Trading Garrett Crochet, finding a new manager and more decisions facing Chris Getz, White Sox

The Chicago White Sox have some decisions to make.

That’s the case heading into every offseason, of course, but these White Sox can obviously get a head start considering their campaign has been a doomed one for months.

As the major league team tries to avoid the record for the most losses in baseball history, Chris Getz and his front office can get to work figuring out who will be back next year — and who will be leading this group into the future.

Getz met the media when the team returned from the East Coast on Monday and offered a preview, of sorts, of his front office’s thinking as they steam toward some big decisions this winter.

Will the White Sox trade Garrett Crochet this offseason or sign him to a contract extension?

The White Sox are expected to trade Garrett Crochet this offseason.

But that doesn’t mean they have to.

Crochet’s was one of the hottest names at the trade deadline but ended up staying put, the White Sox unable to find a trade partner willing to match a high asking price for a guy with questions about exactly how much he’d be able to help a contender down the stretch. Crochet’s camp even let it be known that he wasn’t going to return to the bullpen or pitch into October without a contract extension from any team acquiring him, a communication breakdown that rubbed Getz the wrong way.

But come this winter, those questions — and all that baggage — will be gone. Crochet seems destined to pitch to the end of the season, even if he’s only logging two or three innings per outing over the campaign’s final weeks. He’ll have proven, along with everything else in a year he’s gone from relatively inexperienced reliever to All-Star starter, that he can handle a starter’s routine and a 30-plus-start schedule. And with a full season as a starter behind him, there will be no more demands for a contract extension, just a haul of highly ranked prospects as Getz’s price tag.

All that makes the idea of a Crochet trade seem likely, considering the White Sox are trudging through the early stages of a seemingly slow-moving rebuild and still in the mode of acquiring minor leaguers to develop into the contending team of the future — however long down the road that might be. What seems likely, though, is that it won’t come around before the end of Crochet’s current contract, which has him under club control for the 2025 and 2026 seasons.

But Getz said Monday that the team isn’t actively looking to deal away a guy who’s been the only thing to go right this year on the South Side, someone whose young age and eye-popping performance this season could make him the perfect candidate for a spot at the top of their rotation for years to come.

“We’re really proud of what Garrett has accomplished as a starter this year. He’s been one of the bright spots of baseball, quite honestly,” Getz said. “It’s not a player we’re actively shopping. Obviously, there’s a lot of interest in a Garrett Crochet because of what he can do on the mound. We’ll wrap up this year, get into the offseason and kind of go from there.

“The reality of baseball and where we’re at as an organization, you need to look at the types of return you could potentially get in trades. We need to weigh where we’re going to be in a year or two years. But we also know how talented he is, and he can certainly lead a rotation with the White Sox or anyone else. So we’re going to take advantage of what he’s capable of doing as a starter. But also, it’s wise to see what the market holds for a Garrett Crochet to see if we can improve the White Sox for the future.”

But keeping Crochet around will cost money and a lot of it, probably. And the White Sox haven’t been known for handing out the kinds of nine-figure contracts that lock up young talent these days, nor has chairman Jerry Reinsdorf said anything to dissuade from the long-standing notion that he’s against handing such contracts to pitchers, in particular.

That history works against the White Sox locking Crochet up with an extension this offseason. But he also seems like the perfect player to build a pitching staff around as Getz charts a course for the long-term success of the franchise.

“We’ll have those conversations (regarding an extension) with Garrett and his team,” Getz said. “He’s got every right to play under the contract he currently has. And if he wants to go into free agency and see what he can do, that’s his right. He’s earning that.

“But the dialogue has still been very strong with Garrett and his group, and we’ll continue to talk this offseason.”

[MORE SOX: We’ll see where it leads, but Chris Getz keeps bringing change to South Side]

What about Luis Robert Jr.: Will he stay with the White Sox or get traded?

Things are a little bit different with Luis Robert Jr., who seemed to be in the same bucket as Crochet earlier this season as a talented, controllable All Star the White Sox could cash in to inject minor league talent — a lot of it, ideally — into the organization.

Robert is under control for a year longer than Crochet, making him both potentially more appealing to teams looking for a deal and potentially a sign that the White Sox see contention as really far off, considering dealing him away would mean the team wouldn’t be able to use Robert on a contending club before the 2028 season.

But Robert’s story hasn’t been as positive as Crochet’s in 2024, and that could greatly impact what Getz is able to do this winter, especially if he’s looking to land a massive return package of prospects. Robert dealt with a nearly two-month injury absence earlier this season, and since returning, his offensive production has come nowhere close to matching the numbers he posted in 2023, when he earned MVP consideration with a tremendous campaign, particularly in the power department.

After hitting 28 homers, piling up 75 extra-base hits, ranking third the AL with a .542 slugging percentage and winning a Silver Slugger last season, Robert has struggled mightily this year, coming into Monday’s game with a .223/.275/.395 slash line and 120 strikeouts in 332 trips to the plate.

