White Sox News: The Rays and Red Sox Robbed

If Chris Getz gets an inkling, let brother run him into the ground.

Over the past calendar year, the White Sox have made 21 trades, purchases or sales with other teams, starting with the Garrett Crochet blockbuster with Boston, and 10 of those deals were with the Rays and Red Sox. Since the end of May, the percentage has risen to seven out of ten. And if we expand the list to include the waiver wire, there’s three more Rays in the house, buddy.

Additionally, all three trades this season, and the last four total, occurred with Tampa (three) and Boston.

And what’s more, the newest GM to join the motley crew responsible for an unprecedented three consecutive 100-loss seasons also comes via the Rays, in the form of mastermind Carlos Rodriguez. Before you ask how many GMs it takes to turn in a light bulb (yes, hiring Rodriguez brings a fourth GM to the payroll who is expected to spend an MLB-low $73.6 million on, you know, players), let’s acknowledge what an embarrassingly perfect fit Rodriguez is for the White Sox.

He’s been a 15-year vet in Tampa, meaning his tenure includes eight postseason appearances and one AL pennant. For a team usually crippled by tight finances, that’s nothing short of a miracle. Rodriguez learned alongside two wunderkind Rays GMs, Chaim Bloom (now Cardinals GM via the Red Sox) and current man, Erik Neander (whom Rodriguez considers “a brother”).

Rodriguez’s specialties with the Rays overlap with robust weaknesses with the White Sox, primarily in player development. According to the Rays, Rodriguez’s forays into performance science (particularly sports nutrition and individualized wellness programs) have helped propel Tampa’s overall organizational winning percentage to the top of all in baseball in the 2020s, including the best marks in baseball in 2021 and 2022.

Several of his initiatives, including the expansion of sports nutrition and individualized performance and wellness programs, are credited with contributing to the Rays’ farm system posting the best winning percentage in the minors in each season from 2019-2022. In fact, the Rays were so dominant at the time, no single Any organization’s season over those three seasons was better than Tampa’s .597 winning percentage before that whole stretch. (Since 2022, the Rays have finished fourth, sixth and fourth among baseball organizations.)

Meanwhile, the White Sox have not posted a winning organizational record in any season of the 2020s and have an average finish of 25th among 30 systems this decade.

But beyond this recent foray from a Rays mastermind to further expand the executive suite, the White Sox have been busy mining Tampa for marginal-plus talent to carry into the 2026 season — and this is where Getz’s callousness comes into better focus. Yes, it’s better to cut the 41st-best player from the Rays system than, say, the MiLB-worst Orioles, but Getz is leaning comically hard on one organization to replenish his sorry pipeline.

Besides the No. 2 overall pick at Rule 5 last week of Jedixson Paez (great Single-A arm, too young to expect to continue on the active 26-man roster through September), the trade thread is rife for the Rays this offseason.

Fresh off the last deal of the trade deadline (sending top starter Adrian Houser to Tampa for minor league weapons Duncan Davitt and Ben Peoples along with Australian utility man Curtis Mead), the White Sox made another four-player trade with the Rays on November 18: Triple-A infielder Tanner Murray and fringe outfielder Everson Pereira came to Chicago for utility weapons Yoendry Gómez and Steven Wilson.

While our underwear shouldn’t be bunched up over losing those two relief arms to the Rays, the move is highlighted most on both sides. First, the returns are marginal: more roster turnover at the DFA level from Tampa, players who will find light footing with the White Sox (as in the Houser deal) just because the Rays org is superior to Chicago’s thus far. In addition, journeyman Wilson was an ace in 2025, even All-Star Game worthy. Yes, his peripherals revealed a bit of a glass house, but the White Sox are in desperate need of controllable and reliable backup arms and shouldn’t shed them without significant reinforcements. Ditto to an extent Gómez, who was generally mediocre but when asked to take a late-season rotation spot, delivered at least five innings for the cash-strapped Sox in seven of nine starts.

Yesterday, the White Sox added outfielder Tristan Peters from Tampa in exchange for future considerations. It’s difficult to make such a deal, as the proceeds could end up being little more than an IOU, but Peters once again falls into the category of a lottery ticket with a few losing spots already scratched off. Peters is 25 and seemingly fills no better than a Zach DeLoach-like role at Triple-A or on the South Side.

Getz is collecting guys like Mead, Murray, Pereira and Peters as if he could give back 10 at the end of the season in exchange for a true Major League hitter.

Before you know it, Jerry Reinsdorf will be approving the transfer of the Trop’s manta ray tank, or importing some of the torn fabric roof panels as rain tarps once the team can find a new sponsor. In any case, stay tuned for the next, and almost certainly coming soon, White Sox-Rays transaction news.