PHOENIX -- Trudge up to a Camelback Ranch backfield in triple-digit heat to get a look at White Sox first round pick Billy Carlson, and you might hear him before you see him.
Four instance, a loud and excited "whoop!" from the infield when White Sox pitcher Marcelo Valladares lands a backdoor breaking ball, too enthusiastic to wait for the reveal that the home plate umpire didn't actually call it a strike. As covering a White Sox clubhouse with team interpreter Billy Russo has revealed, native Spanish speakers tend to go softer on the first syllable of the name than their counterparts and harder on the second, and exhortations of "bi-LLEE!" mark Carlson's trips to the plate. With Carlson and the softer-spoken Matthew Boughton being the only US-born players in the Sox bridge league lineup on Thursday, there are only so many viable suspects for the steady stream of English-language cheering that is distinct from the bulk of the in-game chatter.
"I used to be real quiet kid and kept to myself," Carlson said, explaining that he was prodded to be more vocal while playing travel ball. "Just get everyone involved, make people around me better."
But you'll also probably see Carlson pretty quickly. Listed at 6-foot-1, he's not towering or anything. With an 180-pound frame that is the product of a dedicated effort to add strength since he arrived at the complex weighing 172 pounds, Carlson is Tim Anderson-sized. But his shiny necklace, flashy sunglasses are more visible on the field than they were for even the last White Sox stalwart shortstop.
"A lot of these MLB players have got swag now, so you've got to show your personality through the swag," Carlson said, revealing an unexpected four-time Gold Glove winner as his childhood inspiration. "Brandon Phillips was a big guy that I used to watch growing up. He was just swaggy and I liked the way he played."
The SoCal-born Carlson wasn't yet 7 years old when Phillips made his last All-Star appearance. His off-the-beaten-path choice of a baseball idol, and childhood memories of his mom rolling balls for him on slick tile floors honing his reflexes are refreshingly old-school trappings at a time where domestic players feel like the product of a assembly line, factory-like system more than ever.
Not that Carlson is some exception to the rule. He's the middle of three first-round picks that Corona High School produced this year, he refers to fourth overall pick Ethan Holiday and top-100 prospect Cooper Pratt as "buddies" of his, and his regular presence on the showcase circuit means that Carlson has "only" known White Sox second round pick Jaden Fauske since last summer.
A highly profit-driven amateur baseball industry creates financial barriers to the best talent getting the necessary development opportunities and scouting exposure to launch a professional career, and creates shortsighted incentives for players and their families to chase. If you ever have the opportunity to attend a scouting showcase event, listen to 16-year-olds rattle off their most recent 60-yard dash times or maximum exit velocity to the scouts in attendance that they greet like old work colleagues, then come to your own conclusions about whether American society has reached a tipping point in the commodification of youth baseball talent.
But it sure has produced a generation of young players who know where they stand. By the time anyone was calling Carlson the best defensive shortstop in the '25 draft, he had reached a similar conclusion, citing the straightforward logic that he had played with a healthy portion of the top draft picks and prospect of recent years, and never felt bested.
"When you're at the showcases and you're taking ground balls next to them, you always get a feel for who is the best one there, and I always felt l was that guy," Carlson said. "A lot of people sometimes try to be too flashy at shortstop and try to overdo it and dress up plays, but I take pride in just making the routine play and doing that, and the special plays will come."
Certainly no one at Camelback Ranch is about to argue with Carlson's self-assessment.
"Billy is the smoothest infielder I've ever seen," said fourth round pick Landon Hodge, who was Carlson's teammate during Area Codes. "There's no mistakes. There's no little hitches or anything."
"Shoot, he's got a bunch of tools," said infield coordinator Ryan Newman. "And Billy's a big personality, so he's always going to have answer for you."
Newman and Carlson have been interfacing on a small adjustment of fielding grounders more out in front of his body, as he acclimates to a faster professional game full of swifter runners than before. But a tweak this minute is hard to notice with the relaxed nature with which Carlson moves across the infield dirt, making a hard smash to his forehand side look routine, or darting in front of the springy Matthew Boughton for a slow roller behind the mound to the second base side before anyone realized he'd turned on the jets.
In compliance with the established theme, Carlson loudly calling for the ball prevented a collision.
The self-awareness means that Carlson is aware of the industry skepticism around his bat, as he indirectly referenced it on draft night, even if he doesn't grant it that much credence and believes his best work was against the best competition.
"In the fall there were some questions there, and I tried to use it as fuel during the season, like, 'I'm going to show y'all I can hit,' and I like to think I showed that during the spring," said Carlson, before downplaying the batting practice homers he hit on Wednesday. "I'm just trying to barrel the baseball up and that's pretty much it. I don't think that's going to be a problem, me putting balls in play. I've done that my whole life. I like to think I have good hands out in the infield and I think it transfers over to my hitting."
To his point about his contact ability, Carlson's Thursday was highlighted by him spoiling several inside fastballs before rapping a hard grounder down the third-base line for an RBI double at the end of an eight-pitch battle. Echoing a key that sounds like it could have come from the mouth of Colson Montgomery, Carlson feels he's been seeing the ball great in Arizona thanks to his commitment to staying tall in his stance, making him the rare player who is trying to "get out of my legs" with his swing.
As a little life hack for anyone out there trying to lose weight, the lightest scale readings are to be found just after waking in the morning when your body is usually dehydrated. In that vein, Carlson had been weighing himself at the end of the night to come off as heavier, so he confesses he was probably 171 pounds when he arrived at Camelback Ranch after signing. That means he estimates he's actually put on nine pounds of strength to reach his current 180, both a greater triumph given how much the sweltering conditions threaten to erase any gains, and what he credits for the load in his swing already looking smaller and more stable than some of his pre-draft video.
"I've been surprised with the way he's swung the bat. He's made some adjustments already," Newman said. "He's not scared of anything. He's got a big move but it's controlled and he's learning to control it more."
Using the draft as a scoreboard of sorts can cut both ways. If Carlson getting selected 10th overall validates industry consensus that he projects as above-average defensive shortstop, if not just an outright future Gold Glove-caliber fielder, then the fact that nine players were still selected before him is representative of the uncertainty around Carlson's bat, as the salary for the starting shortstop on the North Side of town is evidence of how valuable even average hitters are if they're also providing good defense at the most important infield position.
But to that end, Carlson thinks we'll be hearing and seeing plenty from his bat fairly soon.
"I don't feel there's anyone better than me with the stick either," Carlson said. "I take a lot of pride in my overall game and not just my fielding or my hitting. It's both, honestly. I'm a super-competitive kid. Whenever we were at the showcases, I wanted to prove I was the best guy there."
