Colson Montgomery is back with Triple-A Charlotte, and hopefully, he has put his 2025 struggles behind him for good.
Things got so bad for the Chicago White Sox shortstop prospect that he got pulled from game action and was sent to the team's spring training facility in Glendale, Arizona. Essentially, Montomgery got sent back to "swing school" to work with the team's director of hitting, Ryan Fuller.
The fall from grace continued as Montgomery went from being the No. 34 ranked prospect in baseball, according to MLB Pipeline at the start of the season, to tumbling out of the site's latest Top 100 rankings entirely.
With a slashline at .149/.223/.255, none of it is surprising.
Montgomery is back in Triple-A Charlotte.
Montgomery made enough progress during his time in Arizona that the White Sox have now returned him to Triple-A Charlotte. In his first game back with the Knights, Montgomery had a nice return and finished 2-for-5 with an RBI on Tuesday.
RBI Base Hit for Colson Montgomery!
— Charlotte Knights (@KnightsBaseball) May 13, 2025
Knights now lead 3-0 in the 1st inning! pic.twitter.com/XRAmdKuCG0
Montgomery did strike out once, which has been a major problem for him this season. He has 48 strikeouts in 116 at-bats, but I'm sure the White Sox would be willing to live with his strikeouts if he were hitting home runs like he did last season at Charlotte.
2024 did not carry over to 2025
Despite struggling last season during his first year at Triple-A with a .214 average, .710 OPS, and 164 strikeouts, he did belt 18 home runs. He also had a strong September finish last year and was impressive in the Arizona Fall League.
If Montgomery is going to show 15-20 homer power, quality defense in the middle infield, and a respectable walk rate, he'll be a big leaguer.
The hope was that his strong finish in 2024 would carry the power-hitting lefty toward winning the starting shortstop job out of Spring Training. However, a back injury ate away at him getting precious at-bats to prove his case, and that plan was scrapped.
If Montgomery went to Charlotte and produced the same numbers he did to end last season, the plan was for him to be up in The Show by May.
Not only did he not produce, but things got so dire that the front office decided that whatever adjustments Montgomery needed to make, he needed to make them without actually playing in a game.
One more from Barfield on Colson: "He’s a competitor and he wants to go out there and compete every day. It’s really hard to work on things when you are doing that at Triple-A. Being able to pull back, it was almost like a slow build during those 10 or 11 days."
— Scott Merkin (@scottmerkin) May 13, 2025
White Sox assistant general manager Josh Barfield acknowledged Montgomery's swing was not completely overhauled, but minor adjustments were made.
Barfield on Colson's Arizona work: "It felt like he walked away with a much better understanding of what he wanted to do and how he wanted to go about accomplishing that. He was able to find some really good cues and feels."
— Scott Merkin (@scottmerkin) May 13, 2025
There is still potential for Montgomery to be a power-hitting shortstop in Major League Baseball. The likelihood of him being the next Corey Seager seems unlikely, but it does not mean he cannot still be developed to hit 20-30 home runs and be a solid contributor for a winning club.
Montgomery has dealt with some back issues and many feel that he would be better suited as a corner infielder. With Andrew Vaughn's days on the South Side numbered (he has one year of club control left and has done nothing to earn an extension), the Sox could eventually look at moving Montgomery to third base or first base.
Before all that can be considered, he has to prove he is still worthy of being considered a big leaguer.