Whether you're a front office member or merely paid via the revenue of a site covering the White Sox, the looming MLB draft has taken on a greater importance than the travails of the worst-in-baseball major league team.
"You guys all know where we’re at," said scouting director Mike Shirley. "I think the security has asked me, 'Is this pivotal?', all the way to Pedro [Grifol] has told me this is pivotal. Jerry [Reinsdorf] has told me it’s pivotal. We all know how pivotal this is to get this right."
The initial first-round pick of Shirley's run as scouting director just made the All-Star Game, and the first-rounders of the following two years are also headed to Arlington for the Futures Game. So it's a good time for him to emphasize the importance of nailing the No. 5 pick, and an opportunity to land a star player that future visions of the next good White Sox team still need many more of.
"We understand what five means to us," Shirley said. "I do think there’s some equivalency in the first 10 players of the draft. And personally, I don’t see a bunch of separation. I do think you have to work on 10 players. What’s the value of a guy who you think is equivalent, who may be a million dollars cheaper, who you can possibly get a deal with? This is something we’re really working hard at.”
Shirley repeatedly insisted the White Sox are still preparing for "multiple directions" for pick No. 5, including whether to go pitcher or hitter, though he said there is an overarching preference toward latter through the draft as a whole. There's been consistent smoke around the White Sox's interest in high school infielder Konnor Griffin at No. 5 for months, obviously everyone saw them host Florida two-way masher Jac Caglianone at Guaranteed Rate Field, and there's enough uncertainty at the top of the draft that the team has to at least be prepared on how they'd react to some big upset scenarios.
This year marks the first draft where Shirley will be operating under the new front office, and how things will operate under Chris Getz as the top baseball decision-maker, rather than the scouting voice of Ken Williams. But there are some regular practices of the last few years that Shirley hinted would return. Namely, centering the draft around a few concentrated shots at potential stars.
His first draft in 2020 saw $3 million committed to sign high school arm Jared Kelley out of the second round, emptying out the bonus pool room from the rest of the five-round draft. Shirley also specifically brought up how signing Jacob Gonzalez for under slot out of the first round last year enabled the Sox to offer George Wolkow $1 million in the seventh. With five picks out of the first 107 in this year's draft after the Gregory Santos trade, he seems more excited about the bonus pool bandwidth it offers than the volume of selections.
"[Having acquired pick No. 68] helps at No. 43 too," Shirley said. "What if we think there’s a significant piece to pay a little bit more for at No. 43? It gives you a little more capital to spend. But we are trying to get as many great shots on goal as we can."
Shirley said he viewed college position players as the strength of this class as a whole, but also acknowledged that college baseball, beset by an explosion in power production, is full of inflated numbers that have to be sifted through.
"The SEC, the big conferences, they’ve invested in baseball significantly, the training model, how they’ve invested in the athlete," Shirley said. "It’s started to produce revenues, so they’ve invested in these players. These players are more developed than they’ve ever been at the college level."
It's a safe bet that Shirley is not currently having warm feelings about the draft lottery system, since it's the reason he won't have the No. 1 overall pick next season, but he did not go off about it at great length.
"Hopefully there's 10 good players in the draft next year," Shirley said. "At the end of the day, we know where we're picking next year. It probably will be 10. You hope there's 10 good players. That process has already started about looking at next year's draft and getting it right. Yeah, it's not fair, but it's out of our control."
Even optimistic projections of Griffin laud his athleticism as enabling him to successfully make likely swing adjustments, with scouts particularly noting uniqueness in his lower half movement that will probably need refining as a pro. For a team that is enjoying some success after cleaning up Gonzalez's leg drive through biomechanical analysis last offseason, I wondered if this is a particular area of confidence.
"He’s one of the better performers in that draft class," Shirley said. "It’s part of the job in terms of what we thought Jacob could become. We didn’t think that was the finished product. We got touched a lot, how did you take Jacob? Well, we believed in what Jacob could become and not what he was. We know what an intelligent baseball player he was and how competitive he was."
If the Sox did wind up with Caglianone, Shirley sounded open to letting him pitch. People love to gawk about Shohei Ohtani striving to be an elite slugger and starting pitcher simultaneously, but I'm intrigued by this Josh Naylor/Jared Shuster Frankenstein monster Shirley envisions.
"Obviously we prefer the bat over the pitching, but remember even if he can throw once or twice a week to save his staff, stretch his staff, that can be beneficial to the club."
When (or if) the Sox land on a position player, we know how Griffin/Caglianone's offensive projection will be described.
“The biggest challenge for me, the part that I love, is the mechanical aspect of evaluating hitters," Shirley said. "At No. 5, obviously, we’re trying to get a hit and a power tool both involved with great swing decisions and strike-zone management."
In its fourth year, the MLB Draft Combine is slowly transitioning from the league's obvious attempt to NFL-ize their draft in a likely futile attempt to drum up similar viewing interest, to something teams earnestly look to wring value from.
"The interviews are the most important piece, diving into the player, putting every player through the equivalency of the interview process where everybody is on the same page," Shirley said of the event. "Learning more, having the time to invest with those players is critical."
Shirley doesn't believe in drafting for major league need in any draft, but acknowledged there's some room for adding someone to the organization with a longer development path right now. However, "Even if we chose to go the high school route, you anticipate those guys being here in three, three and a half years. It’s not as long as it used to be. You get a high school player and you want him to move fast."
Watching Dylan Cease dominate the league with a slider he never had in high school, or even just Crochet using a cutter and Jonathan Cannon learning a sweeper to be their primary breaking balls, have built the idea that general aptitude for spin is as important as present plus pitches at draft time. Shirley did and didn't co-sign this interpretation.
"Spin metrics are a huge part of the evaluation process today," Shirley said. "I would argue on the Garrett thing. I felt like I saw that slider at Tennessee. Phil Gulley, our area scout, felt like he saw that slider at Tennessee. Jonathan Cannon had five pitches at Georgia. One of the reasons why we invested and believed in Jonathan Cannon was his repertoire to take and move the ball amongst multiple quadrants and be as intelligent as he is, it's paid off."
Shirley credited Reinsdorf for regularly allotting for the White Sox to spend the five percent overage they're allowed for their draft bonus pool spending.
