The new names, jobs of the 2021 White Sox player development staff
Officially, the White Sox’s minor league affiliates for the next decade haven’t been established.
Unofficially, it seems like it’s business as usual, just a month later.
The White Sox released their player development staff roster for the 2021 season, and it still identifies Charlotte, Birmingham, Winston-Salem and Kannapolis as the non-complex assignments for their coaches. Coming from the other side, the affiliates all sent out press releases and social media posts announcing the same.
But as Chris Getz — whose “director of player development” title has been replaced by “assistant general manager/player development” — couldn’t quite cement the hierarchy in the White Sox’s press release.
โAfter a challenging 2020, we are looking forward to and anticipating a season of development across the entire organization,โ Getz said. โThe White Sox are very fortunate to have terrific existing relationships in place with all four of our potential affiliates, and we are excited for the eventual return to some type of normalcy in the player development and affiliate world. I am very pleased with the staff we have in place, as we look forward to getting up and running to full speed as soon as conditions allow.โ
The release follows up by saying that the acceptance of Player Development Licenses and other details will be issued by Major League Baseball in the coming weeks.
Getz isn’t the only one to receive a new title for a similar sounding role. The White Sox have reassigned some of last year’s names to similar-sounding roles. Otherwise, the biggest changes are mostly on the hitting side, because previous Charlotte hitting coach Howie Clark is Frank Menechino’s assistant with the big league club. I’ve tried to adjust last year’s chart to account for some of the title shift. It’d be great if they kept some consistency for 2022.
PLAYER DEVELOPMENT STAFF
Role | 2020 | 2021 |
---|---|---|
Director | Chris Getz | Chris Getz |
Senior Director of Minor League Operations | Grace Guerrero Zwit | Grace Guerrero Zwit |
Field coordinator | Doug Sisson | Doug Sisson |
Pitching coordinator | Everett Teaford | Everett Teaford |
Assistant pitching coordinator | J.R. Perdew | J. R. Perdew |
Hitting advisor to player development | Ben Broussard | Andy Barkett |
Assistant hitting coordinator | Ryan Johansen | Ryan Johansen |
Catching coordinator | John Orton | John Orton |
Performance coordinator | Goldy Simmons | Goldy Simmons |
Senior Biomechanical Engineer | Ben Hansen | Ben Hansen |
Broussard, who had previously spent time as the team’s leadership and development coordinator, never got a chance to get his hitting advisor career off the ground. Chris Getz said Broussard stepped away to spend more time with his family, so in comes Barkett. Barkett was hired by the University of Central Florida as a coach in 2020, after spending two years as the Boston Red Sox’s assistant hitting coach. Grace Guerrero Zwit isn’t a new name, but here’s a good article about her.
ASSISTANTS TO PLAYER DEVELOPMENT
Role | 2020 | 2021 |
---|---|---|
Assistant Director, Player Development | Rod Larson Graham Harboe | Kenny Williams Jr. |
Assistant Director, Baseball Operations | n/a | Graham Harboe Rod Larson |
Assistant, Player Development | Rafael Santana Tommy Thompson Diego Francisco | Diego Francisco |
Rehab pitching coach | Steve McCatty | Donnie Veal |
Education Coordinator | Erin Santana | Erin Santana |
Latin/Cultural Development Coordinator | Anthony Santiago | Grant Flick |
Quality Control | Zach Jones Nate Pearson Devin Pickett | n/a |
Coordinator, Baseball Information | n/a | Devin Pickett |
Analyst, Player Development | n/a | Zach Jones |
Kenny Williams tipped the addition of his son to the White Sox system in a Bob Nightengale story from December. In seeing another offseason go by without a Black person ascending into a main front office role, Williams said:
โI canโt even tell my own son (Ken Williams Jr.), whoโs our assistant player development director,โโ Williams said, โto stay in the game because I donโt know if there will be an opportunity for him. No matter how good he gets, will there be an opportunity for him ahead? I canโt say that. What evidence is there this will be the case? And I can’t begin to tell you how much that hurts.”
Veal, a White Sox reliever from 2012-14, makes his coaching staff debut at the age of 36.
CHARLOTTE KNIGHTS
Role | 2020 | 2021 |
---|---|---|
Manager | Wes Helms | Wes Helms |
Pitching coach | Matt Zaleski | Matt Zaleski |
Hitting coach | Howie Clark | Chris Johnson |
Coach | Mike Daniel | n/a |
Johnson signed a minor-league deal with the White Sox back in January 2019, three years after his last MLB plate appearance with the Miami Marlins, but it didn’t have a non-roster invitation to spring training attached, so he didn’t really surface. Perhaps he still made an impression, because he replaces Clark at Charlotte’s hitting coach.
BIRMINGHAM BARONS
Role | 2020 | 2021 |
---|---|---|
Manager | Justin Jirschele | Justin Jirschele |
Pitching coach | Richard Dotson | Richard Dotson |
Hitting coach | Charlie Romero | Cam Seitzer |
Coach | Devin DeYoung | n/a |
Justin Jirschele didn’t get a chance to get Omar Vizquel’s stink out of the Birmingham clubhouse last season, so here’s take two at the ripe old age of 30. Seitzer was supposed to be the hitting coach for Great Falls last year, so it’s theoretically his second year as a coach, even though it’s his first in this role in practice.
WINSTON-SALEM DASH
Role | 2020 | 2021 |
---|---|---|
Manager | Ryan Newman | Ryan Newman |
Pitching coach | Danny Farquhar | Danny Farquhar |
Hitting coach | Charlie Poe | Mike Daniel |
Daniel’s another guy whose coaching career got off to a false start. He attended high school in the Charlotte and college at UNC, then spent seven season in professional baseball after being selected in the seventh round by the Washington Nationals.
