One of the names you will hear most associated with the White Sox and their No. 4 pick in the upcoming MLB Draft is Nick Madrigal, a middle infielder at Oregon State.
There’s plenty to know — and like — about him. He’s short. He’s also a really, really, really good baseball player: a career .367/.428/.512 slash line including a .395/.459/.563 in limited action this season.
But the thing that will likely jump out the most to White Sox fans is his position. He plays second base for the Beavers, and he’s played some shortstop in the past, too.
Wait a minute, aren’t those the positions that Yoan Moncada and Tim Anderson play?
There’s nothing South Side baseball fans enjoy more during these rebuilding days than plotting out future lineups, and a vast majority of those projections have Moncada and Anderson entrenched up the middle for years to come. So if the White Sox, courtesy of the team’s poor record in 2017, have the opportunity to add a premier player with the No. 4 pick in the draft, why wouldn’t they spend it on a position of greater need?
The answer is that they just don’t care about that.
That might sound harsh, but that’s the thought process in the White Sox draft room, where the braintrust is planning on taking the best player available, regardless of his position and who is or will be playing there in the present and near future.
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“Doesn’t play into it at all,” White Sox scouting director Nick Hostetler told Chuck Garfien and Ryan McGuffey on a recent White Sox Talk Podcast. “We don’t talk about it. It’s not an issue for us. It’s not anything we’ve even discussed.
“It really, truly has not come up one time in discussing anything with Rick (Hahn) or Jeremy (Haber) or Kenny (Williams) or (Chris Getz) about who we have in the big leagues, who we have in the minor leagues. It means absolutely nothing when we’re drafting in the first round with that first pick because we’ve got to get it right, we’ve got to take the best player.”
Fans and observers might see the upcoming draft as an opportunity for the White Sox to add to their crazy collection of prospects in their quest to build a contender for the 2020 season and beyond. Be it Madrigal or whoever, the player the White Sox take at No. 4 would figure to join the likes to Eloy Jimenez, Michael Kopech, Luis Robert, Dane Dunning and Alec Hansen as the most talked about players in the farm system.
But the player selected with the fourth pick might not be in the same grouping as those guys from the perspective of time. He might not plug a hole that quickly or rise to the level of all those names. His development could take time. And so the White Sox aren’t drafting with the mindset that their pick will be someone who joins the major league squad in a rapid manner.
“I don’t want to say it doesn’t go into it at all because you do look at the timeframe of the player. And there’s some misconception that just because he’s a college player, he fits in with this next group of the Alec Hansens and the Zack Collinses and the Luis Roberts and Eloy Jimenez. That doesn’t always necessarily mean that that’s the case,” Hostetler said. “Some of these college guys develop slower. Some of them develop very quickly.
“So I think that it’s all based off of each individual player. Now I will say that when we do look at it, it doesn’t factor in to us evaluating the player. When we evaluate the player, it’s strictly based off of his tools, his makeup, on the field, off the field. All of those factors go into it. We don’t look at the timeline.
“As scouts, we just want to evaluate all of the data, put that in order, and then if Rick, Kenny, if they feel it’s important to add in what the timeline’s going to be and where he fits, then I let them do that. But just as scouts and scouting director, we strictly base ours off of tools and data and that’s it”
If the White Sox choose Madrigal on Monday night, there are some important things to remember. It won’t mean they’ve surrendered on the idea of Moncada and Anderson as their middle infield of the future for many years to come. For the time being, it would simply bolster the depth at the position.
And Hostetler mentioned the idea of giving Madrigal, should he be the choice, a chance to play a multitude of other positions — despite also mentioning that he’s been described as a Gold Glove type defender at second base.
“It’s been noted that his second base defense is Gold Glove caliber defense. He can flat out play,” Hostetler said. “He’s played shortstop before, played it when he was in high school, played it as a freshman, played it some on Team USA. ... It is a really, really plus defender at second base.
“You look at it and you say, ‘Can he play another position? Can he play third? Can he play short? Can he play center?’ Because he can run. All of those factors are yet to be answered because we don’t really know. We haven’t seen enough. There isn’t a big enough sample size for us to say, ‘Yes he can.’ We have to look at the tools, the way the body works, the way the feet work in sync. There’s a chance. I’d give this kid a chance to play anywhere on the field this year.”
But taking Madrigal — or another player at any other position that already seems to be locked up — also provides the White Sox a big-time safety net should Anderson or Moncada not become the productive everyday big leaguers they were envisioned to become. Moncada has been good, for the most part, this season. But Anderson has been streaky. He’s got a lot of homers and a lot of steals, which are great, positive signs for a player who struggled so badly last season. But he’s also gone through long stretches of little production. He’s still in the thick of a “prove it” season. Having a backup plan would be a wise strategy, even if the White Sox think the world of Anderson and what he can become.
And then there’s that point Hostetler made about guys taking time to develop. It’s very possible that the White Sox could pick Madrigal and wait for him to become ready for the majors while Moncada and Anderson are starring on contending teams at the big league level. Hahn always talks about planning for the long term, and building organizational depth at every position is a big part of that.
So remember that the MLB Draft is a different animal from the NFL and NBA Drafts. The White Sox won’t be drafting for need Monday night, even though they’ll have the opportunity to add someone who could be in the bigs relatively soon.
“It’s ‘for each their own’ in baseball. That’s the great thing about this game,” Hostetler said. “We’re not having to draft a point guard to play against LeBron, I’m not trying to draft a corner to cover Allen Robinson. I’m trying to draft a baseball player.”