The Chicago White Sox confirmed that scouting director Mike Shirley resigned Saturday evening as the organization was investigating allegations about his conduct, ending his tenure after nearly seven years leading the club's amateur scouting operation. Shirley, 56, had recently been involved in the White Sox's selection of Roch Cholowsky with the No. 1 overall pick in July, according to The Athletic.
What has been publicly confirmed
The White Sox placed Shirley on administrative leave after an anonymous complaint concerning his behavior, and the club's human resources department opened an investigation, The Athletic reported. Sources cited by the outlet said the allegations involved inappropriate racial and sexist remarks about coworkers or made in their presence. The report also described allegations involving vulgar comments about women and their bodies. The White Sox did not comment further, Shirley did not respond to the outlet's calls or text messages, and the status or conclusions of the investigation were not disclosed.
The Athletic also reported that Shirley's conduct had been examined before. Sources told the outlet that a 2022 inquiry prompted by an anonymous complaint to Major League Baseball found no bias in his hiring practices or treatment of people from diverse backgrounds, and that no discipline followed. Multiple sources also described at least one earlier internal investigation. Those accounts are reported allegations and source-described findings, not conclusions publicly released by the White Sox.
A long White Sox scouting career
MLB's diversity effort
The case also comes amid a leaguewide effort to broaden the pool of candidates in baseball operations. According to The Athletic, MLB created its Diversity Pipeline Program in 2016 to increase the number of minority and female candidates for baseball-operations departments across all 30 clubs and the league office; the program had resulted in more than 400 assisted hires. The leaguewide figure does not provide a current breakdown of the White Sox's scouting staff or establish how representative the club's department is.
Shirley first worked for the White Sox as a cross-checker in 2010 and again from 2010 through 2018, then became assistant scouting director before taking charge of the department in 2019, according to The Athletic. He was also the signing scout for Chris Getz, who was drafted by the White Sox in 2005 and became the club's senior vice president and general manager in August 2023, according to IndianaRBI and The Athletic.
Before joining the scouting ranks, Shirley was an outfielder selected by Cleveland in the 45th round of the 1989 draft out of Southwestern Michigan College. He played in Cleveland's farm system from 1990 to 1994 and later played for the independent Anderson Lawmen in 1995 and 1996, according to Baseball-Reference.
The department's next step
During Shirley's tenure, the White Sox drafted Garrett Crochet in 2020, Colson Montgomery in 2021, Noah Schultz in 2022, Hagen Smith in 2024 and current top prospect Caleb Bonemer, according to Sox Machine and The Athletic. The club's 2026 class also included Landon Thome, a first-round selection, while Cholowsky became the No. 1 pick.
The organization has not announced who will lead amateur scouting next or explained whether Shirley's resignation followed a completed investigation. The departure also differs from the White Sox's handling of previous scouting-director changes: Doug Laumann and Nick Hostetler remained with the club as advisers or special assistants after leaving those posts, according to Sox Machine.
