When the White Sox drafted shortstop Colson Montgomery in the first round and third baseman Wes Kath in the second, it wasn’t hard to immediately look ahead and envision both high schoolers, in a few years, holding down the left side of the South Side infield.
With Tim Anderson at shortstop and Yoan Moncada at third under contract control for three and four years respectively, those spots are the last areas of concern for the Sox front office right now.
But time will pass, and new needs arise. Watching Montgomery and Kath — both left-handed hitters who became tight shortly after the draft and are hanging out together during the Sox’ minicamp for prospects last week — climb the ranks in the farm system with the goal of filling those spots will be worth watching.
“To envision having left-handed bats on one side of the of the infield in the future, with the potential to not only hit but have power, that’s very exciting,” Sox assistant general manager and director of player development Chris Getz said.
Montgomery, of Southridge High (Ind.), was taken with the 22nd overall pick and Kath, of Desert Mountain High (Scottsdale, Ariz.), with taken 57th.
“We’ve kind of become best friends, I guess you could say,” Montgomery said on a Zoom call from Arizona last week. “We get along really well. We’re kind of the same player in a lot of ways.”
The Sox were so high on Kath, they might have taken him in the first round had Montgomery been unavailable. Colson turned 20 on Sunday. Kath is still 19, still young enough to rate his homer as a shortstop in a state championship game ahead of his first Rookie League homer on his thrill chart.
Adapting to pro-level velocity is one of the first orders of business for Kath, who was lifting balls over the fence to the opposite field in batting practice last week.
“Just trying to keep my bat in the zone longer,” Kath said. “The biggest thing I realize was just the velocity jump from high school to professional ball. It’s very big, going from 80 to 85 [mph] to 95, 98 consistently. It’s just a big jump.”
A three-sport star, the Indiana male High School Athlete of the Year who could have walked on for basketball at Indiana, the 6-4 Montgomery has a Corey Seager look about him, with “a sweet swing,” Getz said.
“He stays through the baseball. He’s under control in the box,” Getz said.
“We believe based on his foot speed and his ability to see the field and the strong arm that he has, that he’s going to be able to be a shortstop in this game for a long time.”
That’s the plan, anyway. And with major leaguer spring training appearing nowhere close to starting camp as March approaches under the cloud of an increasingly contentious lockout, long range plans might be the best thing for fans to latch on to.
Prospects are the only players the Sox’ major league coaching staff can work with right now in Arizona.
“The major league [coaches] here, they’re kind of just talking to us all, what they see in us, what they like, what we can kind of improve on,” Montgomery said. “It’s kind of just good to pick their brains because they work with the big leaguers, the best of the best guys. It’s just pretty cool having that opportunity to talk to them.”