Throw in another season dramatically impacted by an inability to stay healthy, and the idea of a team matching what Getz would hope to get in a Robert trade seems unlikely, even if no one doubts Robert’s talent.

It might add up to the White Sox holding onto Robert through the winter and trying to swing a deal next summer, ahead of the trade deadline.

“I know this isn’t the year that he was hoping to have,” Getz said. “He’s certainly shown flashes this year, however, he hasn’t been as consistent as he was a year ago. He has brought the defensive prowess he brings to the table. Offensively, I know he’s working on being more consistent.

“We just need to get him back to being Louie Robert. And we’ll figure out what’s best for Louie and the White Sox later.”

What are the next steps in the White Sox’ managerial search?

Perhaps the biggest decision Getz has in front of him is picking who will manage the team moving forward.

Though there’s been a vacancy since Pedro Grifol’s firing last month, it doesn’t seem like the White Sox will kick their search for a replacement into high gear until the end of their season.

“There’s really not a timeline,” Getz said. “More than anything, I want to be respectful to other organizations with what they’re trying to accomplish. And with that being said, we want to finish strong here and finish our season the best that we can.

”Come October, we’ll have a little more time and be very intentional on the interviews. And then eventually, we’ll get to the finish line. But in regard to really defining the timeline, we’re not going to rush into anything. We’re going to be as thorough as possible and then make the best decision for the White Sox.”

According to the general manager, the team is abiding by the initial description he laid out when Grifol was fired, looking at those currently “in uniform” (meaning currently working as coaches or managers) with other organizations. That means bad news for those who are hoping a franchise legend like Ozzie Guillén and A.J. Pierzynski gets the gig.

But Getz’s comments on the managerial search Monday did little to hint at who’s on the team’s list of candidates — even as USA Today’s Bob Nightengale reported that Skip Schumaker remains the team’s top choice — more so vaguely describing the process Getz is attempting to use to find his new bench boss.

“We haven’t begun the permission process. What we’ve done is we’ve built out a process that we feel very good about,” Getz said. “Simultaneously, we’ve been able to collect names through referrals or our own research, and we feel pretty good about the amount of candidates that we have. Once we get our season to finish line, we’ll devote more time and begin the interview process.

“It’s really about understanding what we feel is the best fit for the Chicago White Sox and finding the criteria we feel is going to make for a strong decision in the end. You start broad with the search and then eventually work it down to the finalists and make a decision from there.”

And in case you’re wondering who exactly will be making that decision, considering how things went when the White Sox brought Tony La Russa back for a second stint after the 2020 season, Getz said he’ll be the one to do it.

“(Different people will have) different levels of involvement,” Getz said. “Our baseball-operations group will certainly be the large part of building up the criteria and building up the interview process. You have people inside and outside the organization that can be of help, whether it’s through the referral process or gathering more background information. I’d say it’s fairly broad with the involvement.

“It’s going to be my decision, the baseball ops (department’s) decision, and you know we’re excited about the next Chicago White Sox manager.”

Will the White Sox bring Yoán Moncada back from the injured list this season?

Not that it’s a high priority for White Sox fans, who mentally closed the book on Yoán Moncada’s South Side career a long time ago, but the team’s one-time centerpiece third baseman could theoretically still return to the big league team after being out for the vast majority of the season while recovering from injury.

Plenty of us wrote the “Is this the last we’ve seen of Yoán Moncada in a White Sox uniform?” story after he went down with a nasty looking injury on an April night in Cleveland. But shortly thereafter, Getz painted an optimistic picture of a recovery, projecting an expected return not long after the All-Star break.

Things did not play out that way, though, with Moncada apparently being deemed healthy by the team but continuing to feel uncomfortable enough that he hasn’t made it back. He has been on a rehab assignment at Triple-A Charlotte for nearly two weeks.

And it seems he’ll stay there, at least for the time being, with no real update from Getz, at least in terms of specifics, on when or even if Moncada will rejoin the major league roster.

“He’s going to continue rehabbing in Charlotte,” Getz said. “He’s been responding well, but at this point, we want to continue to make sure he’s in a good spot and he feels good about where his body’s at before we make a decision on bringing him back.

“Going into this year, we were banking on Yoán playing third base and being healthy. His body had something different in mind. It’s frustrating that we didn’t have that on the field regularly for us because it would have made us more competitive. But he’s in Charlotte right now, and he’s healthy now, and we’ll take it from there.”

Of course, with Moncada’s expensive contract option for 2025 almost certain to be declined, the White Sox figure to be better off providing playing time at third base to younger players like Miguel Vargas and Bryan Ramos, guys who have futures with the team past the end of the season.

But we’ll see what Moncada’s body allows.