Chris Getz stood in front of reporters on October 14th and skipped the GM-speak. The rotation wasn’t a quirky bullpen experiment that got the White Sox to October: it was the hole in the boat.
On Tap Sports Net reported that Getz called adding starting pitching his top priority for the offseason, and he brought the receipts. White Sox starters threw 674.2 innings in 2026. Last in baseball.
Not bottom five. Last.
Will Venable leaned on openers and bulk relievers to survive the regular season, then leaned on them even harder in October, and it mostly worked — the White Sox just became the first team in major-league history to make the playoffs after two straight 100-loss seasons. That buys a front office real patience, not a plan. An opener-heavy staff can get you through a summer on adrenaline and matchups, but it’s no foundation for a second trip, and Getz, to his credit, isn’t pretending otherwise.
He’s going outside the building for it, too. Getz told reporters he plans to work free agency and the trade market rather than just hand the keys back to the internal options. That’s the real signal here. This front office spent three years selling patience as a virtue. Now the GM is saying patience alone doesn’t get you innings.
One baseball writer put words to the exact thing fans have been chewing on since the ALDS:
Flying home from Tampa and thinking about the formula that seemed to work so well for the Rays.
It wasn’t just that they had elite pitching – it’s more specific than that.
They have elite STARTING pitching and an elite closer.
Let’s put aside any offensive conversation for a…
— Brendan Gulick (@brendangulick22) October 20, 2026
Elite starting pitching plus a deep bullpen is how a mid-market team buys itself contention windows year after year, not just one miracle October. Chicago had half of that formula in 2026. They’re hoping a trade or a free-agent signing buys them the other half before pitchers and catchers report.
Getz is also counting on healthier seasons from Luis Castillo and Davis Martin, which is a polite way of saying he’s hoping two guys who missed real time stay off the training table. Castillo was still carrying a 5.06 ERA when the Sox traded for him at the deadline. Counting on him is a bet, not a blueprint.
Grant Taylor and Hagen Smith are still relievers. Getz left the door open for both to start eventually, which is GM-ese for “check back in July.” Nobody in that front office is promising a rotation spot by Opening Day 2027, and if the bench mob — no offense to our own brand — ends up supplying 2027’s fifth starter, that’s the plan failing upward.
Spring training isn’t the real deadline. Sox Machine flagged that the hot stove gets shoved into the deep freezer on December 2nd if MLB and the players’ union can’t get a deal done, which leaves Getz something like five weeks to find real pitching before the whole market locks up solid.
Five weeks to go find the thing that’s been missing for three years. No pressure.
