Braden Montgomery arrived in Chicago with plenty of buzz after the White Sox landed him in the Garrett Crochet trade, and his debut only turned the volume up. He didn’t sneak into the majors quietly, either. After getting passed over for an Opening Day spot, Montgomery finally got the call on June 9 and answered with a walk-off home run against Braves closer Raisel Iglesias.
He looked like a player ready to stick. Before that promotion, Montgomery had posted a .970 OPS across 56 games in the minors, including a strong run through Double-A and Triple-A. In 27 Double-A games, he hit .313/.429/.606/1.035, then followed that with 29 Triple-A games at .315/.417/.495/.912.
The problem was what came next. Over 93 games with the White Sox, Montgomery logged 365 plate appearances and hit .226/.312/.350, finishing with a .662 OPS and an 86 OPS+. He flashed enough to keep hope alive, but he never found the kind of steady production that makes a lineup spot feel secure.
Even so, the Sox kept running him out there. After his call-up, the team played 96 games, and Montgomery appeared in 93 of them. He came off the bench just six times and started the other 87, a pretty long leash for a rookie who struggled as much as he did.
The left-handed pitching split stood out even more. In 103 plate appearances against lefties, Montgomery hit .129/.204/.226 for a .430 OPS, with just 12 hits and 8 walks. For a club that’s usually willing to platoon, that was a surprisingly patient approach.
The monthly numbers didn’t show much of a turnaround, either. His OPS sat at .732 in June, dipped to .673 in July, slid to .616 in August and finished at .645 in September. The bat never really caught fire, even as he got more runway.
There were still some encouraging parts of his profile. Montgomery struck out 19.7% of the time and walked 10.4% of the time, both better than league average, and he didn’t chase too many pitches.
The issue was quality of contact. His Hard-Hit% landed in the 50th percentile, his Barrel% in the 19th percentile, and his average exit velocity was 88.9 mph, which put him in the 44th percentile.
That lack of impact showed up in the power numbers. Montgomery hit 12 home runs in 121 minor league games last year and six in the majors this season, good for a .350 slugging percentage in the big leagues. His expected slugging percentage was better at .392, but still not where a power-minded bat would want it to be.
There was a case for giving him that long look in 2026. Montgomery was crushing Triple-A pitching, and the White Sox were rolling out replacement-level outfielders in right field. Even if he wasn’t dramatically better than what they had, the bigger picture made sense: he was part of the future, and the club might as well let him work through growing pains while the position wasn’t producing much anyway.
But 2027 is a different conversation. If Montgomery is going to hold down an everyday job next season, he needs to become at least an average hitter, and ideally more than that. Chris Getz has already said the White Sox want to upgrade the outfield this offseason, and Montgomery’s role could be part of that discussion.
The rookie label still matters, but it doesn’t erase the competition around him. Tristan Peters and Sam Antonacci also finished their first seasons, and both were better than Montgomery. If someone has to lose playing time or get bumped, it’s hard to make the case that either of them should be the one.
Montgomery did have the biggest split between left- and right-handed pitching among the three, with more than a .300-point gap in OPS. He also saw a larger share of his plate appearances against lefties. Based on Baseball Savant data, about 28% of his plate appearances came against lefties, which was roughly league average, while Antonacci was around 20%, and Peters had only 67 plate appearances against lefties despite appearing in 156 games.
As a switch-hitter, Montgomery doesn’t really have a built-in platoon excuse. If he can’t hit lefties anyway, the batting side doesn’t change much.
The ideal outcome is simple: all three players start next year, all three face both lefties and righties, and all three produce. Splits can be worked through.
That’s part of getting better. But a .662 OPS can’t live in the lineup every day, not on a White Sox club that wants to be in the mix again in 2027.
Montgomery still has the tools and the upside. The minor league track record was real, and the plate discipline is encouraging. Now he has to make the jump from promising rookie to reliable major leaguer if he wants to keep that everyday role.
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The larger question is whether the White Sox are ready to act like a team that can chase that level of pitching. Analysts have already pointed out that Chicagos improved standing as a free agent destination could open doors this winter, and a pitcher of Peraltas caliber would be the kind of swing that signals real ambition. For now, the photo is only a spark, but it has already put a new offseason possibility on the table. [Read more 🡒]