I Beg to Differ

Clare sent me a story from the team website today on ex-White Sox player Nicky Delmonico. She thought it was interesting. I thought it was a piece of lazy writing. Delmonico has been yo-yoing between different levels of the organization as a hitting coach the last two seasons. Because this is a feel-good piece, Scott Merkin quoted Colson Montgomery, the Sox top prospect and a top-100 prospect in all of baseball, who naturally gushed over Delmonico. Fine, Montgomery loves him. What about prospects who don’t have the can’t-miss label attached to them? What do they think of Delmonico as a coach? I’m serious here. The Sox have two prospects, Jacob Burke and Brooks Baldwin, rated #21 and #30 in the organization, respectively. I tracked their progress all of last season. I mean, it beat watching the Sox under the “leadership” of manager Mickey Mouse. Burke and Brooks both started at Class-A Kannapolis before moving up to High-A Winston-Salem. Burke, an outfielder, hit .315 in low-A and .281 in high-A while Baldwin, an infielder, went from .245 to .327. They were both drafted in 2022, Burke going in the eleventh round, Baldwin in the twelfth. These are the kind of players top-ranked organizations develop. Anytime a relatively low-round draft choice makes his way to the bigs, somebody’s done something right. I’m not saying either Burke or Baldwin will, but their success so far leaves me hopeful. Did Nicky Delmonico have anything to do with their development? If only Merkin had bothered to ask.