Zack Collins had a strong season in the minors. The White Sox 7th ranked prospect hit 19 home runs in 113 games.
Zack Collins looks like he has all the tools to be an offensive threat in the bigs, but it’s his defense that needs more work. Chicago White Sox director of amateur scouting Nick Hostetler answered some questions from fans on for whitesox.com. One of the questions was about Collins, who was the organization’s first round pick in in 2016.
Hostetler wrote he’s in a good place offensively. Defensively he needs to continue to work on how he receives pitches. It seems he has a good pop-up time, but he needs to continue to progress on his defense according to Hostetler.
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Collins spent most of the season at Winston Salem but then spent 12 games with Double-A Birmingham. Combined he hit .224 with 19 home runs and 53 RBIs over 113 games. His average is not going to set the world on fire but he has some pop in his bat. It seems like he’s ready offensively but defense is still a work in progress.
Some scouts didn’t project him as a catcher. That is because there were questions about his defense. Something that he is still working on. To be fair, he’s only 22. So there is still time to develop him.
However, one would have to wonder if he would be in the majors already had the organization decided to switch him to a different position. Perhaps first base. First base is not an area of need right now, but Jose Abreu is getting older and there’s no guarantee he’s not future trade bait for Rick Hahn. Catcher seems to be a more significant need for this team.
It seems like Collins is making progress defensively and it’s only a matter of time before we see him in the majors. Hopefully he turns into a solid defensive catcher. It seems like he’s grown by leaps and bounds but he still has room for more development. If we see Collins in the majors next year it’ll probably be later in the year. For the White Sox it just doesn’t make sense to rush guys to the majors when they’ll probably be a bad team again.
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The White Sox will bet set at catcher once Collins puts his defense together. And they will have a power-hitting left hander, something they haven’t had since dare I say, Adam Dunn. Hopefully he can hit for a better average though but with just as many home runs.