Colson Montgomery's detour a discouraging development for White Sox

The White Sox have an abysmal record of drafting (or signing) and developing players through their minor league system over the last decade (and longer, actually). Even if you include players they acquired from other teams and came through their minor league system to the big leagues, it’s an unimpressive list: Tim Anderson, Luis Robert, Eloy Jimenez, Yoan Moncada, Andrew Vaughn, Nick Madrigal, Gavin Sheets, Lenyn Sosa, Danny Mendick, Zack Collins, etc., etc. Even the best of those have faded too soon. 

That does not bode well for Colson Montgomery, the 2021 first-round draft pick who was sent to the White Sox’s Arizona complex to work on his swing after hitting .149 with a .478 OPS, with three home runs and six RBIs in 23 games with Class AAA Charlotte. 

At 23, after four seasons in the White Sox farm system, Montgomery is getting worse. He hit .214 in a full season at Charlotte 572 plate appearances) last season. 

Sox general manager Chris Getz tried to put the most positive spin on it that he could when he talked to reporters on Tuesday. “We are optimistic we are going to make strides,” he said. “Players, oftentimes, they wait until the offseason to make some of these adjustments. We figured, why wait? Let’s attack this, and we look forward to seeing what we can do.” 

This will be a huge test for new White Sox director of hitting Ryan Fuller, whom Getz hired from the Orioles, where he was their co-hitting coach for the previous three seasons. 

Fuller came to the Sox with a solid reputation and at least a hand in major league success on his resume — the Orioles rise from 110 losses in 2021 to 101 wins in 2023 and back-to-back playoff appearances is rooted in their offense. They were 26th in MLB in runs scored in 2021 (4.07 per game). They were fourth last year (4.85).

But Mullins already had established himself at Class AAA by then. Montgomery has not. And even at his best, Fuller is a hitting coach, not a magician. While Getz said “there have been plenty of examples” of players leaving a minor-league team to work on things, there aren’t many examples of first-round picks who have struggled like Montgomery has at Class AAA — a .204 batting average with a .674 OPS in 675 plate appearances — and recovered to make it big, or make it at all.

Getz pointed out that the Orioles took a similar tack with struggling outfielder Cedric Mullins — apparently referring to 2019 (Fuller's first year with the organization), when Mullins was hitting .094 with Baltimore, but used a similar minor-league tune-up to get on track. Mullins, after giving up switch hitting, hit .294 and made the American League All-Star team in 2021.

But Mullins already had established himself at Class AAA. Montgomery has not. And the. White Sox don't have a history of those kind of success stories. Most if not all of their top prospects who have just made it to the big leagues had produced immediately at Class AAA — Robert (.297/.975 in 2019); Jimenez (.356/.996 in 2018); Anderson (.304/.734 in 2016); Jake Burger (.274/.845 in 2021); Gavin Sheets (.295, .895 in 2021); Nick Madrigal (.331/.822 in 2019. Even Zack Collins, the 2016 first-round pick who lasted just 114 games with the White Sox, earned the opportunity by hitting .282/.951 at Charlotte in 2019. 

It’s likely there are some examples throughout the big leagues of players who have struggled at Class AAA as much as Montgomery before it finally clicked. But the Sox haven’t earned the benefit of the doubt.