As White Sox general manager Chris Getz introduced the acquisition of Luis Castillo to reporters last month, he didn’t reference the last-minute looks teams notoriously send professional scouts for before the trade deadline.
Rather, he mentioned the boost to his team’s fortunes foretold by their internal projection systems, the “stuff grades” indicating the 33-year-old still had the weapons to get outs despite career-worst results. It’s a different language than what previous occupants of his role used.
“It starts with the projection system,” Getz told the Sun-Times about the team’s remodeled process for acquiring players. “Then it’s ‘how does that connect with our pro scouting group?’ Or whoever is evaluating from a scouting lens, and then biomechanically, what does the engine look like?”
With a 7.52 ERA in a Sox uniform, Castillo–like all four White Sox major-league acquisitions at the deadline–has not instantly installed team-prescribed tweaks and hit the ground running. But if you don’t love these new White Sox for shipping out prospects for two-time Gold Glove-winner Brenton Doyle to post a .537 OPS in his first month with the team, you don’t deserve them being four games up in the loss column on second-place Cleveland with 19 left to play, thank to a lineup powered unheralded acquisitions turned into player development breakthroughs like Miguel Vargas and Tristan Peters.
Next year, when the White Sox could be coming off the seventh, and possibly most surprising division title in franchise history, they’ll need more immediate impact than the sort of fixer-uppers that can be acquired midseason without costing prospects Caleb Bonemer and Billy Carlson in exchange. But if Castillo and Doyle look sharper later in their White Sox tenure, with adjustments and opportunity, it would very much fit their growing brand.
“We’ve had enough success stories that why would we reroute from that approach?” Getz said. “There could be perhaps an adjustment in that thought process at some point in the future where it’s not about runway, we need production you know right out of the gate.”
But that would be a good problem, and an earned one.
This is the second season the White Sox have operated with a “department of acquisition,” led by Matt Grabowski, who like assistant general manager Josh Barfield, was hired away from Diamondbacks player development after their 2023 National League title. Where pro scouting, international scouting, player development, biomechanists, training staff, etc., once struggled to align in the Sox org, if they were properly supported at all, the acquisitions departments is a means of getting everyone on the same page with a game plan for any new addition.
“We’ve gotten to a place where everybody’s comfortable understanding what role they play in player acquisition,” Barfield said during the team’s road series in Houston. “[The acquisition department] is kind of a hub, and you have the spokes off that.”
The spokes include the bat-speed training used to vault Vargas, Peters and Chase Meidroth from judicious, contact-oriented swingers into the most valuable players in their division at their respective positions. Or the pitching instruction that turned hard-throwing Jordan Hicks from a salary dump acquisition from Boston, to someone striking out 37% of hitters since a June arm angle adjustment. Sox statistical analysts who fetishize unique release angles have brought in numerous funky-looking relievers over the last two years, but struck gold with Bryan Hudson, whose long limbs and low arm slot have made his 92 mph heater one of the best pitches in the sport.
Even the signature signing of slugger Munetaka Murakami from Japan is representative of the White Sox both using the ample opportunity their developing roster could offer unproven players, and recognizing East Asian pro leagues as an avenue for finding undervalued players like Anthony Kay, who fit their modest payroll.
“The checklist remains still pretty simple: it’s body, athlete, tools, makeup,” special assistant David Keller, who heads the team’s international operations. “Then taking the player through [researching and development] scrubbing, where we look heavily into the data and the analytics, whatever we have access to, getting their take, taking all of that information, presenting it to to our respective heads of departments, whether it’s [pitching] Brian Bannister or [hitting] Ryan Fuller.”
The amateur baseball world is where the operation works in reverse, with scouts suggesting players for statistical review. But Getz insists there is still a role for in-person pro scouting to identify factors their projection system cannot yet capture. One easy example to point to is makeup. Why have these young Sox only had one four-game losing streak? Maybe, they’re willing to suggest, because they’re tough.
“We’re very cautious with what we bring in,” Barfield said. “[Makeup] is something that we value, maybe more than other teams.”
Making the leap from a 100-plus losses to seven-games over .500 is hard, but becoming a perennial contender is even harder. Barfield and Getz both brought up the case of Curtis Mead, another buy-low acquisition who couldn’t put it together before the Sox shipped him out and watched him bloom elsewhere, as evidence that opportunities to give players runway to develop will shrink as their yearly expectations heighten.
With more pressure, the work of balancing these different departments and potential factions within the organization should grow harder. But that’s where the Sox actually don’t see trouble on the horizon.
“It begins and ends with Chris,” Keller said of baseball operations’ cohesion. “The ultimate goal is to win, and the understanding and the emphasis is that we’re going to work together to do this.”