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With the White Sox back in rebuilding mode, it’s time for another year of this question:
“When will (insert top prospect’s name here) get to the big leagues?”
The days of that question applying to the likes of Eloy Jiménez, Michael Kopech, Dylan Cease and Luis Robert Jr. are long past, Rick Hahn’s rebuilding project ending in last season’s 101-loss disaster.
Enter, then, the star of Chris Getz’s makeover effort: Colson Montgomery.
The White Sox took Montgomery, an Indiana high schooler, with the No. 22 pick in the 2021 draft, after the team was supposed to be cashing in on recent high selections like Nick Madrigal and Andrew Vaughn, top-five choices in 2019 and 2020. That was win-now mode, and the team grabbed their first AL Central title since 2008 later that summer.
But after a disappointing .500 finish in 2022 and last season’s unexpected cratering, Hahn lost his job. Now Getz is rebuilding again, and Montgomery has turned into a future cornerstone, even more so now that he’s proven to be one of the best minor league talents in the sport.
He’s currently ranked as the No. 9 prospect in baseball by MLB.com.
“A lot of expectations for me, but it’s not overwhelming,” Montgomery said last month in an interview with CHGO. “I’ve always kind of been in the spotlight, but you kind of want to be there.”
Involved in his second major league camp and sporting shades that make him look as much like a professional wrestler as a tall, skinny Hoosier can, Montgomery seems comfortable enough. Talking to him, it stems from the fact that he’s finally beyond the injury issues that nagged him during the first portion of last season, a campaign that even incomplete allowed him to skyrocket up online prospect rankings.
Splitting time between the Rookie ball team in Arizona, Class A Winston-Salem and Double-A Birmingham, Montgomery put together a heck of an offensive season, finishing with a .287 batting average and a jaw-dropping .456 on-base percentage. He had 25 extra-base hits and scored 51 runs in 64 games and walked the same number of times that he struck out, 56 apiece. An encore performance in the Arizona Fall League yielded 20 RBIs in 20 games.
But numbers weren’t the highlight of the year for Montgomery.
“I’m more pleased with how I carried myself having to deal with all the injuries,” he said. “Not even just the playing side, going through all that stuff, being (in Arizona), not being where I think I should be. It’s a toll on your body and your mind. The fact that I was able to get through all that? And then once I was released to go play, it was like releasing a caged animal. I was like, ‘Finally, I can go play and things feel better.’
“I was happy with how I went about my business. Not even the playing side, because I feel like that’s always going to be there. But I was happy with how I carried myself.”
Between Montgomery’s performance and Getz’s comments about not wanting to cap what Montgomery could do in 2024, it raised seemingly legitimate questions about the organization’s top prospect seriously competing for a big league job this spring. That idea has cooled, and it seems Montgomery will start the season at Triple-A Charlotte.
But there’s no underselling how highly the White Sox and the baseball world at large think of the 22-year-old.
“When it comes to Colson, I don’t think there’s a player in, perhaps, minor league baseball that (has) the arrow pointed in the direction that he has at the current moment,” Getz said in his pre-spring media session last month. “(The objective for him this spring is) just to continue that momentum. Players like that let you know when they’re ready to be at the major league level.
“He’s very mature in the (batter’s) box, very under control. Obviously, he’s got power potential. He understands what it takes to be successful at the major league level, even though he doesn’t have too much baseball experience, which is amazing to say. But that just speaks to the talent he has.
“We’re excited and we’re very fortunate to have Colson. When it comes to spring training, certainly we want to get off to a good start, keep him on the field and set him up for success this year.”
Montgomery’s injury-impacted 2023 limited the number of games he was actually able to get into, so it makes sense that there’s more development to be had before he makes the leap to the big leagues.
