After being limited to just 64 minor league games in 2023, Colson Montgomery is continuing to get reps in the Arizona Fall League. On Monday he was at the center of a Glendale Desert Dogs comeback.
Montgomery logged two RBIs, a walk, and two hits which included a walk-off single. Montgomery came to the plate in the bottom of the ninth inning and ripped a bases-loaded single to center field on a full count to plate the Twins No. 19 prospect, Kala’i Rosario. The Desert Dogs were trailing 4-3 entering the ninth inning before Montgomery’s single secured the win.
Montgomery’s first hit of the game also came via a single when he hit a line drive to right field in the third inning. The White Sox’s top prospect is now batting .254 in AFL action with a .755 OPS. The 21-year-old also has three home runs and 17 RBIs, which is tied for the fifth most in the AFL.
Those numbers don’t jump off the page but Montgomery is using the Fall League as a way to make up for some of the time he missed during the regular season. He did not appear in his first game this season until June.
The White Sox have a lot riding on Montgomery’s development. He was selected with the 22nd overall pick in the 2021 draft out of South Ridge High School in Indiana. In 2022, Baseball America named Montgomery as the best athlete and player with the best strike-zone discipline in the White Sox organization.
According to some scouts, he is the best-position player drafted by the White Sox since Frank Thomas.
“He’s just a monster,” a pro scout from another team told MLB.com. “He has eight raw power, probably seven-game power [on a 2-8 grading scale]. I think the only players better than him who I saw all year were Jackson Holliday and Wyatt Langford.”
He entered the 2023 season as MLB.com’s No. 39 prospect in baseball and has since risen to No. 17.
