The Chicago White Sox promoted Mike Shirley to be their new Director of Amateur Scouting, per Tom Musick of the Chicago Sun Times. The move continues a bit of organizational reshuffling, as Shirley assumes the post vacated by Nick Hostetler, who himself took a new position as special assistant to GM Rich Hahn.
Shirley becomes the point man for June’s annual draft. It’s a tough assignment in some ways, as expectations will be high after the tremendous job the White Sox have done in recent years in building the #3 ranked farm system, per Baseball America. Optics should be good for a couple of years while these recent picks graduate to the majors, guys like Nick Madrigal, Zack Collins, and Andrew Vaughn, high draft picks who are either in the majors now or on their way.
In an article from The Athletic’s James Fegan, Chicago’s new Director of Amateur Scouting spoke about their prospects for the upcoming 2020 draft.“There are a lot of good players out there,” Shirley said. “The game has changed. The younger players have a lot more impact today for a reason. The kids are more advanced at younger ages. We know that and I think that’s an exciting part of what baseball is becoming.”
That jives with the direction the franchise has taken in recent drafts, as they’ve begun to take more chances on high school players. Shirley will be tasked with maintaining a high degree of success, but he’s likely running out of ultra-high draft choices with which to work. With a record of 62-79, the White Sox are in line for a late top-10 pick in next June’s draft, but if all goes according to plan, this could be the last time picking in the top-10 for quite some time.
Shirley you can’t be serious?
Of course I’m serious and stop calling me Shirley!
The greatness of Airplane!
One of the greatest comedies of all time
Never gets old.
This joke was quite funny 40 years ago.
and so were you, you boring clown.
Upvoted. Youre welcome. Simple. Effective.
Didn’t care about the article or Mr. Shirley, but I looked just to see if someone posted this. Well done.
The Sox built the #3 farm system through mostly trades. Their track record in the draft is still atrocious.
Ya kind of weird how that happened. I wonder what the difference was between their professional and amateur scouting. You’d think philosophy’s would be fairly similar.
You have a point with Rodon, Burger and Birdie but guys like Anderson and Madigral will pan out in the MLB while guys like Steele Walker and Konor Pinklington are going to be up in a few years.
The “failures” you listed all have dealt with major injuries. That’s not on the scouting team. That’s bad luck.
You can not judge players on injuries. Rodon did show signs of brilliance in some games but that slider does damage to elbow.
Absolutely. The jury is still out on all of their most recent first round draft picks including injury riddled Carlos Rodon, Zack Burdi and Jake Burger. It’s also still deliberating over the future success of Carson Fulmer, Zack Collins, Nick Madrigal and Andrew Vaughn.
Depending on what transpire this offseason, it’s still likely that the White Sox will have former top picks as an integral part of their 2020 active roster. That would include Tim Anderson at SS, Madrigal at 2B, Rodon in their rotation by mid-summer, Collins as their backup C/1B/DH and Fulmer in the bullpen. Burdi also has a decent chance of filling a bullpen role along with other home grown pitchers such as Aaron Bummer, Jace Fry and Ian Hamilton. Other likely “original” players in 2020 will include Yolmer Sanchez as a versatile reserve infielder along with another in Danny Mendick.
Speaking of “originals”, both 1B Jose Abreu and CF Luis Robert were huge international free agent investments by the White Sox and have also known no other MLB organizations to this point of their pro careers. This took scouting also, to say nothing of the background work done on all those who were acquired in trades and mostly developed by the White Sox including LF Eloy Jimenez, 3B Yoan Moncada and SP’s Lucas Giolito, Reynaldo Lopez, Michael Kopech, Dylan Cease.
Rehabbing SP Dane Dunning, a Nationals 2016 1st round pick and the third piece in the Adam Eaton deal, is also expected to be a key future member of the White Sox rotation, either late next season or in 2021.
Bottom line: Every one of the White Sox first round picks since they selected Anderson in 2013 is still with the organization and expected to fill roles with the club now or in the near future. How many other front offices make that claim?
BeeVeeTee: Don’t forget 2018 5th round pick Jonathan Stiever who is the top candidate to be the White Sox minor league pitcher of the year in 2019. In just his first full pro season he has already excelled at A+ Winston-Salem and will begin 2019 at AA Birmingham.
