The White Sox’ rebuild marches on. That hasn’t meant many wins at the big league level, but the franchise’s planned cornerstones are developing in the minors.
It’s a group headlined by lefty pitcher Noah Schultz, the organization’s top-ranked prospect, who is making his second straight trip to the Futures Game, the team announced Monday. Schultz will be joined in the All-Star Week showcase by outfielder Braden Montgomery, who was acquired in December’s Garrett Crochet trade.
Schultz is having a nice season, but his first two starts since being promoted to Triple-A Charlotte haven’t gone well. He allowed 11 runs in 7„ innings.
Some of that might be expected, given Charlotte’s hitter-friendly ballpark. It’s also worth remembering that the box score isn’t everything in player development.
“It’s all in an effort to kind of keep pushing him,” Sox farm director Paul Janish said Monday. “We are going to ask him to do it at the major-league level, and that’s going to be even more difficult.
“He’s not a short-term play. He’s somebody we feel very strongly about being a cog in the future of the organization.”
The Sox slow-played Schultz last season. He pitched once a week and never more than four innings at a time. He’s on a more typical schedule this year and throwing more innings.
“It’s been a big adjustment, changing to shorter schedules and going deeper in games,” Schultz said Monday. “There’s a bunch of little pieces you’ve got to put together, but one of the first things I noticed was I was throwing harder later into games, which showed the stuff I’m doing behind the scenes, the strength stuff, it’s been working.”
Montgomery is further from the majors than Schultz, but he has been great in his first season of pro ball.
“First time I ever saw Braden on the field was his freshman year at Stanford. . . . It was one of those, ‘Holy crap, this guy is different’ kinds of things,” Janish said. “He’s going to play on TV one day.”
Montgomery was the No. 12 pick in last summer’s draft but didn’t immediately jump to the minors after fracturing his ankle at the end of the college season. In his first taste of the pros this year, he’s batting .274 with an .820 OPS, 10 homers and 49 RBI in 70 games between Low A Kannapolis and High A Winston-Salem.
“Baseball’s a lot of failure,” Montgomery said Monday. “But … I’m too drawn to it to ever stop getting back up after failing.
“I’m really excited to get a chance to go to the Futures Game, but outside of that, I’d say [my season has been] just all right. . . . I’ve got high expectations for myself, and I know what I’m capable of.”
How close is Colson?
Could shortstop Colson Montgomery, a step away from the majors at Triple-A, be the next prospect to make his way to the South Side?
It’s been a roller-coaster season for the 2021 first-rounder, who started miserably, prompting the Sox to send him to Arizona to work with hitting director Ryan Fuller. He returned with a successful stretch, then slumped again before his current hot streak: 11 hits, including four homers, in his last 22 at-bats.
That’s a 1.749 OPS over his last five games.
Looking at his numbers can give you whiplash, but might this latest rebound be enough to make the Sox consider a promotion to the big leagues?
“One of the things you start to look to is the consistency and being able to pull himself out of a funk, which he really didn’t show us last year. He’s done that a couple times this year now, which is super encouraging,” Janish said. “You do want to strike while the iron’s hot with a guy like that. . . . Giving them the opportunity to go up when they’re playing well is definitely preferred.
“He’s in a really good place and doing what he needs to do and putting himself in a conversation, for sure.”
Who knows if that means another noteworthy major-league debut is imminent?
But it’s a sign that a huge rebuilding milestone could be getting closer.