It was a seller’s market for relief pitching at the 2025 trade deadline. Teams around Major League Baseball that moved off their best bullpen arms got surprising hauls of prospects in return.
The Athletics landed Leo De Vries, the No. 3 prospect in all of baseball, and three other pitchers for Mason Miller and JP Sears.
The Twins got Mick Abel and and a Top 100 catching prospect Eduardo Tait (No. 53) from Philadelphia for Jhoan Duran.
The Giants got a solid MLB reliever (José Buttó) and two promising young prospects (Drew Gilbert, Blade Tidwell) from the Mets for Tyler Rogers.
The St. Louis Cardinals got two of the Mets top 15 prospects for one year of Ryan Helsley, who won’t even be their closer this season.
No matter where you were at in the standings, trading relief pitchers seemed to be a viable strategy. Chicago White Sox GM Chris Getz, however, held on to his relief assets at the deadline and missed the mark.
Chris Getz screwed up the White Sox trade deadline
In real time, I thought it was a mistake for the White Sox to keep some of their high-performing relievers.
Steven Wilson, Dan Altavilla, Tyler Gilbert, Mike Vasil, and Tyler Alexander all overachieved during the first half of 2025 and created a trade market for themselves. The White Sox also got calls about rookie reliever Grant Taylor, which reportedly made them "uncomfortable."
Because all of those pitchers are under club control for at least another season, Getz decided to hold onto his assets, only moving Austin Slater and Adrian Houser at the deadline.
It was a missed opportunity, especially considering the market for bullpen arms and how volatile relief pitching can be. That opinion has been validated over the last few weeks with the collapse of Chicago's bullpen.
The White Sox bullpen has been awful since the deadline
On August 15, the White Sox had a bullpen ERA of 3.75. Two weeks later, it's at 4.18 and approaching bottom 10 in baseball.
Grant Taylor has been getting rocked almost every time he pitches, with his season ERA now at 6.51.
Tyler Gilbert has allowed 10 earned runs in his last 4.2 innings pitched, bringing his ERA up to 4.61. The White Sox recently optioned Gilbert to Triple-A.
Tyler Alexander has allowed eight earned runs over his last 8.1 innings, and has an ERA of 5.82 since the trade deadline.
These are prime examples of how volatile relief pitching is in Major League Baseball. With the exception of a few established closers, year-to-year numbers for relievers are unpredictable. Just because someone has a strong first half does not mean they'll have a strong second half. The same thing goes from one season to the next.
Even pitchers like Steven Wilson and Mike Vasil, who have still been solid after the trade deadline, are not guaranteed to have good years in 2026. Hence why Getz should have traded as many of his bullpen assets as he could.
Now, the White Sox are stuck with these arms in 2026 and beyond. Many of them could fail to make the 26-man roster next season, and Chicago will be left wondering what could have been had they struck while the iron was hot.