ORLANDO, Fla. -- In an annual highlight of the Winter Meetings, the Scout of the Year program celebrates evaluators and administrators for their contributions to baseball. It did so again Tuesday evening here, with one of the honorees using the occasion to announce his retirement.
Padres senior adviser and director of player personnel Logan White told the gathering he is retiring after more than four decades in the game. He wants to spend more time with his younger sister Lynette, who's battling esophageal cancer.
Royals special assistant Tom McNamara (East Coast), Yankees special assistant Jim Hendry (Midwest) and White (West Coast) were this year's domestic Scouts of the Year. Royals senior vice president/assistant GM Rene Francisco garnered the international award. Tigers director of Minor League and scouting administration Cheryl Evans won the Roberta Mazur distinguished woman in baseball award.
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There's no formal mechanism for scouts to be inducted into the Hall of Fame and no permanent display in Cooperstown, N.Y., representing their accomplishments. Now in its 41st year and run by Mazur as executive director, the Scout of the Year program fills that void by recognizing men and women in those roles for their accomplishments in the game.
White, 63, topped NCAA Division II with 16 victories at Western New Mexico in 1984 before the Mariners drafted him in the 23rd round. After three years in the Minors, he became an associate scout for Seattle in 1988 and a full-time area scout with the Orioles the following year. He had stints with the Padres (1993-95) and Orioles (1996-2001) as a West Coast crosschecker before becoming Dodgers scouting director in 2002.
In 13 years of running Drafts with Los Angeles, White produced 72 big leaguers, highlighted by Russell Martin, Chad Billingsley, Matt Kemp, Clayton Kershaw, Nathan Eovaldi, Corey Seager and Cody Bellinger. He also oversaw the Dodgers' international operations in 2011-12 and helped sign Yasiel Puig and Julio Urias. He returned to San Diego in his current role in 2015.
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"After 40 years, I exit Major League Baseball with a full heart, a deep sense of pride and immense gratitude," White said. "I carry with me the lessons, the memories and the relationships that have shaped my life. I'm excited to embrace the next chapter. Go fishing on a Tuesday is something I've never done, take a cruise during the Draft.
"I want to savor each moment with family and friends with the same passion I brought to the game. I leave baseball as I hoped to have lived it, with dedication, integrity and love."
Here's a closer look at the other award winners:
Tom McNamara, Royals (East Coast)
After stealing 71 bases at NCAA Division II Dominican (N.Y.) in 1988, McNamara spent a year in the Mariners system before becoming an assistant coach at Rockland (N.Y.) CC. Joe Nigro, the scout who signed him, recommended him for a part-time job scouting for the Pirates in 1993. When Nigro left the Mariners in 1994, McNamara replaced him as a full-time area scout before moving to the Brewers in the same role (2001-02), the Padres as a pro scout (2003-07) and back to Milwaukee as an East Coast crosschecker in 2008.
McNamara, 58, returned to Seattle as scouting director from November 2008 through September 2016, then became a Mariners special assistant before taking the same job with the Royals in November 2020. In eight Drafts as scouting director, he landed 48 big leaguers for the Mariners, including Kyle Seager, James Paxton, Edwin Diaz, Chris Taylor and 2020 American League Rookie of the Year Kyle Lewis.
McNamara signed five Major Leaguers as an area scout. He says stumping for a bad-bodied high school first baseman with the seventh overall pick in the 2002 Draft helped make his career.
"It was risky with Prince Fielder and people always say he had a different body," McNamara said. "But I've been doing this for 31 years and he's still the best amateur hitter I ever scouted. I went to every one of his high school games. Looking back, the whole Prince Fielder experience probably had a lot to do with me becoming a scouting director."
