Chicago White Sox general manager Chris Getz issued a mea culpa Thursday after wrongly calling one of his more important players a switch-hitter for a month.
That player is Luisangel Acuña, the younger brother of Atlanta Braves star Ronald Acuña Jr. and a former top-100 prospect. Chicago acquired the 23-year-old as the main return in the Luis Robert Jr. trade last month, and he’s expected to play a significant role on the team in 2026.
Acuña is a right-handed hitter. He was right-handed when the Texas Rangers signed him out of Venezuela in 2018, and he has never dabbled in switch-hitting as far as we can tell. He was still right-handed when the White Sox acquired him for one of their top trade chips.
Still, for some reason, Getz repeatedly referred to Acuña as a switch-hitter in public appearances, as Roundtable’s Sam Phalen compiled:
That highlight reel made the social media rounds Wednesday, leading to Getz admitting he was wrong, with some tongue in cheek via MLB.com:
“So I probably have been getting carried away describing his versatility,” Getz joked. “He can play every position on the field. Why does it have to stop there? I called Luisangel and told him that even though he’s just right-handed, we still love him.”
On the one hand, this is silly. Everyone’s made a mistake like that, such as thinking an athlete plays a position he doesn’t. It’s hard to imagine the White Sox declining to pull the trigger on the Robert trade because Acuña is right-handed.
On the other hand, it would be polite to call this a bad look for Getz. An MLB general manager is supposed to have deep knowledge of not just every player on their team but also every player in the minor-league organization. If a no-name outfielder suddenly hits a homer over the batter’s eye in Low-A or a teenage pitcher reaches 100 mph in the Dominican complex, the GM is supposed to know about it.
That applies to players outside the organization, too. A move such as the Robert trade should be coming after hours of legwork evaluating every interested team’s minor-league system for under-appreciated talents. Getz acquiring Acuña is a bet that a guy who was Baseball America’s No. 66 prospect in 2024 can still be an impact talent, despite slashing .248/.299/.341 in 233 MLB plate appearances, and you don’t make those calls unless your staff has poured through reams of data and scouting reports.
So if a GM has something as basic as a player’s handedness wrong, that’s worth remembering.
Getz has worked for the White Sox since 2016 and was promoted to general manager in 2023. His tenure has so far consisted of overseeing a rebuilding system while fielding one of the worst teams in MLB. Despite some interesting moves such as the signing of Munetaka Murakami, Vegas isn’t expecting a much better team this year, with BetMGM pegging the Sox’s over/under at 66.5, third-worst in MLB.
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