An old scouting adage is if you see it once, that means it's in there.
For all his struggles over the past two years in Triple-A, striking out over 30 percent of the time through 185 games at the level, Montgomery is capable of ripping off swings that look like the work of one of the most talented young hitters in the world. This swing in particular from the seven-game stretch that got Montgomery called up to the majors, staying on a lefty-lefty slider to blast it out to dead center, particularly wowed White Sox decision-makers.
They pulled the trigger to call him up a week later.
"Just really excited about the consistency that he’s shown over the last six weeks, which to be transparent, had eluded him a little bit most of the last year," said player development director Paul Janish on Monday. "He’s in a good spot. He’s hitting the ball hard, he’s having good at-bats."
That old adage is more commonly used by amateur scouts, trying to find flashes of big league ability in far-off high school and college players, than pro scouts watching Triple-A games and trying to determine if what they're watching can consistently perform at the highest level. And "consistency" has been the watchword with Montgomery for a good minute now.
"He understands what he needs to do on a mechanics standpoint," said Chris Getz last month. "This game can be very challenging and you can fall into these traps along the way. He's still growing as a player and a person. It's just a matter of being as consistent as possible on a daily basis with his routines and then the approach at the plate."
From the scouting and potential viewpoint, Montgomery remains a marvel. It's a distant memory now, but on draft night, the idea that Montgomery would grow into plus raw power was all projection. He was a skinny 6-foot-3 back then, compared to his now bulked up 6-foot-5, which he's using to produce what would be well above-average major league exit velocities from the outset of last year. Montgomery has hit a ball 115.3 mph this year, and Luis Robert Jr. (115.8 mph) is the only person on the Sox roster who can boast a similar outburst.
Montgomery has long levers, impressive raw strength and plus bat speed. His contributions will not be small, under-the-radar moments that only dedicated baseball viewers can appreciate. They will be awe-striking moonshots that suggests superstardom is a tweak away. Montgomery has hit .270/.353/.574 with Triple-A Charlotte in 32 games since returning from his demotion to the ACL, and hasn't even looked that good half the time; a testament to how much production his hot streaks can piled up.
"He's getting stronger and getting tighter," said White Sox minor league hitting coach Cameron Seitzer last August, in what remains one of the more instructive comments on Montgomery's recent development. As the 23-year-old has grown into the massive power potential his lanky frame long suggested, he's sacrificed some of the fluidity in his swing, and the Sox have been trying to calibrate his mechanics in response ever since.
The changes in Montgomery's operation since his Arizona work sessions with director of hitting Ryan Fuller are not glaring, but it might be easier to spot a shorter path for his hands from setup to load, or him coiling rather than swaying back with his front leg, with the understanding that their overall goals are to quiet his movements and give him more time to make adjustments and good swing decisions.
As is often the case with long-levered power-hitting lefties, and became readily apparent upon Jim's midseason look at Montgomery at Triple-A last year, he can be beat by well-commanded elevated velocity. This is pretty common for his swing path: Montgomery's best contact is coming when he can extend his arms down and/or away, and he's actually made nice strides in getting his in-zone whiffs back under control in 2025.
But the biggest update from the version of Montgomery that started getting top-100 prospect buzz is plate discipline. He walked as often as he struck out during his 2022 stint at High-A Winston-Salem, and repeated the feat in an injury-shortened 2023 that saw him mop the floor with lower-level competition during rehab stints. It earned him the reputation of an OBP machine with a judicious batting eye, setting the foundation for his power maturation to vault him into superstardom.
Instead, the bigger and stronger version of Montgomery chases quite often and hasn't sniffed a double-digit walk rate all year. He's developed a real vulnerability to backfoot breaking balls, driving a 52 percent miss rate on sliders in the opening weeks of the season until the Sox intervened and sent him to the ACL. He's staying with benders better since returning, but is still chasing at pitches out of the strike zone over 30 percent of the time against Triple-A pitching. The league average chase rate against major league pitching is 28 percent, and Montgomery's swing length will drive a healthy amount of swing-and-miss in the zone, let alone if he's chasing at Brooks Baldwin rates (31.3 percent) on top of it.
Of course, if you're one of the happy few who have been close-watching the White Sox offense relentlessly through the past few weeks, Montgomery could sound like a tonic. The Sox lineup has plenty of hitters who can work a count and coax out a mistake, but is regularly running low on guys who crush mistakes with game-changing force.
Granted, they already Tim Elko bring this brand of offense, and he couldn't calibrate his approach for the best pitching in the world and transform the lineup at the same time. But Montgomery brings both more defensive utility, and much more assurance that his growing pains are in service of a long-term commitment to his development. And how much more obvious can it be that the Sox are committed to their belief in Montgomery? They just called him up right after a Triple-A team intentionally walked Corey Julks to face him in a game-deciding situation.
Ideally, there'll be a tape-measure Coors Field homer in the early days to remind everyone why Montgomery is compelling, but he should struggle as he adjusts to the major league level. It's merely a realistic view of where he's at, and an offensive profile that's tilted recently toward more at-bats where he strikes out and looks bad, and long home runs that justify it. But the worst thing about rebuilding seasons are all the nights and games that drag by without meaning, and now the Sox will be finding out crucial things about their future lineup on a daily basis.
