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Colson Montgomery’s surprising promotion to Birmingham probably wouldn’t have been so surprising if the local news in Evansville, Ind., was equally concerned about the entire White Sox farm system, rather than just focusing on the hometown kid.
Montgomery’s bump to the Barons is part of a radical late-season plan that Chris Getz took to calling “Project Birmingham” by the end of his media session with reporters. Montgomery will be joined by numerous other prospects from both A-ball affiliates, supplementing the biggest names already at Birmingham for a sort-of mega-roster over the final weeks of the season.
Getz presented the plan as part reward, part motivation, and part transition to instructional season.
“Having a pool of our top players with our top staff, with each other on a daily basis, bringing that to life during a minor-league season … We’re going to have our coordinators head to Birmingham for the rest of the month, the last four weeks and not only are we able to compete on a nightly basis, certainly personalize the instruction, but also treat it almost as an advanced instructional league so these guys are set up for their offseasons and work toward next year.”
It’s very likely that Kannapolis hitters with high strikeout rates like DJ Gladney and Wilfred Veras will find Double-A tough to crack, but I’d guess that those guys are going to spend most of their time on the non-active development list, rather than ramming their heads against the wall and posting 55-percent strikeout rates that make progress impossible to detect.
James Fegan relayed the entire Birmingham roster, and it’s a mix of merit and previous investment.
From Winston-Salem: Montgomery, Adam Hackenberg, Drew Dalquist, Bryan Ramos, Cristian Mena, Duke Ellis, Garrett Schoenle, Luis Mieses, Matthew Thompson, Norge Vera, Tyler Osik.
From Kannapolis: Gladney, Veras, Jared Kelley, Kohl Simas, Wes Kath.
Writing about the White Sox for a 16th season, first here, then at South Side Sox, and now here again. Let’s talk curling.
Has this ever been done before by anyone anywhere?
What about getting playing time and innings pitched? Or have most of these guys reached their levels for the season, therefore sitting inactive in Birmingham is no big deal. (sort of inactive. I assume there will be instructions and learnings going on outside the games)
This seems like a wild experiment.
Also, I’ll assume the White Sox are giving everyone adequate housing.
Oh, no. It’s all a scheme to save money on housing, isn’t it.
Call me cynical but I’m beginning to think this is actually “Project Save Chris Getzs’ Job”.
He’s had his current position since Feb 2021. The farm system seems to be in better shape than last year, and there are several prospects that appear to have promise. Sox have several incompetent employees, but I don’t see evidence that Getz is included.
Yes. Getz and Marco Paddy are two of the few Sox employees that, based on performance, deserve a raise. And I’m including the players in that list.
I’d add Mike Shirley to that list, as the draft strategy since he took over from Nick Hostetler has a bit more upside.
The issue with Getz is how he handled the Omar Vizquel sexual abuse scandal. Yes, it’s good that Vizquel and the coaches who were reportedly present when the alleged abuse occurred no longer supervise White Sox employees, but questions remain about how Getz handled Vizquel’s last month (and ultimate “mutual” parting) and how he promoted Wes Helms to AAA manager in the aftermath.
So you are calling him cynical.
It’d be fun to interview Kohl Simas about his past 13 months. UDFA to AA is quite the journey (even aside from his background as son of a onetime Sox reliever).
I’m flabbergasted that the Sox are the first team to try this concept; they’re not exactly known for innovation. The rationale is interesting. My suspicion is that both unexpected benefits and detriments will come from this. At least they’ll learn something.
I heard somewhere that Montgomery has talked about being worn down after never playing anywhere near this many games before. He would probably benefit more from something like this than grinding it out every day in W-S for the next month.
I still don’t see what player development problem this solves. Is the problem that the minor league season is too long for some guys but not others? Is the problem that the Sox have some good player development staff but not enough to cover all levels? Is the problem that instructional league time is too limited? I’m generally skeptical that this means anything other than a couple of days of coverage of something other than how disappointing the on-field major league product has been.
We’re going to have our coordinators head to Birmingham for the rest of the month
So yeah, you’re going to get guys rest at the end of the season since Birmingham’s roster will be much larger than normal and you get the minor league brain trust in one location so they can work with the top guys daily. It’s a bigger, longer instructional league and I can’t see any kind of downside.
There might be a downside for minor league baseball fans or the level of competition in the minor leagues. There could also be some downside for the other players in the Sox system who aren’t going to have as much access to coaching or coordinators as some of their peers. But who knows, maybe this is brilliant and all the other teams will just start doing their own things too.
Too bad they are not going to Schaumburg
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