White Sox Top Prospect Colson Montgomery an Early Candidate For Rookie of the Year

Colson Montgomery salvaged a disappointing 2024 season by coming back to life in the Arizona Fall League, reasserting the Chicago White Sox shortstop as one of the top young players to watch in 2025.

Mar 1, 2023; Phoenix, Arizona, USA; Chicago White Sox infielder Colson Montgomery against the Cleveland Guardians during a spring training game at Camelback Ranch-Glendale. / Mark J. Rebilas-Imagn Images

Shortstop Colson Montgomery is coming off a shaky 2024 campaign, but the 22-year-old still has plenty of buzz heading into next season.

MLB.com’s Sam Dykstra, Jim Callis and Jonathan Mayo joined forces this week to predict each team’s top Rookie of the Year contender for 2025. Montgomery was their selection for the White Sox, citing his resurgence in the Arizona Fall League and his balance of athleticism and power as reasons to watch him moving forward.

Montgomery hit .214 with 18 home runs, 63 RBI, eight stolen bases and a .710 OPS across 130 Triple-A games this year. It marked quite a steep dropoff from 2023, when the former first round pick hit .287 with a .940 OPS across Rookie Ball, High-A and Double-A.

However, Montgomery hit .263 with five home runs, 16 RBI and an .835 OPS in the final 26 games of the season, and he performed even better down in Arizona. The shortstop made 11 appearances in the fall league, batting .311 with three home runs, 11 RBI, four stolen bases and an 1.167 OPS.

Brooks Baldwin is currently projected to be the White Sox's Opening Day shortstop in 2025, with Jacob Amaya set to come off the bench. Baldwin hit .211 with a .566 OPS and 0.0 WAR across 33 games after making his MLB debut in 2024, two years after he was drafted in the 12th round.

Baldwin was Chicago's No. 23 prospect when he got called up, while Montgomery opened 2024 as the No. 1 player in the organization's farm system. He is still ranked as the No. 37 prospect in all of baseball.

So it may only be a matter of time before Montgomery reaches the majors and unseats Baldwin as the White Sox's starting shortstop, giving him plenty of time to build up a solid Rookie of the Year resume.

The last White Sox player to win AL Rookie of the Year was Jose Abreu in 2014. Before him, the club hadn't had someone win the award since Ozzie Guillen in 1985.

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