Colson Montgomery Receives A Surprising New Prospect Ranking

MLB Pipeline has been slowly releasing their new top-10 prospects by position list, leading up to their brand new top-100 list this Friday. So far, two White Sox have appeared on these lists, Edgar Quero for the catching list, and Noah Schultz for the left-handed pitching list. This is a nice start, but the best ranking to date now belongs to the White Sox top prospect, Colson Montgomery.

On their list of top-10 shortstops, they ranked Montgomery 2nd on the list, just behind the 2022 first-overall pick and the number-one prospect in baseball, Jackson Holliday. This is huge for Montgomery, as he leaps ahead of a few prospects ranked higher than him last year.

Last year, Montgomery was ranked 5th overall on the top prospect shortstops list. Three of the players that were ahead of him now sit behind him, as he made the leap over them. Marcelo Mayer, the Red Sox prospect was 4th last year, and now sits 5th on the list, two spots behind Montgomery. Jordan Lawler, the Diamondbacks shortstop, who sat 3rd last year, remains the same, but now Montgomery has leaped him in the rankings, despite Lawler making the jump to the majors at the end of last season. Finally, Montgomery also jumped over San Diego Padres prospect, Jackson Merrill, who sat second on the list last year. He now sits 4th on the list.

This is a fantastic ranking for Montgomery, as he now leaps three talented shortstop prospects who will all likely be very good major leaguers. This affirms that the Whtie Sox are not the only ones high on him, as the national media has also taken a strong liking to him.

MLB Pipeline projects that most of these prospects will be in the major leagues at some point in 2024, making the rookie of the year race very competitive. If Jackson Holliday comes up and is as good as they think he will be right away, he would likely be the favorite. If he doesn't come up right away, or he struggles, Montgomery could have a good chance to be the first White Sox player to win the Rookie of the Year award since Jose Abreu back in 2014.

With the MLB Pipeline ranking, they also gave out some superlatives. They ranked Montgomery, among two other prospects, as having the best power tool in the class. This is what they had to say about Montgomery:

"Similarly, Montgomery’s power is just starting to show up, and he was slowed by injury in 2023, but the Corey Seager comps are made for a reason."

This is something that Whtie Sox fans should be excited about, as if Colson Montgomery is anywhere near the player that Corey Seager is, that will be a fantastic development. Seeing the national media start to rank White Sox prospects highly is such a great sign. Hopefully, we see Montgomery at some point in 2024.