The White Sox have reportedly added another new face to their coaching staff, hiring Marlins assistant hitting coach Derek Shoman as the team’s next hitting coach.
According to White Sox beat reporter James Fegan, the team is finalizing plans to officially name Shoman to the role. The move comes alongside the recent announcement of Zach Bove taking over as the team’s pitching coach.
The flurry of changes come after the team declined to renew the contracts of four coaches at the end of September. Those departures included pitching coach Ethan Katz, hitting coach Marcus Thames, first base coach Jason Bourgeois, and catching coach Drew Butera.
Shoman will step into Marcus Thames’ former role, overseeing a young lineup loaded with rising prospects. Last season, the White Sox offense ranked 27th in runs scored and 23rd in home runs with 165. However, the team made notable progress in plate discipline, ranking 18th in MLB with 498 walks and sitting near the middle of the league in strikeouts at 16th.
Shoman has served as an assistant hitting coach for the last three years, spending two seasons in Minnesota, before joining the Marlins coaching staff in 2025. Shoman inherited a top 10 offense when he joined Minnesota’s staff, and that trend continued during his two seasons in the Twin Cities.
He inherited a struggling Miami offense that ranked 27th in MLB in runs scored. However, during his brief tenure with the Marlins, the offense showed noticeable improvement, jumping from an 87 wRC+ to 96 and climbing to 15th in the league with 709 runs scored.
Shoman has ties to Illinois, having played one season of college baseball at the University of Illinois Springfield in 2013. He later spent two seasons in independent baseball as a catcher and designated hitter. In 2017, he appeared in seven games for the Frontier League’s Lake Erie Crushers, recording one hit in 19 at-bats — a home run. The following year, Shoman played two games for the American Association’s Cleburne Railroaders, going 2-for-8 at the plate with two RBIs.
Before joining the MLB coaching ranks, the 35-year-old spent nearly a decade in a variety of roles with the Schaumburg Boomers. He began coaching in Schaumburg during the team’s inaugural 2012 season as a bullpen catcher. He later served as a bullpen coach and strength and conditioning coach before the Twins hired him as a hitting coach for their Low-A affiliate in Fort Myers.
