Padres advisor looking forward to season

With Major League Baseball’s scheduled return less than three weeks away, oddsmakers are giving the Los Angeles Dodgers the best chance to win the World Series.

If the Dodgers live up to that expectation, a lot of thanks will be owed to Logan White, the scout who brought the Dodgers’ farm system from being ranked in MLB’s bottom third up to No. 1 with the signing of players that included Clayton Kershaw, Cody Bellinger and Corey Seager.

White, a 1980 Portales High graduate and 2019 Legends of Scouting Hall of Fame inductee, is now the San Diego Padres’ senior advisor and director of player personnel, and has already brought their farm system up to No. 1, just like he did for their National League West rivals about two hours up Interstate 5.

White is among the sports-starved legions counting down the time until MLB’s better-late-than-never opening day.

July 23 is approaching. Tick-tock, tick-tock.

“I’m really excited about it,” White said by telephone Thursday afternoon. “It’s going to be so different as far as the 60-game format. It’s going to be interesting because it’s going to be fun. We’re used to a marathon; instead of a marathon, we’re going to run a 400-meter.”

With that top-ranked farm system churning out players to go with rock-star-caliber veteran third baseman Manny Machado, oddsmakers are giving the Padres a chance to be a playoff contender.

They may be built just right for that 400-meter run.

“I think it benefits us in some ways,” White said, “because we have a deep roster and a lot of players we can plug in.”

One San Diego player who will be on hold for a while is outfielder Tommy Pham, whose positive coronavirus test was announced Friday by Padres General Manager A.J. Preller. Pham is asymptomatic and self-isolating, according to Preller.

While there remain uncertainties and concerns about the restart, for White, baseball’s return will bring a little normal back. His personal life was already in flux due to a recent divorce, and his professional life was upended by COVID-19. Going from city to city, getting on and off planes, was part of the deal for White — scouting trips as essential as food, water and breathing.

Thanks to the coronavirus, White’s scouting trips since March have involved walking over to his computer, turning it on, and firing up Zoom.

“I’m a lot more comfortable on Zoom calls than I ever thought I’d be,” White said. “It’s surprising how much you can get to know someone on Zoom calls.”

White even took part in the virtual MLB Draft last month.

“That draft was a once-in-a-lifetime thing,” White said. “I’ve never seen anything like that. … Going to five rounds was difficult because we feel like there were some guys we liked that were pretty good players that we weren’t able to draft.”

The young player most important to White is not a Padres draftee; it’s his son Logan Jr., a pitcher and catcher for the University of California-San Diego, who has been playing actual live baseball in the San Diego League — a summer league for college baseball players — since its resumption in late May.

“He’s having a great time, playing well,” White said. “I know the summer collegiate league had to put a plan together about how they would stay safe.”

So far, so good, for both Whites. Logan Sr., at 58, is too young to be in serious danger from the virus age-wise, and says he has no health concerns, either. And though he misses his old scouting life, White said he’s been eating better at home and has lightened his 6-foot-2-inch frame from 256 to 230 pounds.

He’s now looking forward to seeing if the team he helped construct will make its first playoff appearance since 2006.

“I think for us it’s the challenge of putting it together and putting it on the field,” White said. “Who would have thought fate would throw a 60-game season on us, but out of something not so good, terrible, tragic, maybe there can be a silver lining.”