White Sox outfielder Austin Hays brings steadying force to lineup

GOODYEAR, Ariz. — If all goes to plan, it’s likely that White Sox outfielder Austin Hays’ South Side stint is brief.

Hays signed a one-year, $6 million contract with a mutual option for 2027. The deal is beneficial for both sides. Hays gets a long runway to reestablish himself after recovering from a 2024 kidney infection that also affected him in 2025.

“What I went through was systemic, so it’s not like ‘OK you do four weeks of rehab on this muscle, and then you’re back to full go,’” Hays said. “It had affected a lot of different areas of my body, and being able to do the blood test that I did and see where my body had been kind of malnourished and it wasn’t working right, and [was] why I was continuing to be so sore, why I was experiencing so much fatigue.”

For the Sox, Hays provides some consistency as an everyday right fielder. General manager Chris Getz lauded Hays’ ability to crush lefties throughout his career — Hays has a career .282/.340/.479 slash line with a 124 wRC+

Finding himself in a similar situation last year, Hays drew some parallels between the Sox and last year’s Reds team that made the playoffs with a young core supplemented by battle-tested veterans.

Getz set out this offseason to upgrade the roster without making any long-term commitments that could hamper flexibility in the future, when the team expects to enter its competitive window. The short-term arrangement came with some familiarity for Hays, who also had interest from the Cardinals. He worked with director of hitting Ryan Fuller, in Baltimore, where Hays made his lone All-Star team in 2023.

“I’ve been through the trenches with him,” Hays said of Fuller. “He’s helped me through a lot of things. It was nice to see a familiar face when I jumped on the Zoom call with everybody from the White Sox.”

Hays has seen the ball tremendously in spring training. Before Saturday’s game against the Reds, he was batting .348/.388/.674 with three homers and eight RBIs.

“We joke about it in the dugout a little bit, but he’s finding the barrel pretty much every at-bat,” Venable said. “And wherever the ball is pitched, he’s hitting it there and finding the barrel and hitting it hard. He’s that steady presence out there that knows how to get to the ball, knows where to throw the baseball, and a guy you can depend on in all phases of the game.”

Hays’ dependability is necessary for a Sox team that isn’t waiting to win. They want to be more competitive than last season and in the mix for a playoff spot. And while his spring numbers are unsustainable, it’s encouraging for the Sox going into the season that Hays is healthy and raking.

But a productive Hays could have a market at the trade deadline as a veteran on an expiring contract in his early 30s. Top prospect Braden Montgomery, who the team will start in Double A after a blistering spring, could also be knocking on the door sooner rather than later. Signing Hays allowed Montgomery to continue developing at his own pace in the minors.

In Saturday’s Cactus League game, the Sox trotted out close to what could be their projected Opening Day lineup, and Hays was in left field with Andrew Benintendi at designated hitter. Given that the Sox want Benintendi to spend less time in the field, Hays has a runway of opportunity to show that the injuries are behind him.