The long-hinted changes to the White Sox's international scouting approach are finally taking shape.
Francys Romero reports -- and Sox Machine confirms -- that the White Sox have fired Marco Paddy as their director of international operations, a position he had held since 2011.
"We’ve decided to go a different direction with a restructuring of our international department," GM Chris Getz said in a statement "We thank Marco for his work and wish him well in the future.”
Getz had emphasized a need for improving the White Sox's ability to procure talent from Latin America all the way back to his introductory press conference. When he listed the need to improve the three talent pipelines, he listed international first. He'd also made references to the need for a new Dominican baseball academy.
Paddy had been with the White Sox since 2011, when he replaced David Wilder, who ended up serving prison time for leading a bonus-skimming scandal that defrauded the White Sox of $400,000. Paddy represented a major improvement over the previous international administration, and not just merely because any law-abiding citizen would have. However much credit you're willing to give him -- and Kenny Williams and Rick Hahn gave him plenty -- he was the director when the White Sox signed José Abreu and Luis Robert Jr., and it's entirely possible those two could have landed elsewhere without him.
The problem was that the White Sox couldn't pivot off of a Cuba-reliant strategy. The older Cuban prospects they handed seven-figure bonuses to -- Norge Vera, Yolbert Sánchez, Yoelqui Céspedes, Oscar Colás -- fell flat, and their attempts to invest in traditional teenage talent haven't born fruit. Erick Hernandez has already been released after signing for $1 million in 2021, and $1.8 million signing Eduardo Herrera had a woeful debut in the DSL this year.
It didn't help Paddy that his most successful signing never played a game for the White Sox organization, because Rick Hahn traded Fernando Tatis Jr. to San Diego for James Shields in 2016. However, it's still a problem that when looking at the list of players Paddy signed over the years for a non budget-busting amount of money, there isn't a readily identifiable runner-up. Lenyn Sosa is the only one who has warranted anything resembling regular MLB playing time, although perhaps Bryan Ramos or Cristian Mena will eventually join him.
