White Sox enter GM meetings with a shorter runway for a vital offseason

Jason Miller/Getty SHARE COPY LINK Share CLOSE Twitter Facebook Bluesky Email Reddit Flipboard Five years ago, the now-familiar specter of oncoming MLB lockout drove a free-agent frenzy at the end of November. The Cubs signed two-time All-Star Marcus Stroman, the Blue Jays landed a staff ace in Kevin Gausman, the Rangers committed a half-billion dollars to a double play combination of Marcus Semien and Corey Seager that delivered a World Series championship. On the South Side, the White Sox added setup man Kendall Graveman around Thanksgiving, but the last-minute deal they snuck under the wire was a three-year pact to retain utilityman Leury Garcia after his career-best 2021 campaign. In his Zoom presser held hours before the curtain fell on MLB transactions for months, the amiable Garcia professed ignorance about the nearing lockout. The Sox released Garcia in spring of 2023. It’s likely, and maybe even ideal, that neither bit of history is that instructive of a preview of how the White Sox will navigate this unusual winter. Chris Getz was the assistant general manager the last time a labor crisis was dropped in the middle of an offseason that was supposed to see the Sox improve upon a promising roster that was felled in the ALDS . Maybe different insight he took from that experience will reveal themselves with time, but the primary one he espoused last month was a reminder to be ready for anything. “You are at the mercy of other clubs and how they’re going about their business, certainly agents and players,” Getz said. “I think the biggest lesson is just being as prepared as possible.” Back in 2019, catcher Yasmani Grandal’s face-to-face meeting with Sox leadership during the General Managers’ meetings swiftly evolved into a four-year deal announced before Thanksgiving. More often, next week’s gathering of MLB decision-makers striding through a Las Vegas resort in high-end athleisure is the first time clubs can tout a fully-formed idea of their offseason needs, and the next three-to-four months are spent tracking them down. Typically, teams are just emerging from their internal meetings during this time. They’ve been filling staff positions, exemplified by the Sox hiring new amateur scouting director Matt Roffe , and now needing to replace assistant hitting coach Joel McKeithan . They’ve been imparting offseason development plans to their players, especially since they’re about to lose contact with members of the 40-man roster. Those conversations include the determination of whether Grant Taylor is headed to the rotation or remaining in the bullpen, which the right-hander reaffirmed to the Sun-Times last month would be discussed after the postseason. “Everything’s gone to plan in trying to get to a certain amount of innings this year,” Taylor said last month about his progress toward preseason goals for building him near a starter’s workload. Last year at the GM meetings, Getz spent his media session tamping down speculation on potential trade candidates among his positional core, projecting the promotion timeline for top outfield prospect Braden Montgomery, and clarifying Taylor’s role. This year, he could easily do the same and just swap out Caleb Bonemer for Montgomery, or add Hagen Smith to the discussion of invaluable multi-inning relievers/unproven potential starters. With Manager of the Year and Executive of the Year awards being handed out on Nov. 10 and 11 respectively, there could be one more chance to reflect on the accomplishments of 2026 as well. There’s a natural pacing to the MLB offseason that a December lockout is going to waylay. Without the winter meetings to drive player movement that month, can teams speed up their process so that the GM meetings serve as a substitute? By the Sox’ own telling of the progression, they were weeks away from viewing Munetaka Murakami as a realistic possibility at this point last November. But in retrospect, Getz’s description of a need for a left-handed infield help who didn’t necessarily need to be able to play third base already matched the Japanese slugger, less than a week after he had been posted by the Yakult Swallows. Japanese players who have been posted by their current clubs have already been made to adjust, as The Athletic reported that the 45-day window to sign will not be paused for the lockout, and the likes of NPB Triple Crown winner Teruaki Sato will need to pick a MLB team before the collective bargaining agreement expires on Dec. 1. If knowledge of the market is the issue, after a trade deadline where they lacked the middle-class prospect depth to comfortably swing deals, and a contending season that made pulling from the big league roster in trades less palatable, the Sox have had reason to be sizing up the free-agent crop for a while now. “We don’t have the bullets that we have like when we first got here,” assistant general manager Josh Barfield said in September. “We had three [2 WAR] or better players in that [Garrett] Crochet deal. It gets harder and harder, as you get better.” It gets harder and the stakes are higher, but the strength of an overall weak free-agent class is largely rooted in the starting pitching the Sox desperately need. Outside of Tarik Skubal, most of the options are gettable for less than the five years, $125 million they were willing to offer Zack Wheeler in December of 2019. As weird and unusual as this offseason might get, the White Sox have been here before. The only rub is they have to get it right this time. 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