Jim Hendry, Yankees (Midwest)
Hendry, 70, planned on pursuing a broadcasting career after graduating from Spring Hill (Ala.) but gravitated to coaching at Miami's Columbus High School and then Creighton, where he arrived as an assistant in 1984 but became head coach midway through that season at age 28. He used a network of big league scouts to build the Bluejays into a Midwest power, taking them to the Men's College World Series (played minutes from their campus in Omaha, Neb.) in 1991. The Marlins came calling soon after, hiring him as a combination scout/Minor League manager.
The Cubs tabbed Hendry as farm director in November 1994 and kept promoting him: to scouting director in 1996, to farm and scouting director in 1998, assistant GM in 2000 and GM in July 2002. The only man ever to coach a team to the Men's College World Series and run the baseball operations for a Major League organization, Hendry became the first GM to helm Chicago to consecutive playoff appearances (2007-08). He served nine years in that role before the Cubs let him go in August 2011, then joined the Yankees as a special assistant shortly afterward.
"I always thought my career path would be getting Creighton to the College World Series and eventually going to coach at Miami and Arizona State before maybe becoming an athletic director," Hendry said. "Back then, going from college to a pro team wasn't realistic.
"And I loved being a farm director. If you had told me I'd be a farm director for 20 years and then retire, that would have been awesome. I never got into pro ball thinking I would be a GM."
Rene Francisco, Royals (international)
Francisco, 57, spent two seasons in the Cubs system as an outfielder after they drafted him in the 38th round out of Jacksonville in 1989. He says he liked to evaluate players in his mind even while playing, so scouting always felt like a natural career choice. While working as an assistant coach at Palm Beach (Fla.) Community College, he became an associate scout with the Braves in 1992 before becoming a full-time international scout in 1993.
Francisco kept that role and added area scout duties from 1997-99 before becoming Atlanta's Latin America supervisor from 2000-02. He went to the Dodgers as international scouting director in 2003-05, returned to the Braves in the same position in 2006 and then moved to the Royals that August. He has run international scouting for Kansas City under various job titles ever since, rejuvenating a program that had spent less money in Latin America than any of the other 29 organizations during the previous 15 years.
Francisco directly signed 10 big leaguers for the Braves, most notably Rafael Furcal. As an international director, he helped land eight Major Leaguers for Atlanta (led by Martin Prado), seven for the Dodgers (highlighted by Kenley Jansen, Carlos Santana) and 23 so far for Kansas City. He found Kelvin Herrera for $15,000 in the first Dominican Republic workout he attended for the Royals, and Salvador Perez for $70,000 in the first Venezuelan workout.
"I've been part of winning two World Series in 1995 and 2015, and 2015 was more rewarding because I saw how the Royals made progress from 2006 to 2015," Francisco said. "There's no better feeling than meeting a kid and watching their progress in the Minor Leagues to becoming a big leaguer. And when you see them not only get to the big leagues, but win a World Series, it's so rewarding."
Cheryl Evans, Tigers (distinguished woman in baseball)
Evans, 75, was attending Palm Beach (Fla.) Junior College in 1969, working for the dean of women and responsible for posting job listings. She noticed one for the expansion Expos with their local High-A affiliate in the Florida State League and wound up claiming the position for herself. She stuck with the club through 1975 before leaving because she needed a job that paid her more than $50 per week.
A chance meeting with former West Palm Beach Expos colleagues a decade later led Evans back to the Expos and an administrative assistant job in their scouting department (based in Lantana, Fla.) in 1985. She went with several members of Montreal's front office to join the expansion Marlins in 1991 in the same position before becoming director of Minor League operations and scouting administration in 2003. She served in that role before briefly retiring in 2004 and moving to Lakeland, Fla. -- where she soon became the Tigers' director of Minor League and scouting administration.
Twenty years later, Evans still holds the same job with Detroit and says she's looking forward to her 46th year in baseball with no thoughts of stopping anytime soon.
"Winning two World Series with the Marlins was magical, but for me, the highlight of my career is a bunch of little moments dealing with people over the years," Evans said. "I like people. I love when players pop into my office. I'm thankful my brain still works and my joints still work. I'll stay as long as they'll have me."