Colson Montgomery crashes Baseball America’s Top 100

The shortstop wasn’t even ranked preseason, and now sits at No. 53 after a scintillating first half

Colson Montgomery started the year firmly among the Top 5 White Sox prospects. Yet in reality, he was for sure behind José Rodríguez, and probably Bryan Ramos and Oscar Colás as well, to put him no higher than third or fourth overall.

Montgomery did not have a bad start to his professional career after getting drafted in 2021, Rodríguez was just so good last year, and Ramos had a very good age-19 season in Kannapolis. Colás was just a big name with a big bonus behind him, with some professional international experience.

This year has been different. Montgomery has outplayed them all, and outshined a lot of minor leaguers — all but 52 of them, according to Baseball America.

The publication’s scouting report is frankly odd, giving stronger grades for his fielding, arm and power (55) than his hitting (50), which is in direct opposition to what we’ve seen in his pro career so far. But in BA’s writeup, it notes his bat-to-ball skills and is buoyed by Montgomery’s ability to make punishing contact, noting his max exit velo of 112+ mph this season.

Montgomery started 2022 in Kannapolis, and actually had a slow start to his year. In April, he finished his time there with a .735 OPS over 14 games, and then got hurt. He was out from April 24-May 13, and he came back a new hitter — a better one.

Between Kannapolis and Winston-Salem since he returned from the IL, Montgomery has a whopping 173 wRC+, and of course, that does include his 45-game on-base streak.

Since getting his promotion to High-A, Montgomery obviously has reached base in all 13 games, and he has walked (10) more than he has struck out (six). That seems to be what Montgomery will be known for, his professional at-bats. He is showing a bit more power lately (.178 ISO), but he is only 20 so he still has time to grow into slugging. And hey, it’s not like this approach is bad right now. The power is just the only thing that we would want to see improve at the plate.

On the field is where things to get dicey. Montgomery is a shortstop, for now, but he could easily move over to third if his fielding does not improve. He has 14 errors in 55 games at short this season, which is not great.

Montgomery deserves this attention, though, and has been rewarded as a Top 100 prospect in all of MiLB. Congratulations to him, and who knows, maybe we’ll see him on the South Side sooner than anticipated.