KANNAPOLIS CANNON BALLERS
Role | 2020 | 2021 |
---|---|---|
Manager | Guillermo Quiroz | Guillermo Quiroz |
Pitching coach | Josรฉ Bautista | John Ely |
Hitting coach | Cole Armstrong | Charlie Romero |
Coach | Patrick Leyland | Patrick Leyland |
Ely had spent the last few seasons in Great Falls, so both he and Seitzer survived the realignment. Patrick Leyland is the son of Jim Leyland.
ARIZONA ROOKIE LEAGUE
Role | 2020 | 2021 |
---|---|---|
Manager | Ever Magallanes | Ever Magallanes |
Pitching coach | Felipe Lira Drew Hasler | Drew Hasler |
Hitting coach | Gary Ward | Devin DeYoung |
Coach | Louis Silverio | Mike Gellinger |
DeYoung gets his first main gig, supplanting Ward, who had coached up and down the chain for years and years. Drew Hasler, the son of White Sox bullpen coach Curt Hasler, gets his first solo gig after sharing duties in the past. Gellinger, who has served in all sorts of roles over the years, was most recently supposed to manage in Great Falls in 2020.
DOMINICAN SUMMER LEAGUE
Role | 2020 | 2021 |
---|---|---|
Academy supervisor | Louis Silverio | Louis Silverio |
Field coordinator | Guillermo Reyes | Julio Bruno |
Assistant field coordinator | n/a | Guillermo Reyes |
Complex operations coordinator | Manuel Santana | Manuel Santana |
Manager | Angel Rosario | รngel Rosario |
Pitching coach | Leo Hernรกndez | Leo Hernรกndez |
Hitting coach | Gerardo Olivares | Gerardo Olivares |
Assistant pitching coach | Josรฉ Brito | Josรฉ Brito |
Assistant hitting coach | รngel Gonzรกlez | Angel Gonzรกlez |
Outfield coach | Julio Ramirez | n/a |
No changes of note except for the elimination of Ramirez’s post.
(Ron Vesely/Chicago White Sox)
Devin DeYoung starting his solo career. I hope it styx.
Iโll see myself out.
October 2005:
Twins signing Colome.
1 year, $5 million.
I didn’t expect him to get 3/30 or anything, but this seems like a bargain. Great.
JFC, that’s an incredible deal for the Twins. And now they’re basically a Carlos Rodon-type signing away from payroll parity with the White Sox.
Man, Iโd love a bucket of JFC right now. Is that like extra, extra crispy? Anyone want in?
Actually, Iโm more original recipe material so never mind.
And that Colomรฉ deal hurts.
Twins getting the meal and the sides while Hahn is just getting the chicken and hoping nobody at the party is a vegetarian.
hahn brought a 3-day old rotisserie chicken from jewel and hopes it will feed 10.
This looks suspiciously like the sort of free agent contract that Rick Hahn keeps trying and failing to ink. This leaves him having to trade for other teams’ good contracts (re: Lance Lynn).
The Twins have been the kings of finding these value deals the last couple years. He’s a great fit for their bullpen and an underrated talent. This is basically the worst case scenario for Colome’s free agency.
Twins now 2.5 wins ahead of the sox on depth charts. Obviously they still need to play the games, but it’s very disappointing to not at least go into the season in a dead heat with them in terms of projections.
Springer instead of Eaton would have made that even, if not a one win advantage for the White Sox.
I find it funny that Williams laments the lack of Black front office personnel in baseball while using his son, whose primary qualification for his position is that he’s Kenny Williams’ son, as an example of an industry up-and-comer being blocked. And while I don’t mean to denigrate Junior’s contributions or abilities (I’m admittedly not familiar with them), but in an organization whose hiring practices rarely seem to involve interviewing multiple candidates for important positions, I can’t be convinced that he represents a merit-based hiring even among a pool of exclusively African-American candidates.
There is a bit of nepotism on this list of hires/names.
I love Joe Buck, though.
The same organization that fired a Mexican-American Manager who had just made the playoffs in order to hire the 76 year old white guy whose main qualification for the job seems to be “friend of a billionaire.”
Look, I hate the TLR hire as much as anybody, but he has a lot of bonafides you could point to outside of nepotism, however dated they may be.
He hasn’t managed a baseball team at any level in a decade. I’d be curious to know if a manager has ever been hired after such a long layoff before.
(Also it seems like the guy who should be doing the hiring, Hahn, absolutely did not want TLR at all)
That doesn’t change that he has an actual resume that Williams’ son does not.
Davey Johnson and Frank Robinson come to mind. There are probably others.
Jack McKeon. Not out of the game as long, but came back out of retirement to lead the Marlins to the World Series.
The precedent in White Sox history is Paul Richards. His last season managing the Orioles was 1961 when Bill Veeck brought him out of retirement to manage in 1976.
It did not go well.
exactly.
The Grace Guerrero Zwit article Jim linked is worth your time, as is this story James Fegan wrote after Kim Ng was introduced as Marlins’ GM and name-checked Zwit at the press conference:
As a companion to Fegan’s Evan Marshall article the other day, I highly recommend checking out Jeff Passan’s story on Drew Robinson. Very candid, hard to read at points, but well worth the effort. https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/30800732/san-francisco-giants-outfielder-drew-robinson-remarkable-second-act
Is Bautista leaving the org? I seem to recall him getting some high praise in the past for his work with certain arms.
i love that kenny rues a lack of opportunities for qualified individuals while citing how nepotism still carries the day in the sox organization. what a goon. you literally gifted your kid a role in the org after you gifted him a draft pick.
if you’re going to call out self-serving institutions, if would be better if you weren’t running one.