GLENDALE, Ariz. \u2014 Contentment isn\u2019t something that is part of White Sox shortstop Colson Montgomery\u2019s repertoire.<\/p>\n
\u2018\u2018I\u2019m still trying to prove myself,\u2019\u2019 Montgomery said Sunday, despite producing 21 home runs and 53 RBI after making his major-league debut on July 4 last season. \u2018\u2018Trying to prove myself to the league and trying to prove myself of coming in every single day and being the best person and player I can be.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n
As much relief as Montgomery\u2019s production brought to Sox executives who had waited patiently for him to develop after being selected in the first round of the 2021 draft, there are greater expectations as the team tries to advance from the rebuilding phase to the contending phase.<\/p>\n
\u2018\u2018I feel really good he\u2019s comfortable with that process of handling expectations,\u2019\u2019 Sox manager Will Venable said of Montgomery. \u2018\u2018In our support of that, we are helping him focus \u2014 like all our players \u2014 on creating really good habits on a daily basis to sustain his performance throughout the year. Colson is no different in that regard. He\u2019s built for that.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n
From a hitting standpoint, Montgomery\u2019s offseason simulated his preparation during the regular season.<\/p>\n
The 6-3 Montgomery, who appears lighter than his listed 230 pounds, reviewed videos of his swing and swing decisions with director of hitting Ryan Fuller and new hitting coach Derek Shomon. They didn\u2019t overlook his 29.2% strikeout rate, his 69.6% contact rate or his 28.2% rate of chasing pitches outside the strike zone (courtesy of Statcast).<\/p>\n
But that was only part of his offseason work. Montgomery batted .286 on breaking pitches but only .238 on fastballs last season.<\/p>\n
\u2018\u2018They told me to just do more competitive machine work [with] high velocity,\u2019\u2019 Montgomery said. \u2018\u2018I felt like I hit high velocity pretty good, but you can always improve in this game and keep getting better. That was one of the biggest things.<\/p>\n
\u2018\u2018From my overall background, I\u2019m a competitor, so they wanted me to do a lot more competition stuff. It just makes my intent a lot higher in the cage, other than if you are just doing normal flips in [batting practice].\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n
The scrutiny on Montgomery\u2019s offensive breakout (after a two-week reset with Fuller in Arizona) overshadowed his dependability at short. That quieted questions about whether his long-range future was at third base.<\/p>\n
Venable relishes defensive versatility, but he expects Montgomery to play short at least 90% of the time.<\/p>\n
Montgomery\u2019s more direct path to fielding grounders was a pleasant improvement, especially to scouts who saw him take a slightly circular route to them in the Arizona Fall League in 2023-24, rather than fielding them directly in line with his right (throwing) shoulder and requiring less time to throw.<\/p>\n
He was credited with seven defensive runs saved last season and attributed that to infield coach Justin Jirschele helping him with pregame preparation and with his internal clock on grounders.<\/p>\n
\u2018\u2018Reading how hard the ball is hit to you and doing your scouting on the runner is one of the first things that \u2018Jirsch\u2019 tells us,\u2019\u2019 Montgomery said. \u2018\u2018[If] there\u2019s a guy that really gets out of the box well, you only have one or two shuffles, [then] you\u2019ve got to get rid of the ball. That\u2019s [why] I prioritize the inner clock. I feel like if I catch the ball and I get rid of it as soon as I can, it doesn\u2019t matter how hard I throw the ball.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"GLENDALE, Ariz. \u2014 Contentment isn\u2019t something that is part of White Sox shortstop Colson Montgomery\u2019s repertoire. \u2018\u2018I\u2019m still…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":574839,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2379],"tags":[5,138,49,2561,4,396,2562],"class_list":{"0":"post-574838","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-chicago-white-sox","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-chicago","10":"tag-chicago-white-sox","11":"tag-chicagowhitesox","12":"tag-mlb","13":"tag-white-sox","14":"tag-whitesox"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116077745695542034","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/574838","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=574838"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/574838\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/574839"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=574838"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=574838"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=574838"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}