Noah Schultz reminds a lot of people of a tall, lanky lefty the White Sox had back in the day, and that is nothing but a good thing. The comparisons to Chris Sale may be lofty, but it’s never a bad thing to be compared to the best White Sox pitcher this century.
A hometown kid, Shultz was drafted as a high-school senior out of Oswego East High School. He would absolutely dominate the competition, as he was significantly better than most of the players he would face in Illinois high school baseball. There were concerns about his signability, but the White Sox were able to lure him away from his Vanderbilt commitment, as they gave him a significant 2.8 million signing bonus in the 26th overall slot.
An arm injury would delay his professional debut until this year, but he luckily did not need Tommy John surgery. The wait was worth it, as he absolutely dominated in Kannpolis. The White Sox eased him into game action, as he started 10 games, but only pitched 27 innings.
But, in those 27 innings, he was unhittable, and there was a significant streak of innings where he did not give up any runs to start his professional career. He would finish the season with a 1.3 ERA, giving up 17 hits over that timeframe. He struck out an impressive 38 batters and only walked six. That is exactly the ratio the White Sox are looking for out of their top pitching prospect. He was good at keeping runners off base as his WHIP was .852 and batters only hit .175 against him. This is about of good as you can get for his professional debut.
Since he is now 20, he will likely start the season at Winston-Salem and hopefully finish the season off in Birmingham. Let’s hope the White Sox cut him loose of any restrictions and remove any innings limit. I would really like to see him pitch 6-7 innings in a start, instead of 2-3. He is going to be a starter in the pros, so let’s start treating him like it.
I would grade Schultz’s season as an A, as it simply cannot get much better than what he did. He has true front-of-the-rotation stuff and could soon be featured in a rotation that features top prospects Jake Eder and Nick Nastrini. For all the bad that Rick Hahn did, he left us with some nice pitching prospects that hopefully will be able to contribute at the major league level.
MLB grades his fastball as above average, as it sits in the mid-90s from a funky angle on the left side. He has drawn comparisons to Randy Johnson, as he is 6 foot 9 inches and throws with a semi-sidearm motion like Johnson. The best pitch he has is his slider, which scouts feel is his best pitch by far. It is well above average and could be one of the better sliders in the game. I would love to see him rise through the system quickly and make it to Chicago as soon as possible.
