting pitcher, so their rotation has the same questions it did before the deadline. 

Huascar Brazoban seemed like the kind of reliable late-inning arm the White Sox needed, but he’s looked like a completely different pitcher since joining the White Sox bullpen. Brazoban has a 6.00 ERA in nine appearances for Chicago, pacing for a worse season than Seranthony Dominguez, who the White Sox got rid of because they couldn’t trust him in high leverage. 

Outfielder Brenton Doyle hasn’t been a strong contributor on offense since 2024, and he’s continued his struggles in Chicago. Doyle is just 7-for-36 as a member of the White Sox, good for a .500 OPS. His defense has been strong overall, but he’s been a downgrade from Everson Pereira, who the White Sox moved on from to add him, at the plate. The other addition to the offense, Joey Bart, suffered a broken hand after being hit by a pitch in just his third game with the White Sox. 

Overall, the four main trade deadline acquisitions for the White Sox have been worth -0.5 fWAR. If you factor in Urquidy, it’s still -0.2. The players the White Sox added at the trade deadline to make the team better have quite literally made the team worse. There’s still time for them to turn things around, and all of them are under control for future seasons, so their value could improve beyond this year. But if nothing changes, it’s going to end up being a massive failure at the deadline in Chris Getz’s first attempt at buying. Hopefully, he learns from this and makes smarter moves in the future, and hopefully the White Sox can continue to play good baseball despite their GM’s massive mistakes.

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