The White Sox have decided on the newest additions to Will Venable’s coaching staff.
In a social media post, the team announced Zach Bove as their next major-league pitching coach, with Matt Wise returning for his third season as bullpen coach. Though not yet confirmed by the club, Sox Machine’s James Fegan also reports Derek Shomon will be named as hitting coach later this week.
Bove, 37, has most recently served as Kansas City’s Assistant Pitching Coach and Director of Major League Pitching Strategy, a role meant to be analytically-driven, specifically in relation to pitch design and biomechanics. A hitter in college, he joined the Royals ahead of the 2023 season with the hiring of current manager Matt Quatraro after several years with the Twins organization. Working with Brian Sweeney, the Royals were a top-10 pitching staff in ERA the past two seasons, with young pitchers Cole Ragans, Kris Bubic, and Noah Cameron all developing into impactable members of the staff.
“Subjectivity is really important, having experience. But I couldn’t rely on that, ‘Hey, this is what I did as a player.’ I was a young coach with mainly a hitting background. I said, ‘Hey, let me dive in and see what’s the most objective way to measure things. And then blend that with the subjective piece and use it to track progress.’”
– Zach Bove via MLB.com
Before that, he was a coach at the College of Central Florida, where several pitchers under his guidance went on to get drafted, including major leaguer Nate Pearson.
“Since 2017, we have had a lot of success, and I give 99% of that to Zach Bove opening my eyes to things.”
– Marty Smith, College of Central Florida Head Coach (via MLB.com)
Like Bove, Shomon, also got his professional coaching start in Minnesota during the 2022 season and went on to serve as their assistant hitting coach from 2023-24. Shomon’s time in Minnesota overlapped with David Popkins’, who is now the hitting coach for the Toronto Blue Jays. Popkins was lauded for his work with overhauling the swings and swing decisions of many Blue Jays’ hitters, bringing a relatively unchanged lineup from the worst in the AL East to the doorstep of a World Series Championship in just one season as hitting coach.
“His biggest trait is he knows every different type of personality and he knows how to interact with anybody,” Julien said. “It feels like he’s been through your situation at one point in his life. He can relate to you a lot more than a normal coach.”
– Edouard Julien on Derek Shomon (via The Athletic)
Shomon most recently spent the 2025 season in Miami holding the same assistant hitting coach title under first-year manager Clayton McCullough. Most notable this year in Miami was former Orioles prospect Kyle Stowers putting together a 149 wRC+, 4.0 fWAR, All-Star campaign after struggling for parts of three seasons in Baltimore.
Shomon began his coaching career in 2012 with the Schaumburg Boomers in a variety of roles, well before his college career ended. From 2012-2016, he was listed as a bullpen catcher, bullpen coach, catching instructor, bench coach, first base coach, and strength and conditioning coach at different points. The now 34-year-old returned to coaching for Schaumburg in 2018, and his bench coach role continued into 2019. Shomon was scheduled to be the Boomer’s hitting coach in 2020 before the Frontier League season was suspended due to COVID-19.
Also potentially of note for Sox fans when it comes to a Royals’ hire: both are out-of-organization hires without previous connections to Chris Getz.
With these hires, the White Sox have added young, up-and-coming coaches focused on swing decisions and biomechanics/pitch design. In doing so, both of these coaches appear to serve as extensions of the work that Ryan Fuller and Brian Bannister are doing behind the scenes and at the minor league level. Both Bove and Shomon will be serving in lead roles for the first time in their professional careers, so it is fair to assume they will rely on their Director counterparts to help set the direction of the team at the major league level.
Certainly a lot to like with these connections, even if they aren’t “big names” – and as more information becomes known about both Bove and Shomon, we will continue to provide updates.
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