Stiever very much resembles another top White Sox pitching prospect in Dane Dunning with his blend of good stuff and excellent control. As yet another college arm, he figures to be on a fast-track to the big leagues provide he can avoid the injury bug that has afflicted many of the best White Sox pitching prospects.
mikecws, you’re the same guy going all around the internet criticizing the White Sox. The fact is, most of these draft picks are still developing. It’s too soon to judge their quality. Tatis was a guy who got away on a bad trade, but nobody knew how could he would be. However, it does not matter when you have the #3 ranked farm system, an emerging core of star players on the big league roster, and a top 10 pick in next year’s draft. Additionally, the team has money to spend for years to come. Why do people like you refuse to give these players the requisite time to prove themselves. If you truly are a White Sox fan (and I have my doubts), you should be excited about the future of this team. Save the criticism for later, when it’s actually justified if the Sox can’t transition to a contending team within the next 2 or three years. I my mind, the only thing (person) that can screw any rebuild up is a tight, disingenuous owner refusing to re-invest in the team. Reward fans for being patient (and loyal) with an elite free agent or two who can help you win a championship while giving said fans a reason to purchase season tickets.
@ChiSoxCity
So you are in charge if who is a White Sox fan? Mike is not allowed his opinion because it offends you because he does not kiss rear end like you? His loyalty to his team does not depend on you.
He’s right, and focusing on who is injured glosses over the fact that, currently, the only position player who is a regular is Tim Anderson, and the only starting pitching prospect was the No. 3 overall pick.
That will hopefully change when they are done suppressing Madrigal, and both Walker and Vaughn show promise, but two of those three guys are top ten picks. They are not doing very well hitting on guys lower in the draft, and that is key for building a franchise.
The other problem has been that they are basically drafting nothing more than corner outfielders and infielders high in the draft. Collins, Vaughn, Burger and Sheets were all projected by many as first basemen, and the team has a glut of corner outfielders.
The thing is, this actually reflects the pro philosophy the past few years, as the team has added a lot of poor fielding corner infielders/atrocious corner outfielders to the mix (Gillaspie, Palka, Peterson, Skole, Delmonico, A.J. Reed), but has not taken a chance on unproven guys at other positions, sans Rondon.
I work for CWS’s single A affiliate and some of these guys coming up are the real deal. Obviously Robert gets a lot of hype, but Madrigal and Vaughn could be a big part of CWS’s infield of the future with Moncada.
People forgot about Vaughn! Vaughn is going to be good batting around Moncada, Robert, Jimenez and Anderson. Just Collins a full year in the MLB to adjust to the pitching.
Good to hear, acarneglia.
Does anyone know what teams’ scouting structures look like? I didn’t know they had different divisions. Some teams have better scouting than others while some teams’ scouts seem utterly useless.
I catch flack for saying things like this openly. It’s obvious certain teams acquire a ton of scouting info illicitly from other teams’ scouting systems. St. Louis was caught doing this most recently, when they were caught hacking into the Astros’ minor league and amateur scouting reports. The Yankees, Dodgers and Red Saux seem to always be flushed with big league talent, and very few highly regarded prospects who were a bust. I imagine it’s MLB’s way of keeping these organizations relevant (and the revenues flowing). Most knowledge baseball people would agree the level of talent assembled by these organizations the last five years or so is unprecedented in any sport, not just professional baseball.
I whole heartedly agree. MLB is so psyched to line the pockets of those Padres too. Former Dodgers, current Padres director of amateur scouting seems to still be stealing info to make them there Padres good. Getting away with it under 4 regimes is a mighty great accomplishment. Someone should definitely look into it, before a guy like Tatis is unleashed on the league. I don’t like it maaann.
Those 2010 draft picks the war on them, Reed, Santana, Anderson & Windel are setting the absolute baseball world on fire. On the other hand those guys everybody wanted: the Seager “prototypical SS” crowd, PO of interest Verdugo, the highly sought after 4th round pick in Bellinger who showed gobs of power 0 hrs in high school, them guys there I tell you industry wide 1st on the board. Shout out to the hacking department! Although, Eckstein is the common password for all proprietary data. I’m glad that when the new scouting department took over they had the same abilities. Usernames and passwords, turn them over to the those three teams. Nothing serious is at stake, just a slap on the wrist with corporate espionage.
Hansen, Kendal, Cooper, Marinan never been so alive. Fell the adrenaline. Unsure of that Buehler guy who needs TJ seems like or that light hitting SS from a cold weather state. Shout out to the new hacking department, picked up where they left off!
Feeling wild to further strengthen your argument about the Dodgers stealing valuable info; 29 teams clearly had info that stated Turner was going to develop into a stud, Grandal was vastly underrated, Toles could hit, Taylor was a solid player, Muncy was going to mash. Had zero to do with player development, or a team targeting skill sets they valued that could molded. Zero to do with modern technology quantifying said assets they could develop. All it took was boatloads of money and great hacking skills. I feel the Astros should be investigated too. With all them pitchers that suddenly turn good. They must be hacking stuffs. Them Rays too, always seem to pesky and stuff they seem be up to something. The Braves, White Sox’s does it ever end?
The White Sox organization needed a change in minor league scouting. None of their picks, except for 1st round selections have been developed. How can the Sox not hit on an occasional 10th rounder by accident? Seven years under. 500. Hard on even the most avid of fans