Miguel Vargas' recent penchant for aesthetically pleasing pull-side home runs, and Colson Montgomery returning from his ACL sabbatical looking hitterish gave Chris Getz an always needed collection of positive player development stories to tout in his pregame media session on Friday morning at Wrigley Field.
"He's had a good restart, fun to see him get a knock his first at-bat, get two hits," Getz said of Montgomery. "He's collected five hits in the last couple of days. Strikeouts are down. We feel like he's on a positive track. Happy for him considering what he's gone through, but also happy for the organization. We acted on that one and another example of a process that we feel like was working.
"At the major league level, Miguel Vargas, who obviously last year had his struggles and started to struggle early on this year and made his adjustments with our hitting group and has been certainly one of our best hitters. So really happy with what he's been able to do."
If there was a common thread in trying to gauge the opinions of league scouts on Montgomery's ugly start to the year, it's that their concerns with his hit tool had never really changed, but rather have been exposed to better pitching. That came coupled with the accusation that the White Sox have traditionally struggled to make their hitters better, and that Montgomery's stagnation represented another example of such.
For their part, the White Sox have already shown they weren't willing to sit idly by while Montgomery's offensive game continued to curdle, and are priding themselves on being more willing to intervene:
"I know there's definitely optimism in his mind now, which perhaps was hard to find before. Maybe years past how you handled players, maybe you waited a little too long, waited until the offseason to take action on something that needs to be addressed. So often -- and although we've got good information and got a chance to reach a solution and we've got more clarity based on, whether it be technology or any process you have in place -- the player has to be ready. He's gotta be open, and in this case he was ready.
"The way things are set up now in the minor leagues, you can utilize the developmental list. In his case, we had a 40-man player we were able to send his option to Arizona and give him a breather, work one-on-one. So we've actually done that with other players. Maybe not the profile of Colson. Obviously, this one grabs a fair amount of attention."
With Brian Bannister overseeing pitching development since the early stages of Getz's time running the team, and the tilted nature of their farm system, it seemed pretty fair to say that the White Sox pitching operation was ahead of the organization's work on the hitting side at the end of last season. Indeed, it was fair enough that even with Montgomery and Vargas trending up in recent days and weeks, Braden Montgomery's red-hot introduction to pro ball, or even Edgar Quero and Chase Meidroth holding serve at the outset of their big league careers, Getz still concedes there's not yet equality.
"We’re in a better place in terms of how we’re approaching just the hitting department," Getz said. "I don’t feel like we’re where it needs to be quite yet. Some of that is the talent. We need to continue to focus on bringing in players that can help us on the offensive side. Whether it be some trade acquisitions or draft picks, we’re more pitcher-oriented. So, yeah, we’ve improved. It’s not where it needs to be."
Some of that leveling out needs to come with time as the hitting instruction evolves under Ryan Fuller. Some of that needs to be addressed by Getz himself this July.
"This is Ryan’s first full season with the White Sox, so much of our focus early on in the offseason was hiring Will [Venable] and getting the major-league coaching staff to a place where we needed it to be," Getz said. "Ryan now, we’re very excited to bring him in. This is also an opportunity for him to assess our hitting processes, whether it be on the acquisition and development front, and that’s still ongoing. There’s some opportunities that we can jump on in real time to help us. But it’s only going to improve and it’s certainly one of our top priorities."
⚙️⚙️⚙️
Prospect right-hander Grant Taylor's recent move to the bullpen at Double-A Birmingham comes with an unusual pairing: the team's GM acknowledging that one of the most talented arms in his organization hasn't really struggled as a starter yet.
After pitching a scoreless seventh the other night for the Barons, Taylor has a 1.47 ERA in 18⅓ innings this season with 21 strikeouts, while opponents are slugging .194 against him.
"Not that he was struggling as a starter either, but his stuff looks really good out of the bullpen," Getz said. "We're obviously going to, in the near term here, see what it looks like in the bullpen, see how he adjusts, see the effectiveness, see how his stuff plays. But also knowing that we can get back to the starter track. And we've got examples of players, Garrett [Crochet]'s a pretty easy example of a guy that was in the bullpen and went back to starter and look what he's become in this game. You look at the offseason, and some of the signings that organizations have made that were relievers that were now starters for this season that have been productive."
The White Sox were initially plotting out 85-90 innings for Taylor in the offseason, and that's a hard total to stretch out over six months of starts, even short ones. But acclimating to a five-day starter schedule was also supposed to be part of that effort.
Moving to the pen now only -- and perhaps greatly -- increases the chances that Taylor finishes the season as a reliever in Chicago. Yet with the substantial reliever risk already present in Taylor's profile, this juncture could easily wind up looking like the point where his future in the rotation is conceded, until what the road back would look like is more clearly defined.
"Grant is a prime example of a guy that we’ve identified that could potentially be that alpha arm in the bullpen," Getz said. "But that’s yet to be seen. He’s got the stuff to do it. The development of him as a professional pitcher is still ongoing."
