Jacob Gonzalez had become the kind of prospect organizations quietly move on from.
The White Sox first-round pick (15th overall) in the 2023 Draft, Gonzalez had been expected to become a cornerstone. But he entered this past offseason facing a difficult reality: After three full seasons in the Minors, he had yet to prove he could hit. He had batted .232 with eight home runs and an 87 wRC+ (13% below league average) between Double- and Triple-A the previous season, his third straight season as a below-average hitter since coming to pro ball.
After New Year's, but before position players reported to Spring Training, Gonzalez attended the White Sox performance camp in Arizona. There, the club's director of hitting, Ryan Fuller, showed him biomechanical comparisons between his swing and Brice Turang's pre- and post-breakout iterations.
"He showed me the Hawk-Eye stick figures and metrics,” Gonzalez said, referring to the system that powers Statcast. “He said we were very similar. Turang was super wide two years ago, then he got taller last year and had a really good season. [Fuller] showed me the before-and-after and said something like, 'This is you right now. If we make these changes, this is where you can get to.'"
The ingredients were mostly already there. The message wasn't that Gonzalez needed to become someone else. It was that he needed to unlock traits that were already there.
"I was on board," the Ole Miss product said. "It was nice because it wasn't a conversation where I was being told what to do."
Gonzalez's turnaround this year was not viewed internally as an isolated breakthrough. Instead, it was evidence of a larger shift in how the White Sox approach hitting development: Identify the physical traits already present, create individualized solutions and give players ownership of the process.
In 239 Triple-A appearances earlier this season, Gonzalez hit more home runs (19) than he had in his first three Minor League seasons combined (17). His 168 wRC+ doubled his efficiency from a year earlier, and when he was called up to fill in for the injured Munetaka Murakami, he held his own at the Major League level.
The clearest example of that shift is measurable. After ranking last in the Majors in average bat speed last season at 70.9 mph, Chicago has improved to 71.8 mph this year -- a full mile per hour jump, even with many of the same players returning.
Gonzalez's turnaround also created organizational value. After filling in for Murakami during the slugger's absence due to a hamstring injury, Gonzalez rebuilt his reputation enough that the White Sox acquired a compensatory first-round pick in this year’s Draft when they traded him to the Pirates earlier this month. The Sox used that pick (34th overall) to select Landon Thome, the son of Hall of Famer Jim Thome.
Stories like Gonzalez's help explain one of baseball's biggest turnarounds. After losing 121 games in 2024 and 102 in 2025, the White Sox entered play Wednesday tied for first place in the AL Central. Their team wRC+ climbed from 88 last season to 104 this year.
Gonzalez's breakout is one example. Another former first-rounder, Colson Montgomery, transformed how he accessed his power. Miguel Vargas unlocked another level of bat speed. Different players. Different adjustments. The same development philosophy.
Montgomery's transformation may be even more striking.
In roughly one full season's worth of plate appearances (682), the shortstop has hit 45 home runs. Few shortstops in MLB history have enjoyed that kind of 12-month stretch.
The raw power was never the question. Turning it into game power was the challenge.
Early in his career, Montgomery's power often produced ground balls instead of damage. Through his first three seasons in the organization, he consistently hit more grounders than fly balls.
That changed last year. For the first time last spring, he hit more balls in the air in Triple-A (0.90 GB/FB ratio), and that trend increased again in the Majors (0.80) last summer, and this season (0.59). So far in 2026, he owns an elite 29% air-pull percentage.
Montgomery's story is an example of how the practice environment evolved in Chicago.
"I think it just comes down to the work that we do on a daily basis. We do a lot of machine stuff. We do a lot of angled flips, angled darts, and stuff like that," Montgomery said. "So that ties into the contact point work."
Montgomery specifically cited the power of the angle drill, which challenges hitters from a 45-degree line rather than a traditional straight-ahead vantage point.
"A lot of it is just keeping your hands inside and not getting the barrel stuck outside," he explained. "We're not getting jammed."
The common denominator is not that everyone is learning the same swing with the White Sox – it's that everyone gets their own plan. Montgomery was first exposed to the drill last year, and he said it's become a "big part" of his routine along with more game-like reps on the Trajekt pitching machine.
"I like Trajekt a lot – especially if I haven't faced a certain pitcher before,” he said. “It definitely slows the game down."
Vargas is a fascinating case. He arrived from one of baseball's most respected player-development systems, the Dodgers, as a struggling former top prospect. The question wasn't whether he had talent. It was whether the White Sox could unlock it.
They did just that.
Vargas' bat speed jumped from the 25th percentile last season (70.6 mph) to the 73rd percentile this season (74.1 mph), leading to career bests in slugging (.497), barrel rate (15%) and wRC+ (134).
"We focused on bat speed last offseason. I think this year it’s helped me a lot," Vargas, who became a first-time All-Star this season, told MLB.com. "It was about bat speed and having all the tools I can use to help me with my swing and help me be more aggressive at the same time."
The underload-overload training protocol – not much different in theory from building pitching velocity – paved the way for improvement.
Think about where Vargas was in 2024, when he posted a .150/.249/.257 combined slash line between the Dodgers and White Sox.
His carrying tool remains his plate discipline. Vargas believes the added bat speed has given him more time to recognize pitches, helping strengthen that approach. His walk rate is up to a career-best 13% this season, his swinging strike rate down to a career low (7.7%).
The changes extend beyond mechanics.
Players consistently point to how hitting coach Derek Shomon communicates. The hitter meetings are more engaging. The energy is different.
Catcher Kyle Teel explained it in a relatable manner: "It's hard to describe, but it's like being in school. You're sitting in class and you start zoning out, but then you have that one science teacher who's hilarious and keeps you locked in the whole time. It's like that in our hitter meetings."
"They give us all the research and information so we can try to be at 100 percent," Vargas said.
Said Gonzalez of his time in Chicago: "The meetings always start with all the good stuff that happened the day before. It's nice to see and it sets the tone like, 'We did it yesterday, we can do it again today.' They also give us a lot of freedom in the box – they want us to do damage and they're OK with us not being perfect. That makes it easier to hit."
Today, the White Sox believe they can better unlock the potential in players. The results are showing. Gonzalez, Montgomery and Vargas represent three versions of the same idea: players arriving with talent, prescribed a path to improve, and then producing results.
Ultimately, White Sox manager Will Venable said the foundation is trust.
"I think the best thing the hitting group does is they are great at building relationships," Venable said. "Whatever information we have, whatever information we want to implement, the game plan approach – whatever it might be – it's getting to the players because of the communication and relationships they have with the players. That's where the culture is that Shomon and Joel [McKeithan, assistant hitting coach] and Tony [Medina, Major League assistant] have built and it's really impressive."