White Sox assistant hitting coach Joel McKeithan departing for promotion with Cardinals

Successful MLB offenses have a tendency to lose their assistant hitting coaches.

After leading the American League in runs scored in 2026, and socking the fifth-most home runs in baseball, the White Sox are indeed losing assistant hitting coach Joel McKeithan. A source confirmed to the Sun-Times the news first reported by FanSided–the Cardinals are hiring the 35-year-old McKeithan to be their lead hitting coach.

McKeithan has been a lead hitting coach for an MLB team before, coming to the White Sox in 2025 after two years in that role for the Reds. In his two seasons as an assistant hitting coach with the Sox, McKeithan worked under then-hitting coach Marcus Thames in ‘25 and with current lead hitting coach Derek Shomon this past year and regularly earned praise from both.

“Joel does a really, really good job of staying in touch with [Triple-A hitting coach] Aaron Bray in Charlotte,” Shomon said in June when asked about the team’s success incorporating rookies and call-ups. “Just getting tidbits on guys again–if they are on their way up, or maybe going to be on their way up–just to get us in a position where we're prepared for when they get here.”

White Sox general manager Chris Getz said last month that he expected to retain the team’s coaching staff for the 2027 season, but losing people to promotions with other clubs is a widely accepted cost of business for fielding a winning team. An MLB.com report indicated Sox bench coach Walker McKinven interviewed for the Mariners manager job that eventually went to Jason Kanzler, and a source confirmed that assistant general manager Josh Barfield interviewed for the Astros GM position that went to Randy Flores.

With Shomon still expected to return alongside major league assistant Tony Medina to run the Sox major-league hitting operation, an external hire is internally seen as the most likely remedy for replacing McKeithan.