Powered by a top-flight player acquisition and development engine, the Brewers are World Series champions. The White Sox would love to emulate their Wisconsin neighbors’ ability to thrive despite a low major-league payroll, and are going about it in the most direct way possible.
Sources tell the Sun-Times that the Sox are expected to hire Matt Roffe to head up their draft operations. Roffe has spent the last five years with the Brewers, and was promoted to be their assistant director of domestic scouting last November. The hire has not been formally announced, and while general manager Chris Getz has previously said the Sox were hiring a “director of amateur acquisitions,” Roffe’s specific title has yet to be determined.
Either way, Roffe’s addition will fill a leadership role in the organization that has been vacant since amateur scouting director Mike Shirley resigned in September, amid what sources indicated was an internal investigation into his personal conduct. Two months prior to that, Shirley oversaw the White Sox selecting UCLA shortstop Roch Cholowsky with the first overall pick in the 2026 MLB Draft.
Before his departure, Shirley was the rare White Sox executive in baseball operations under Getz who had been retained from the Ken Williams/Rick Hahn era. Since taking over in August of 2023, Getz has hired three assistant general managers, directors for both their hitting and pitching departments, a director of acquisitions, a special assistant in charge of international scouting, and a director of player development; all of whom were brought in from outside the organization.
Multiple internal candidates from the Sox amateur scouting department were interviewed this month to fill Shirley’s role, according to sources. But pulling in Roffe from both a successful organization, and one defined by a regularly dominant farm system rather than financial muscle, fits a pattern established by Getz, and matches comments he made last month about the future of the department.
“We’re looking at a lot of different ways — we’ve been doing that for a while — not just a clear restructure, but a different way of doing business on that front,” Getz said in September. “If that means you’re going outside of the organization, so be it.”
As it turns out, the White Sox have gone outside of the organization in pursuit of an up-and-comer in the amateur scouting world. Roffe’s public profile is pretty under the radar, but it’s hard to quibble with where the Sox chose to shop.