Despite a lot of hostile feelings toward former White Sox General Manager Rick Hahn, he has left the White Sox with some nice parting gifts. This has come in the form of some of his recent draft picks like Colson Montgomery, but more specifically, Noah Schultz.
After being taken late in the first round, 26th overall to be specific, Noah Schultz has exceeded all the expectations laid out for him. After not pitching at all in 2022, he came onto the scene in the middle of the season in 2023.
In 10 starts, spanning over 27 innings, he was nothing short of dominant. He struck out 38 batters, holding them to a .175 average. He kept the walks down, as he only walked 6 in that period. This was about as dominant as you can get in your minor league debut, and the only thing holding him back at this point in time has been his health.
With this performance, he is starting to get national recognition on the top prospect lists. As the big-name websites drop their new lists, he has appeared in the top half of almost every single one of them. This is a huge development for the White Sox, as they are developing their late first-round picks very well recently.
As if being ranked high on these lists wasn’t good enough, he was highlighted on the MLB Pipeline list for having one of the best pitches in all of the minor leagues. On the top 10 left-handed pitching prospect list that was recently released by MLB Pipeline, he was ranked 4th on the list, and they highlighted his slider, which is graded 65 overall on the 80 scale.
This is what they had to say about his slider:
“The 2022 26th overall pick is intimidating enough standing on the mound with his 6-foot-9 frame, and anyone trying to sit on his 93-95 mph fastball can look absolutely foolish when they flail instead at his low-80s, high-spin sweeper. Schultz punched out 36.5 percent of his batters faced with Single-A Kannapolis in 2023 before being shut down with a shoulder impingement.”
This is some very high praise for the young lefty, which will remind many White Sox fans of Chris Sale. This is something that will excite White Sox fans, as Schultz can join Sale as one of the more dominant pitchers for the White Sox whom they drafted and developed themselves.
It is nice to see that White Sox prospects are finally getting some love after a long hiatus since having some highly ranked prospects. If Schultz can continue his performance from last year into this year, he will continue to fly up the prospect rankings and could be Top-20 by midseason.
Scouts will want to see him pitch like this at high-A and AA, but if he can keep up this kind of production, or even close to it, he will be one of the highest-ranked pitching prospects the Sox have had in a long time.
