A day before Marco Paddy was named International Scout of the Year at the Winter Meetings, Baseball America indirectly showed why Paddy deserved such recognition.
BA released its 2023 preseason list of the top 10 White Sox prospects on Wednesday, and international signings make up more than half of it.
Here are those 10 White Sox prospects, with Paddy's signings in bold:
- Colson Montgomery
- Oscar Colás
- Bryan Ramos
- Noah Schultz
- Sean Burke
- Cristian Mena
- Peyton Pallette
- Norge Vera
- José Rodríguez
- Lenyn Sosa
This is a huge jump over previous years, when the White Sox were lucky to have two hand-signed, homegrown international prospects in their top 10.
There's also more diversity among the international signings who make the grade. Prior to this year, Paddy's signings were typically older Cuban prospects who signed for seven or eight figures, with Colás and Vera continuing the pattern previously established by Yoelqui Céspedes and Luis Robert (José Abreu never counted as a prospect due to BA's eligiblity rules).
Colás and Vera are still there, but they're outnumbered by traditional international signings; the kinds of guys who signed for six figures and made their organizational debuts as teenagers. Sosa received a $325,000 bonus, followed by Ramos at $300,000, Mena at $250,000 and Rodríguez at $50,000.
Better still, this doesn't represent the best-case scenario. Vera was limited in his first stateside season, Céspedes' hit tool remains a big project, and Yolbert Sánchez lacks impact contact. Those prospects still have enough going for them to represent system depth despite their struggles, with guys like Luis Mieses, Wilfred Veras and Erick Hernández providing their own reasons for optimism from outside the top 10.
The talent has to coalesce further before it can be relied upon. Sosa is Paddy's first standard signing to reach the majors for the White Sox (alas, Fernando Tatis Jr. doesn't count here), Rodríguez has to overcome a hamate injury, while Ramos and Mena face challenges at Birmingham. The prospects behind Ramos might not make the top 10 in most other systems, but they're highly concentrated here because of the White Sox's struggles developing second-day picks in recent years.
If enough of these players can maintain their progress at this time next year -- and if Colás can stick as an everyday right fielder by the end of 2023 -- the White Sox will finally have something resembling a pipeline after a decade of construction.
FOR PATREON SUPPORTERS: A record of White Sox international signings during the Marco Paddy era
When Baseball Prospectus posted its top 10 White Sox prospects list last month, it gave me the opportunity to list the prospects whose rankings most intrigued me due to the potential for vastly different reads.
Mena (fifth on BP) and Sosa (11th) ended up in the same neighborhood on BA's list, but Vera ranked four spots lower than his fourth-place finish for BP. The difference lies in witnessed velocity, as Ben Spanier saw Vera when he threw 94-98, while BA referenced the drop to the low-90s at the end of the year.
Sosa's finish still strikes me as strangely low, although at least there's more internal consistency here, since Sosa's best-ever season resulted in his best-ever placement on a BA list. With BP, Sosa had finished one spot higher in 2020 despite having accomplished far less, and despite the system being far stronger.
