CHICAGO -- Jonathan Cannon certainly didn’t set out to produce a 5.82 ERA over 22 games (17 starts) for the 2025 White Sox.
But the 25-year-old right-hander won’t view his struggles as even the smallest mound impasse. Quite the contrary, in fact.
“Looking at the year as a whole, I think it’s going to end up being the most pivotal season in my career,” Cannon told MLB.com during a recent phone conversation.
Cannon was the most effective White Sox starter during the 2024 season aside from Garrett Crochet, who was an All-Star during his first year as part of the rotation before being traded to the Red Sox at the ’24 Winter Meetings. Cannon was firmly in the mix for the Opening Day starter honors in ’25, which eventually went to Sean Burke at home against the Angels.
It was an uneven ’25 season featuring a trip to the 15-day injured list due to a lower back strain, followed by a 6.68 ERA from June 29 to Aug. 6 upon Cannon’s return. At that point, with seven runs allowed over 1 2/3 innings on Aug. 6 in Seattle, Cannon was optioned to Triple-A Charlotte.
“Just the harder I tried, the worse everything got,” Cannon said. “I was definitely going through a little bit of an identity crisis there in August and September. I was just sitting there watching film from ‘24 comparing to film from ’25, and it’s just one of those things [where] I probably tried to switch up and change too many things at once and ended up just throwing myself even more out of whack.
“Basically, just to kind of fall on my face and have to pick myself back up, mentally, physically, come up with a plan for the offseason ... I feel like the amount of stuff I was able to learn … I thought it was a tremendous learning experience for me in the second half.”
Ethan Katz, whose tenure as White Sox pitching coach ended at the conclusion of the ’25 season, received credit from Cannon for helping getting things right. Cannon also praised catcher Korey Lee and veteran hurler Mike Clevinger, who were able to bounce ideas back and forth during their time with Charlotte.
“In Triple-A, I was trying to get back to the big leagues, but you are able to try things you wouldn’t normally be able to try there,” Cannon said. “I was able to try some new pitches, try some new sequences, see what works, see what doesn’t. And I learned a lot about myself and about my arsenal during that time down there.”
There was relatively no baseball for Cannon during this past October, even staying away from watching most of the playoffs. He needed a complete mental refresh, and everything is on target now as he works out in Nashville, Tenn., with Lee and first baseman Tim Elko, splitting an offseason place with them.
His success in ’24, with a 4.49 ERA over 23 games (21 starts), had to do with his pitches working that season, but Cannon knew there was “low hanging fruit” to clean up going into the new year. A big, overarching theme was his ground-ball rate, which plummeted when he reached the big leagues.
“Obviously, you want to get ground balls or strike a lot of people out, and the best guys do both. But you have to do one or the other, and I really wasn’t doing either one,” Cannon said. “We knew eventually that was going to catch up to me, and it did catch up to me this past year.
“So, it forced me to re-evaluate the sinker, some of the pitch shapes that we never really tried to fix because they were working at the time. Even though I wasn’t getting a ton of ground balls, I was getting outs. That’s the most important thing. Once that went, it was, ‘OK, how do we get more guys on the ground?’”
Adjusting the sinker grip was one correction, and Cannon finally got the feel during his scoreless relief inning in the final frame of the season’s final game. Cannon returns with that good feeling, looking at a return to starting.
“Starter, absolutely,” said White Sox manager Will Venable of Cannon. “We're challenging him to come in, earn a starting job right out of the gate. He knows he's got work to do, and we're going to support him in doing those things. But definitely confident that he can be a starting pitcher.”
“I’m completely confident in my ability as a starter,” Cannon said. “I feel really confident in my abilities, and especially with the plan we have in place, being able to make some of those adjustments I need to make and hit the ground running come February.”