Needed Restructuring: White Sox Dump Several International Scouts

The nightly death march reached its conclusion almost a week ago. Our Chicago White Sox capped off a season in which they accumulated more losses than any team in the modern era, though they only had the fifth-worst single-season winning percentage of all time (don't let people forget that fact). For many of us, it's time to enjoy real baseball as the playoffs are in full swing with the Division Series matchups beginning Saturday. Also, it's a time to decompress from the anguish that was a historically futile season for our beloved White Sox.

Most fans will take several weeks or months as a respite from what they just endured to not even think about anything White Sox-related, and that's a completely respectable approach to take if you choose. However, there have been and will continue to be important things happening within the organization that will play a role in the future direction of this club as it tries to inch back toward respectability, if little else.

We've already seen international scouting director Marco Paddy dismissed from his role . In a move that had been rumored for weeks, the team pulled the trigger and parted ways with Paddy, whose focus was largely the Latin American market. Paddy joined the club in 2011, and to say that his tenure was a failure would be a bit of an understatement.

Little to Show for It

Marco Paddy came to the White Sox under difficult circumstances as they were trying to rebuild their Latin American scouting infrastructure following the Dave Wilder bonus-skimming scandal a few years earlier. The only real tangible international success stories from Paddy's tenure were two highly decorated Cuban stars, Jose Abreu and Luis Robert Jr.

Abreu signed with Chicago in 2013 and made his big-league debut the following season. His time with the club was an overwhelming success as he cemented his legacy as a franchise icon during his nine-season stint by finishing in the top 10 in most offensive categories for the American League's charter franchise.

Robert Jr. was the last major international signing bonus before the collective bargaining agreement put hard caps on international bonus pools. The athletic specimen has proven to be a star-caliber player when healthy — a key term that has become a crucial caveat when discussing him. Robert Jr.'s tenure with the Sox is up in the air at this point as it's almost certain he'll see the end of his deal that has options running through the 2027 season.

Paddy's tenure is also defined by organizational misses and a now epic misstep. Back in 2015, there was some belief that the White Sox were in position to sign a young Vladimir Guerrero Jr., only to see him join the Toronto Blue Jays instead. That same signing period, the Sox were confident they had a deal for a future generational superstar, only to see the Washington Nationals swoop in after a private hitting session that led them to up their bonus offer to a young Juan Soto.

Yet, Chicago's 2015 signing period will be most remembered for nabbing a young Fernando Tatis Jr. for $825,000. The following year, Tatis Jr. became the headliner in what will go down as one of the worst trades in baseball history as the White Sox sent him to the Padres for a run-down James Shields in an ill-fated attempt to save a season that was off the rails. Paddy received small amounts of praise publicly for identifying all three future stars, yet not one of them played a game for the White Sox. Thus, any credit for his scouting eye took a back seat to the organizational failures with each.

A New Direction

On Sept. 22, less than three weeks following the dismissal of Marco Paddy, the White Sox hired David Keller as assistant general manager. Keller has spent time occupying various capacities in the Boston Red Sox, Miami Marlins, and New York Mets organizations with a heavy focus on the international scouting side of the equation. Keller is expected to wear multiple hats for the Sox, because why have multiple people focus on one specific area when you can have one person do multiple tasks and save money? As a result, there's still to be additional restructuring of the Sox' international scouting as a whole.

The changes haven't stopped there for the team, though as they have hit the lower levels of the club's international scouting totem pole.

While it's unfortunate to see people lose their jobs in baseball or any industry, the sad reality is in a performance-driven position, the team's international scouting department can only be described as an abject failure. The inability to scout, sign, and develop international talent is a huge reason why Rebuild 2.0 failed (as Anthony and I broke down during last offseason's Sox On Tap "Rebuilt" project ) and why the White Sox are in the depths of baseball hell. The need to modernize and improve the international scouting department is clear for all to see, so I'll actually applaud Chris Getz for doing something so painfully obvious even he had to realize it.

How much change actually takes place underneath the hood remains to be seen, but the Sox are at least presenting the appearance that they understand what a huge problem they have on their hands. It's a problem that won't be fixed overnight and frankly will take several years to see if the changes make any kind of tangible impact. For an organization that has had an unwarranted level of arrogance about how it operates, I guess the recognition of a problem is a first positive step towards correcting it.

Whether or not the necessary resources in terms of overall infrastructure, manpower, and ultimately bonus money are allocated to the department is something we can't answer at this time. Given the team's history under Jerry Reinsdorf , there's a well-deserved skepticism that Keller and the lieutenants he installs underneath him will be put in a position to make meaningful changes to this area of the organization.

For a team that hasn't shown a willingness to make impactful signings at the big-league level since Albert Belle almost 30 years ago, one would think the amateur level would be a reasonable place to do so, especially given the hard caps that are in place now. Yet, we've seen the White Sox dedicate so much of their pool money to older Cuban players with low ceilings. The irony is they haven't even had success with those types of players since Luis Robert Jr. joined the organization back in May of 2017.

The hope is that Getz is being empowered to make the necessary changes to the White Sox international scouting department to drive an influx of, frankly, cheap talent to the organization since we know he won't be positioned to do so with higher-priced, established major-league players. The international pipeline is one of the most important streams of talent for successful organizations, and the White Sox have been behind the curve for decades, something I know you are all aware of if you've paid any attention to this team.

Ideally, Getz and Keller will be able to modernize the department quickly so that by the end of the decade we start to see it bear fruit at the corner of 35th/Shields (if the team is still playing there). It's going to be a long, arduous process to get this team up to speed with the rest of Major League Baseball, but it's something that had to be done.

If the White Sox are ever going to achieve any level of respectability again, they'll have to do it with young, cost-controlled, impact talent. Much of that talent around the league comes as a result of the efforts of international scouting and player development. For far too long, the White Sox neglected this vital area, but hopefully that will no longer be the case.

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