Colson Montgomery added more fuel to the White Sox-Cubs shortstop debate with a first-inning home run during Friday night’s Crosstown Classic matchup.
Every year, the level of anticipation and hostility surrounding the Crosstown Classic is usually a pretty good indicator of where the Chicago White Sox are in the standings and the national conversation.
When the White Sox fail to field a competitive team, therefore rendering any Crosstown series irrelevant, there isn't much angst from Cubs fans about the state of Chicago baseball.
But when the White Sox are rolling, when they're competitive in the standings, and when the media is giving the team and their star players attention, the rivalry starts to rear its head again.
We've been seeing that this week and this weekend during the first Crosstown Classic series of 2026. On Friday night, the Cubs and White Sox played each other with both teams above .500 and fans in the stands for the first time since 2008. And on sports radio, a new debate has sparked about the shortstops who play on both sides of town.
It started on ESPN 1000 when iconic Chicago sports radio host David Kaplan asserted that it was foolish to believe White Sox shortstop Colson Montgomery is as good as, or better than, Cubs shortstop Dansby Swanson.
White Sox fans, of course, were quick to join the debate, citing all of the statistical evidence that supports the claim that Montgomery is not only the best shortstop in the city, but maybe the best player in the city entirely.
Montgomery didn't make his MLB debut until July 4, 2025. He's still more than a month away from having spent a full calendar year in Major League Baseball. Yet in 114 games played, Montgomery has a 4.7 career fWAR. He has 33 home runs, 85 RBIs, an OPS+ of 132, and in 2026, he is second among MLB shortstops in defensive runs saved.
His pace over 162 games is 47 home runs and 121 RBIs. That's simply unheard of from a shortstop, especially one who plays close to elite defense at one of the premier positions in the sport. Oh, and Montgomery is still only 24 years old.
There's a real case to be made that he's the best baseball player in the city of Chicago right now, and it's really not a debate that he's the best shortstop in town. And of course, Montgomery proved it in a fairly poetic moment on Friday night. While the White Sox pitching staff let them down and surrendered 10 runs to the Cubs in a 10-5 loss, Montgomery launched his 12th home run of the season in his first at-bat.
Just as you try to discredit him, he finds another way to prove you wrong. That's what Colson Montgomery has done from the moment he got called up.
It's not always perfect. There's still plenty for Montgomery to work on. The strikeout rate needs to improve, and situational hitting in general is an area where White Sox fans would like to see development. But when you look at the general body of work since he made his MLB debut, it's fairly undeniable that Colson Montgomery isn't just a young face who is part of this budding White Sox core. He is a young face who is one of the superstars in baseball and worthy of all the national attention he gets.