Much of that development might have to do with how he plays defense. That element of his game is the one most routinely critiqued by outside evaluators, and those evaluations have spooked a lot of White Sox fans into wondering whether Montgomery will stick at shortstop for the long term. That’s his position right now and where he’s been playing in Cactus League games. The White Sox talk about him as a shortstop and someone who will receive the opportunity to develop there.
“It really comes down to consistency,” Getz said of what he’s looking for from Montgomery defensively. “There’s certain plays at the shortstop position that you need to be very efficient with your footwork. He’s got all the tools to play the position. Experience will be the best teacher for him. Each season, he’s had some health setbacks, so most importantly, we want him to get out there and have a healthy season, have a complete season.
“Defensively, he plays with such ease. He’s got good feel for the position. And he’s continuing to impress and improve on a daily basis. He’s made a strong impression already just working with other players in camp, with our coaches.”
How does Montgomery feel about his defense?
“I’m going to give it everything I’ve got,” he said. “I’m always going to be a fierce competitor. I’m going to make the right play, I’m going to do whatever I can to help the team. You ask how I feel about my defense, and it’s that I’m going to do everything I can to help the pitcher out, help my guys out. And that’s really all you can do, at the end of the day.”
The White Sox spent the last eight years watching Tim Anderson go through ups and downs defensively at the shortstop position. There were years he piled up the errors, years he worked his butt off to improve. In fans’ last look at him, he was back on the downswing defensively, committing 15 errors last season.
Anderson, now playing for the Marlins, is a hell of an athlete, and he can get to balls that others can’t, make plays that others don’t have the opportunity to make. The routine plays, though, sometimes ended poorly. White Sox brass wants Montgomery to be able to make those, well, routinely.
But Montgomery is thinking a little more along the same lines as Anderson as he attempts to avoid the same pitfalls the former face of the franchise did.
“I feel like what some people do, they get away from being what they actually are, being an athlete,” Montgomery said. “Everybody here is clearly a very good athlete if you’re in professional baseball. I feel like a lot of people try to get too robotic with things. But for me, I’m trying to stay athletic, keep my feet moving, stay light on my feet, and everything else will take care of the rest.”
While there was constant fan suggestion that Anderson move to a different position, whether it was to free up space for a hoped-for free agent or cut down on the errors coming from shortstop, that only barely materialized, with Anderson appearing in two games as a second baseman in his final South Side season.
Montgomery is already getting those same recommendations from the fan base. As someone who hasn’t done what Anderson has – make a couple All-Star teams, win a batting title and deliver arguably the most epic single moment in recent baseball history – he’s not going to be making any demands.
“Whatever I can do to help the team. I’m not going to say no,” Montgomery said. “If they say, ‘You’re going to the big leagues, but you’re going to play second,’ I’m not going to say no. I’m going to play, do (things to) the best of my abilities, help the team. And if that’s what I’ve got to do to help the team win, that’s what I’m going to do.”
Next up, we’re going to see what Montgomery can do.
He’ll likely stick around big league camp a while longer, even if he’s unlikely to be in contention for a job on the Opening Day roster. Excitedly healthy, he has a chance to best even what he did last year as he faces a higher level of pitching in the minor leagues.
But while we’ll likely treat Getz like we did Hahn and ask about Montgomery’s arrival date at every opportunity, it doesn’t seem much of a stretch to assume that the White Sox’ top prospect could be playing for the big league team by season’s end.
It goes without saying, perhaps, that the man himself is itching to step into the major league spotlight.
“As any competitor in a sport at the top of your game, you want to be at the top. I’m really hungry for all that stuff,” Montgomery said. “I’m not going to push it, I’m not going to put pressure on myself or anything like that, because that’s when you start playing worse, when you’re thinking about a whole bunch of stuff.
“I would say I’m hungry. Everybody should be hungry. And if you’re not hungry, then you shouldn’t be here. I would say I’m really hungry because of how I did in the Fall League and how I came back from injuries and how I was playing well, kind of opened my eyes and opened a lot of people’s eyes to what I can do for the team.”
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