When I reported the White Sox Arizona Fall League contributors two weeks ago, Sean Burke was on the list rather than looking like part of the 2025 Opening Day roster, and his good friend Colson Montgomery was nowhere to be seen.
Well, the other seven names reported held up pretty well. Birmingham closer Eric Adler has also been added to the mix.
After playing in the AFL last season as a way to make up playing time lost to a back strain, Montgomery is adding October baseball to a career-high 130 games played at Triple-A Charlotte. And after being hailed as a top-15 prospect in the sport coming out of his AFL performance in 2023, Montgomery is trying to redeem a season that underwhelmed to the point that it prompted a meeting between White Sox brass and the 22-year-old shortstop's camp.
"We did have a little discussion around [a month before the end of the season]," said director of player development Paul Janish. "He was struggling. He internalized some things with regard to frustration, and it kind of snowballed on him, at the end of the day. He was frustrated, irritated, mad, whatever you want to say. That was the aspiration there. We looped in some of his support team, as well, just in an effort to know, ‘We’re all on the same page here. We want Colson to play well.’ I give Colson credit, because he was open to it and he embraced it. And honestly, he applied it toward the end of the season. It was better down the stretch. He hit some homers, got back into the middle of the field."
At the end of August, Montgomery and Knights hitting coach Cameron Seitzer were deep into work on reducing the lower half movement in his swing. As Montgomery has bloomed into a buff six-foot-five, 230-pound build, Seitzer had seen more stiffness in his swing come with it, and worked to shrink the loading action of a prospect who had grown suddenly strikeout-prone (28.6 percent) despite a superb batting eye.
Those limitations and what the Sox felt had become an overly pull-happy approach, make it non-coincidental that Janish spoke about opening Montgomery's game back up.
"The best word is ‘free’ with him," Janish said. "Colson’s a big guy, right? He’s athletic. But at the end of the day, it’s about being free for him and him feeling free in the box and within an at-bat to really get his swing off with good direction in the middle of the field. He’s got the blessing of when it’s working, it’s going to work really well. And that’s all we’re trying to do, is help facilitate him understanding: ‘Look man, go out there and have fun.’"
While the strikeout remained elevated, Montgomery hit .264/.357/.458 in September, providing something to build off as his workload drifts into unprecedented territory.
"I want to play every day so I'm going to do everything I can to prove that," Montgomery said in August. "Just being healthy and ready to go every single day, it's been really nice because last year was really hard. Coming off all those injuries and whatever I had going into the season only being able to play 60 games wasn't very fun."
After playing 20 games in the AFL last season, Montgomery isn't expected to have any workload restrictions this year, even with 130 games already under his belt.
"Hopefully he plays more than 130 next year, right?" Janish quipped.
Grant Taylor's Baseball Reference page hasn't seen any updates since he went down with a lat strain in June, but the 2023 second round pick has been throwing in bridge league games in Arizona. Despite just 16 innings at Low-A on his professional record, Janish not only expects the hard-throwing right-hander to be one of the best arms in the AFL, but entering the upper echelon of White Sox pitching prospects soon.
"Hagen Smith and Noah [Schultz], those guys are obviously extremely talented," Janish said. "But Grant's going to be in the same mold. It's that kind of pure ability. We need to be very intentional with doing what we can to help him stay healthy. Obviously he's had some issues on that front but he's a big, strong kid. I go back to that he wants to be really good. He wants the ball. He likes to be in the fire."
Taylor's workload was bound to be limited in his first season back from Tommy John surgery, but his lat strain was notable because his combination of high-90s velocity and elite delivery extension is only rivaled by Tyler Glasnow, who has not been a paragon of durability during his career. Any Glasnow-shaped production would be a dream outcome for a post-TJ upside play out of the second round, but the Sox want to find a way to keep Taylor healthy without tamping down that makes him exceptional.
"We're not going to go down the road of trying to compromise the way he moves or operates," Janish said. "What we're going to try to do is help him understand what he needs to do on a day to day basis, week to week and the season as a whole to give himself the best opportunity to stay healthy. At the end of the day he's big and strong, everything works fast, when that's happening, when the engine's running like that, we're all subject to breaking down a little bit. We're just trying to make the support system even stronger and help Grant understand what he needs to do to say healthy."
