Before Noah Schultz made his Double-A Birmingham debut with four innings of one-hit ball last Saturday, Barons pitching coach John Ely stressed that the results would only mean so much for the 20-year-old left-hander.
"He's going to be just fine," Ely said, stressing repeatedly that Schultz's stuff is too good, his aptitude for learning too advanced to stress over whether he immediately dominates markedly older competition or not. "It took me a longer time to understand who I was [as a pitcher], and what I needed to do succeed. And he already has an understanding of it.
"He just has to refine and realize 'OK, I have to do this in these situations.' He just needs reps. He just needs on-the-job experience. That's all. Once he gets it, he's going to explode."
Director of player development Paul Janish has struck a similar tone. The trust that Schultz has major league-caliber weapons -- especially now that he's added a Garrett Crochet-like cutter to bridge the velocity gap between his sinker and slider -- is such that the organization's 2024 goals for the left-hander are very tangible: increasing his innings base for future seasons, and added strength for more core stability, even though his control of a 6-foot-9-inch frame is already so lauded by Ely.
After he "learned a lot" from last season where he dealt a flexor strain and shoulder impingement, Schultz said his clean bill of health so far is already a reward of that point of emphasis. He credited the diet he improved over the offseason to better physical recovery after outings, and for the lack of issues through what is already a career-high 31⅓ innings this season.
"Definitely trying to get it to translate this season, I think it's definitely worked," Schultz said. "To get innings, especially after having not that many last year, just getting as many innings as I can this year, it's important."
It's fitting that Schultz finds Crochet starts to be appointment viewing, because their workload situations feel similar. Their handling by the team can read as overcautious given how breezily they're exceeding expectations, but their lack of track record means there is no real roadmap. The COVID outbreak clamped down Schultz's sophomore season, and his own mononucleosis threw a wrench into his senior campaign, so he lacks even the innings base of a typical high schooler.
Yet despite being new to the grind of a six-month season and the hard-won experience it lends, Ely was raving before Schultz had made his first Barons start because of how easily Schultz's knowledge base and understanding of pitching concepts fit in with his older, currently thriving rotation-mates.
"You throw him in a room with anybody at this level, his ability to converse, his input, he's got a very high aptitude," Ely said. "He doesn't look like an older guy, but he acts like it. He already has feel for the clubhouse, he doesn't show high school tendencies. He seems like a guy that came out of college, if that makes sense. He meshes really well. He has feel for the fact that he just came into a rotation with five absolute studs and he doesn't ruffle any feathers."
Schultz's training as a youth pitcher was very biomechanically inclined, filled with the insight MLB teams usually tout after developmental victories. He understood that his posture made low three-quarters his ideal arm slot for repetition and command long before any pro team weighed in on the matter and extolled the approach angle benefits.
It's not any shocking revelation to Schultz that his sinker can actually play up in the zone as well, even if he views it as largely a wrinkle to change eye levels at this point. While the White Sox are probably significantly more well-positioned to optimize a unique prospect like Schultz than they were five years ago, their 20-year-old prodigy is positioned to simply compare and contrast the movement analysis they have to offer his delivery to what he's already been exposed to.
"In spring training I had to touch up on some mechanics," Schultz said. "I remember it was some things I worked on previously with coach [Mark] Sheehan. It was just a touch-up, looking at video, being a visual person, to help see and compare video from previous years, to try and touch on making my mechanics better."
"We've been very fortunate to have some moves on the front office side with some people that have a really good understanding of the way the body moves and allowing people to move the way that they're supposed to," Ely said. "Especially in regards to the lower release point and playing to your strengths. He throws a sinker but it's an elite-level sinker at the velocity and release height. The whole mix of what goes into making a fastball play up to its eventual best form, it's a much better understanding. The proof is in the pudding throughout our organization, especially at Double-A right now."
Even more fittingly, the age-old problem of "How do you get a dominant power pitching prospect to use their changeup when their fastball-slider combination is always overwhelming" is something Schultz already dealt with in high school. Velocity-differential changeups a la Drew Thorpe aren't effective in high school ball if you already throw over 90 mph, so Schultz worked on something with tumble and fade that he could actually use back when it was all opposing hitters could catch up to.
"If the game is on the line then yeah, just throw your slider and we're going to get out of the inning, but give him pockets in the game where this is what I want you to work on," Ely said of how he handles using the whole pitch mix.
"Just trust it and go out there and get the reps. I don't care if you walk a guy, don't care if you hit a guy, I really don't care if you give up a home run, or give up a couple runs. It's about his progression in his development."
That lines up with a Schultz experience where single awry innings have slightly elevated his ERA (3.45 in eight starts across Winston-Salem and now Birmingham), despite peripherals that have him looking as dominant as ever (38.2 percent strikeout rate with a 5.7 percent walk rate), and highlights that often look like an exceptionally tall young man playing with his food.
"I’m happy with my command," Schultz said. "I think it's been fairly good this year. I think I want to keep that. Keep throwing strikes and keep giving my team the best chance to win."
"You see his stature and the way that he's built and you wouldn't think he as coordinated as he is, but he's an athlete and he has body control," Ely said. "It's really special for a kid his size, at his age, to understand the way his body moves and why."
As nice and ground as it is to hear White Sox personnel talk up the components of Schultz's game rather than scout the stat line, the stat line is becoming notable. He's going to spend the next few months showing his ability against the most prospect-laden level of professional ball, where direct call-ups from the majors are not uncommon, and the first impression is that Schultz lines up well with a group of Barons starters that figure to make starts in Chicago in the second half.
For a White Sox team that feels eons away from success at the major league level, their most careful, long-term development project doesn't feel so far away any more. And the pie-in-the-sky, 99th percentile outcome comments from draft night where he was often physically compared to Randy Johnson, are comparisons that Schultz is still getting asked about in Double-A. He reasons that can only be a good sign.
"It's definitely cool to be compared to these guys but in the end, I'm my own pitcher, Schultz said. "It's cool to watch them and see how they play but I try to be my own. If people want to compare, they can. But I know that I don't try to be them. I try to be my own pitcher."
