The White Sox indeed waited until after the conclusion of the World Series to announce a personnel move, but while reported bullpen coach Matt Wise remains unofficial, the Sox filled the director of player development vacancy by hiring Paul Janish away from Rice University.
Janish, who played 473 games across nine seasons for the Reds, Braves and Orioles from 2008 to 2017, has spent the entirety of his post-playing career with his alma mater. He joined Rice as an assistant coach in 2017, and then spent the last two seasons as associate head coach.
The White Sox aren't poaching employees from a college juggernaut here. In fact, Rice's last winning season was the year before Janish arrived, and the Owls are 38-76 over the last two seasons under head coach Jose Cruz Jr. They haven't produced a big-league regular in the draft since Tyler Duffey and JT Chargois back in 2012, so I don't see a whole lot in the record backing up Chris Getz's claim in the press release:
“We are very excited to add Paul to our baseball operations team as director of player development,” said Getz. “With 13 years in professional baseball, including nine in the major leagues, and another six years at Rice University where he served as associate head coach, Paul brings a wealth of experience to our organization. He has lived every step of the development ladder, from being a National Champion player at Rice, to being drafted, reaching the majors and then coaching successfully at a high-level program like Rice. We are pleased to have him take the next step in his career with the White Sox and welcome him into the organization to lead our development system.”
But there also doesn't appear to be any significant overlap between Janish and anybody in the White Sox decision-making ranks (Janish did play half a season for the Royals' Triple-A affiliate in Omaha in 2014, but Getz wasn't with Kansas City in any capacity at the time), so it's not the traditional networking hire, either. How the Sox happened upon Janish is one question for Getz at his next availability.
The other question is how much responsibility Janish will actually have at the outset, because new assistant GM Josh Barfield previously served as the Diamondbacks' director of player development, and he said during the last week of the regular season that he expected to be heavily involved in that area with the Sox.
Barfield anticipates being involved “in a lot of different areas.”
“Especially early on on the player development side,” he said. “That’s where I have the most experience and bring a different perspective. Chris has done a great job on the PD side here. I learned a little bit different perspective.
“We’ll still hire a farm director, but I’ll still be heavily involved, especially early on, in that side. As we get into the offseason with roster construction and player acquisition, I’ll be involved in that as well.”
So maybe Janish is effectively coming aboard as an assistant director for a department that will initially fall under Barfield's jurisdiction, and it'll be a couple years before it matters. For the time being, it merits a shrug, and maybe a sigh of disappointment (or, considering Bob Nightengale said Frank Thomas wanted the job, relief).
You could also say that whether it's Janish or Barfield doing more of the shot-calling for the White Sox farm system, it's not like the new director of player development has high standards to maintain. That just rings hollow when the team's previous director of player development is now the general manager.
