Three White Sox prospects surfaced on two of Baseball America's weekly watch lists, all on the position-player side of things.
Braden Montgomery and Caleb Bonemer earned spots on the most recent Hot Sheet, with Montgomery third and Bonemer 14th on the top 20. Both reached base at least half the time during the six-game series against Columbia last week, combining to walk 13 times against just four strikeouts.
Further up the chain, Tim Elko rated as one of BA's top 10 Statcast Standouts due to gains he's made with both raw power and contact rates.
Swinging harder usually comes at the cost of more swing-and-miss. Somehow, Elko has been able to make massive strides in his bat-to-ball, as well. If you scroll back up Elko’s 2024 card, you’ll see a lot of purple for his in-zone contact on sliders, breaking balls and offspeed pitches. He was also chasing those pitches out of the zone a lot. That meant pitchers could simply challenge him with non-fastballs, and he’d either chase or miss, or swing through it in the zone.
This year, he’s making a ton of contact against those same pitch types in-zone, absolutely crushing them when he puts them in play. Most importantly, he has dramatically reduced his chase rates on these pitch types. This strongly suggests a giant leap in ability against non-fastballs. All of these improvements add up to much better swing decision metrics and a zone contact rate that went from almost 10% below average to 4% above average.
Charlotte 5, Scranton/Wilkes-Barre 4 (11 innings)
- Brandon Drury went 0-for-3 with two walks.
- Tim Elko singled, walked, struck out twice and hit a sac fly.
- Kyle Teel went 1-for-5 with a K.
- Colson Montgomery was 0-for-4 with a walk and two strikeouts.
- Nick Nastrini: 6 IP, 2 H, 0 R, 2 BB, 6 K, 45 of 74 pitches for strikes.
Birmingham 7, Rocket City 1
- Rikuu Nishida went 0-for-3 with two walks, a strikeout and a stolen base.
- William Bergolla, 2-for-5 with two stolen bases and a strikeout.
- Wilfred Veras went 1-for-4 with a homer, walk and strikeout.
- DJ Gladney was 1-for-2 with a strikeout, and was lifted after trying to run out the dropped third strike.
- Jacob Gonzalez was 1-for-4 with a K.
- Grant Taylor: 3 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 2 BB, 5 K, 27 of 46 pitches for strikes.
- Peyton Pallette: 1 IP, 2 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 1 BB, 2 K, 17 of 30 pitches for strikes.
Rome 8, Winston-Salem 2
- Sam Antonacci went 2-for-4 with a double and a strikeout.
- Jackson Appel singled twice, was hit by a pitch, drew a catcher interference and stole a base.
- Jeral Perez was 1-for-4 with a strikeout.
- Samuel Zavala, 0-for-3 with two strikeouts.
- Tanner McDougal: 3.2 IP, 4 H, 4 R, 2 ER, 5 BB, 3 K, 1 HBP, 45 of 85 pitches for strikes.
Kannapolis 8, Myrtle Beach 6 (12 innings)
- Caleb Bonemer went 2-for-5 with a walk and a stolen base.
- Ronny Hernandez was 1-for-6 with two strikeouts.
- Braden Montgomery, 3-for-6 with a double and a strikeout.
- Lyle Miller-Green, 1-for-5 with a walk and two strikeouts.
- Javier Mogollón came a triple shy of the cycle during a 3-for-6 night, during which he struck out and stole a base.
- George Wolkow struck out thrice during an 0-for-5 night, and was hit by a pitch.
- Ryan Burrowes struck out thrice during an 0-for-6 night.
Notes:
*Kannapolis led this one 6-0 going into the bottom of the ninth.
