Why the White Sox drafted pitching, adding new franchise cornerstone Hagen Smith with No. 5 pick

Fans looking at what the Chicago White Sox have brewing in their minor league system probably would have preferred the team select a position player with the No. 5 pick in the MLB Draft on Sunday night.

Heck, the White Sox, at least at a time, preferred it, too.

“Our preference is position players at this point, just because I think that’s something we’re looking hard at. But we’ll see,” amateur-scouting director Mike Shirley said while previewing the draft last week. “I think you’ve got to keep adding to the arms. You can never have enough arms. That’s something you’ve got to continue to invest in.”

And they did, their preference evolving as the picks actually started rolling in Sunday. They chose Arkansas left-hander Hagen Smith to be the latest centerpiece of Chris Getz’s rebuilding project on the South Side.

Shirley said last week that two pitchers – Smith and Wake Forest’s Chase Burns, who went to the Reds at No. 2 – were among the players the team was considering, so the selection wasn’t a total surprise.

But it might have been for folks who look at the MLB Draft through a similar lens as the NFL and NBA versions, where first-round picks are expected to fill immediate needs and star for their teams the following season. Not going with a bat when the ranks of pitching prospects in the organization are relatively strong might seem like a costly mistake with a top-five pick that Shirley described as “pivotal” for the team’s future.

So why’d they do it? Why Smith?

In a way, it came down to the White Sox trying to stay on a hot streak.

“Hagen was a guy who was a real target,” Shirley said Sunday night. “Our success with the Chris Sales of the world, the Garrett Crochets of the world, Noah Shultzes of the world, this is another piece of the same puzzle that we have success with.

“As you start to build out a rotation, these pieces are coming together. You guys know these guys that take the mound in that starting rotation is a key and integral part of building a championship club. We are starting to make a move into that process, real pieces that are going to make a difference for the White Sox.”

Certainly the White Sox have had success, both recent and less recent, with drafting left-handed pitchers in the first round. Crochet, the No. 11 pick in 2020, is heading to the All-Star Game. Schultz, the No. 26 pick in 2022, is currently ranked as one of the 20 best prospects in baseball. And of course there’s Sale, who was the No. 13 pick way back in 2011 and became one of the best pitchers in franchise history during his seven seasons on the South Side.

[MORE SOX: In his own words: How Garrett Crochet became an All Star]

Throw in the apparently sizable impact new pitching czar Brian Bannister had on the selection and the fact that Shirley admitted to the team “playing the financial game” in the first round, and the White Sox ended up with another southpaw.

Regardless of how much impact the financial side of things had, though, the White Sox didn’t end up with some consolation prize. Smith was ranked as the No. 5 prospect in the draft by MLB.com and had a sensational 2024 season that earned him pitcher of the year honors in the SEC. He struck out 161 batters in 84 innings, including 17 in one outing against a perennially powerful Oregon State team that featured No. 1 pick Travis Bazzana, who accounted for three of those strikeouts.

“It’s the best performance I’ve ever seen (from) a college pitcher. Ever,” said Shirley, who was watching in person. “I’ve been doing this a long time. He took Oregon State for a ride I’ve never seen a college pitcher take any lineup for. On the big stage.

“It was (17) punch outs. It was the most dominating stuff I’ve ever seen since I’ve been scouting. He has that type of weapons, he can put you away, he can make you uncomfortable.

“As the great Jim Thome said, ‘I might need to take a day off when we face this guy.’ That’s part of it, this guy’s real.”

That’s about as rave a review as you’ll hear and should excite fans about what Smith can be in the future.

And of course, it’s all about the future right now on the South Side, where the White Sox are on pace to rack up one of the highest single-season loss totals in baseball history. Getz is in the process of trying to add as much talent to the minor league system as he can, getting a boost from the trades made by his predecessors last summer and the Dylan Cease trade he made in March. There’s expected to be a bunch of trades before the end of this month. But the No. 5 pick represented a similarly rare opportunity to add a key building block, especially when considering that the league’s anti-tanking rules will have the White Sox picking no higher than No. 10 next year.

Smith can be penciled into the team’s rotation of the future on the next contending White Sox team, whenever that might finally come along. Schultz figures to be on a similar track. Crochet would look real good as part of that group, too, as the staff ace, but he’s been the subject of immense trade speculation leading up to the deadline, the White Sox perhaps feeling that contender won’t come together before Crochet hits free agency after the 2026 season.

But there’s a reason to say “penciled,” as the White Sox are, as mentioned, relatively flush with pitching prospects. Those trades made by Rick Hahn and Ken Williams prior to their firings last summer netted the likes of Ky Bush, Jake Eder and Nick Nastrini, three guys currently populating the team’s top-prospects list. The Cease trade brought back two more in Drew Thorpe and Jairo Iriarte who could be part of that group. Jonathan Cannon, a third-round pick in 2022, is already pitching at the major league level, along with Thorpe.

In other words, the competition for those spots in the rotation of the future could be hot. And that’s not at all a bad thing. Shirley’s right to point out what any other baseball person would, that no team can ever have enough pitching, and depth in that department is vital to winning, whether as a safety net for injuries or a resource from which to trade to upgrade other areas of a roster.

It’s true, too, though, that there aren’t many players who can be as easily penciled into the White Sox’ lineup of the future. Outside of top-100 guys Colson Montgomery and Edgar Quero, the position-player crop in the minor leagues appears to be nowhere near as sizable as the pitching group. Drafting by need, though, whether at the major league or minor league level, is not typically how the MLB Draft works, and if the White Sox found Smith to be the best player they could have selected at No. 5, that’s more important than trying to anticipate what the major league team’s needs will be three or more years down the road.

We’ll see if it takes Smith that long to make it through the system. While it’s unrealistic to expect everyone to be Paul Skenes and go from top draft pick to All-Star starter in a calendar year, Smith is a college pitcher, obviously more advanced than a high school one, and someone who has the experts excited. The guy who made the pick agreed that he could be close to big league ready.

“Obviously you want to be delicate,” Shirley said. “You want to make sure you build them up. You want to make sure (of) the long-term play and health and overall make sure they’re major league ready. But the weapons, the arsenal is real. These guys, most importantly, they’re elite athletes with elite stuff.”

What’s more certain is the type of expectations that will instantaneously be placed on Smith, who now carries the distinction of being an all-important piece of Getz’s rebuilding puzzle. The opportunities to add those are rare, and there’s a reason Shirley talked with such acknowledgement of the importance of getting the No. 5 pick right.

“It’s pivotal,” Shirley said last week. “I think we all feel good with what’s happening in the minor leagues. To add this piece, of what (No.) 5 could possibly be, to the next wave of this is substantial. It’s a must.

“I think security has asked me if this is pivotal, all the way to Pedro (Grifol), who told me it’s pivotal. Jerry (Reinsdorf)’s told me it’s pivotal. We all know how pivotal this is to get this right.”

As is the case with baseball draft picks, a lot of time will need to pass before we can figure out whether Shirley & Co. indeed got it right with Smith. But at the moment, it’s another big step in Getz’s rebuild.

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