Colson Montgomery returned to Cactus League action for the first time after back spasms scratched him from the White Sox lineup on Feb. 27 and led to a 10-day layoff, but since Sunday's game against Cleveland wasn't televised, we have to piece together his afternoon from a few different sources.
The box score: Says he went 0-for-2 with a strikeout.
Statcast: Says he swung over a fifth-pitch Gavin Williams curveball for strike three in his first plate appearance, and bounced a fourth-pitch Zak Kent curveball to first base for a 3-1 putout in his second trip.
Scott Merkin's account: Says that he "looked comfortable and smooth at short, making a pair of solid plays," and followed it up with Montgomery's assessment:
“I honestly felt like I didn’t miss any time,” Montgomery said. “We did a good job ramping up with backfield games and live at-bats. I felt like I did pretty good. I felt maybe I was a tick slow with timing because you got to get used to it again, but I felt really good.”
Time will tell if Montgomery is right, but you can also say that he isn't wrong. It's like he missed no time in the sense that the competition at his primary position effectively waited for him to return.
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If the rest of the infield situation isn't settled, it's at least producing a legible first draft. Andrew Vaughn and Josh Rojas are givens, Miguel Vargas and Lenyn Sosa are both hitting well enough to make their lack of options besides the point, and Brandon Drury's comeback story is off to an auspicious beginning. Add it up, and you have five infielders who could theoretically be arranged to cover all four infield positions on a given day.
There just isn't a true shortstop in the bunch, and the players who are all getting a long look at the position -- Montgomery, Brooks Baldwin, Chase Meidroth and Jake Amaya -- aren't yet making a compelling case for the playing time.
Here's what the infield competition looks like in terms of production at the plate:
| Player | PA | BB | K | AVG | OBP | SLG |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Drury | 27 | 1 | 3 | .346 | .370 | .654 |
| Baldwin | 24 | 3 | 1 | .158 | .304 | .211 |
| Meidroth | 21 | 5 | 3 | .125 | .333 | .188 |
| Sosa | 20 | 2 | 6 | .389 | .450 | .500 |
| Vargas | 19 | 2 | 2 | .294 | .368 | .471 |
| Amaya | 17 | 2 | 7 | .133 | .235 | .200 |
| Montgomery | 9 | 0 | 5 | .111 | .111 | .444 |
And here's the leaderboard for Cactus League appearances at short (starts in parentheses):
- Amaya: 7 (5)
- Montgomery: 4 (3)Meidroth: 4 (3)
- William Bergolla: 4 (0)
- Tristan Gray: 3 (1)
- Jacob Gonzalez: 3 (0)
- Baldwin: 2 (1)
- Rojas: 1 (1)
If you used playing time to determine the White Sox's preferred Plan B, then Amaya would lead the way. And maybe he does, because he's on the 40-man roster and is the best defender of the bunch, which is how he ended up getting starts last year. It's just hard to square up that scenario with the fact that the White Sox designated him for assignment earlier in the winter and temporarily lost him to the Baltimore Orioles, which suggests the club had a certain comfort with him being out of the picture entirely. So maybe Will Venable hasn't tipped his hand.
Glass half full, the samples remain small enough that one or two good games at the plate can render those charts merely an unflattering snapshot. Maybe Montgomery indeed finds his groove, or Meidroth and Baldwin spin those decent plate-discipline components into actual production. Or maybe the other infielders all earn their 26-man roster spots so resoundingly that Rojas is pressed into regular shortstop work for the first time in four years, which would at least provide the initial satisfaction of a meritocracy at work.
The glass-half-empty view is reflected in the White Sox's 4-11 record over the first half of their spring schedule, which is an even worse winning percentage than last year's 9-20 record that preceded the losingest season in modern MLB history. Nobody is under any delusions that the White Sox have a complete roster, and shortstop just might be the place where the inadequacy of the immediate options is most acutely felt.
Still, as the White Sox embark on the second half of their Cactus League schedule in another untelevised affair against the Athletics on Monday afternoon, the shortstop lines will be the first place I look in the box score, in search for any signs of life. If the White Sox are dead-set on Montgomery opening the season at short if he's healthy enough to do so, it'd be nice to see him earn it. Failing that, it'd at least be instructive if other shortstops outplayed him, but still weren't allowed to win the competition outright. A situation where nobody stands out tells us nothing, or at least not anything that wasn't already painfully established by going 41-121 in 2024.
