CHICAGO -- There have been the Three Amigos, the Three Tenors, the longtime famous Three Stooges and now .. the three top White Sox pitching prospects working together at Double-A Birmingham.
Okay, the name is still a work in progress. But what was expected for a few weeks during Spring Training became a reality on Tuesday with director of player development Paul Janish announcing Noah Schultz, Hagen Smith and Grant Taylor to open the 2025 season as part of the Barons rotation. Schultz and Smith are the top two left-handed pitching prospects in the game, per MLB Pipeline, ranked No. 16 and 34 overall, respectively, in MLB Pipeline¡¯s Top 100.
Taylor, who was equally as impressive as Schultz and Smith during their first Major League camps, is the No. 7 White Sox prospect.
¡°We can all agree that we're excited about the prospect of those guys, obviously continuing their development at the Minor League level, getting used to pitching every fifth day,¡± said Janish during an afternoon Zoom. ¡°But really ultimately looking forward to being able to tell the story about how those guys were all in the same Double-A rotation in a couple of years when hopefully they're Major League All-Stars.¡±
Infielders Colson Montgomery, the No. 39 prospect overall, and Chase Meidroth, the No. 8 White Sox prospect, who made it to the final week roster cuts of Spring Training, will be part of Triple-A Charlotte¡¯s infield. Montgomery will get the bulk of work at shortstop.
¡°Chase is so versatile,¡± Janish said. ¡°He's going to be able to be a little bit of everything, and he'll play some short as well. But he'll pretty much stay ready for anything that may happen.¡±
Outfielders Braden Montgomery (the No. 5 White Sox prospect, No. 54 overall), George Wolkow (No. 10 White Sox prospect) and Nick McClain (No. 28 White Sox prospect) are set for Single-A Kannapolis, while catchers Kyle Teel (No. 2 White Sox, No. 32 overall) and Edger Quero (No. 6 and No. 65) will be ready to open with Charlotte.
¡°We've talked about this a lot,¡± said Janish of Teel and Quero. ¡°The catching position is very demanding at the Major League level, but they're both really close to being ready to perform hopefully.
¡°They'll ping-pong each other a lot, who's catching and the other one's DH-ing in a lot of cases, assuming health. That's likely how that will go. Not to say that they're going to DH every game they don't catch. They're likely to split the catching three and three [per week] assuming health and get a good amount of the DH time as well.¡±
Quite a few interesting prospects exist across the White Sox sixth-ranked system, according to MLB Pipeline. But for immediate, high-impact attention, it¡¯s tough to top the three big-time young pitchers. Yes, still working on the name.
¡°Hopefully just them deciding that they want to be better than the other one, right?¡± said Janish of his expectations for Schultz and Smith. ¡°It's been fun to watch those guys. They've become very close. Talent is not going to be the big issue. We're going to work really hard to help them stay healthy. The rapport that they develop during the next period of time when they're playing together as teammates in Double-A is going to pay itself forward down the road, hopefully at the Major League level as well.
¡°Just to highlight the type of people that they are, they're the type of guys that we need to do our job to give them the best chance for success currently but also getting to the big leagues and have success. They're the types of guys that we feel can really have impact off the mound as well, with younger pitchers, with the next round of pitchers that are going to come and being able to be good examples of how we do it, so to speak."