Baseball has a funny way of humbling you exactly when you think you’ve figured it out. For Jonathan Cannon, the 6-foot-6 right-hander for the Chicago White Sox, 2025 was that "welcome to the big leagues" slap in the face.
If you followed the South Side's rebuilding efforts at all last year, you saw the box scores. They weren't always pretty. A 5.82 ERA over 103.2 innings usually suggests a guy who's overmatched, but if you dig into the mechanics and the "identity crisis" Cannon openly admitted to, there’s a much more interesting story here. This isn't just about a young pitcher struggling; it's about a highly polished SEC arm trying to find his soul in a rotation that has been under a microscope for years.
The 2025 Rollercoaster and the Identity Crisis
Honestly, Cannon's sophomore slump was a bit of a head-scratcher early on. After a 2024 debut where he looked like a legitimate mid-rotation piece—posting a 4.49 ERA and showing he could actually eat innings—everything just sort of de-synced. He went from being a guy firmly in the mix for the 2025 Opening Day start to being optioned to Triple-A Charlotte by August.
What happened?
Basically, he tried to be too many things at once. In a candid interview with MLB.com’s Scott Merkin, Cannon mentioned that he fell into a pattern of over-tinkering. When things started to go south, he dove into the film, comparing his 2024 mechanics to 2025, and ended up throwing his entire delivery out of whack. It’s a classic young-pitcher trap. You have success, you try to "optimize" that success, and suddenly you’ve lost the natural feel that got you to the show in the first place.
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- The Back Injury: A 15-day IL stint for a lower back strain didn't help. It disrupted his rhythm right as the summer heat was kicking in.
- The Seattle Meltdown: That August 6th start against the Mariners—7 runs in less than two innings—was the breaking point.
Sometimes you have to hit rock bottom to realize you need a fresh map. For Jonathan Cannon, that meant a stint in Charlotte to "get back to himself."
Jonathan Cannon: Scouting the Arsenal for 2026
When Cannon is on, he’s an "old-school" pitcher. He doesn’t rely on 100 mph heat to blow guys away. Instead, he uses a deep, five-pitch mix to induce weak contact and keep the ball on the ground. Or at least, that's the plan. In 2025, his ground-ball rate dipped, which is usually a death sentence for a sinker-baller.
The Pitch Mix
- Sinker (93-94 mph): This is his bread and butter. It has heavy sinking action and is designed to get those quick, three-pitch innings.
- Cutter (89-91 mph): This might actually be his best pitch. It misses more bats than the sinker and gives him a weapon against lefties.
- Sweeper/Slider (82-83 mph): He’s been working on the shape of this. It’s more of a horizontal movement pitch intended to keep hitters from sitting on the hard stuff.
- Changeup (85-87 mph): A solid secondary that mimics his fastball's tunnel.
- Four-Seamer: He uses this sparingly to change the eye level, though it doesn't have the "rise" of a truly elite heater.
The scouting consensus from Baseball America and MLB Pipeline has always been that Cannon has a "high floor." He’s a strike-thrower. In college at Georgia, he barely walked anyone (1.6 BB/9). In the pros, that control is still there, but he’s learning that throwing strikes isn't enough—you have to throw quality strikes.
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Why the White Sox Haven't "Cut Bait"
General Manager Chris Getz has been pretty vocal about keeping Cannon in the long-term plans. Despite the 9-20 career record, the organization sees him as a workhorse. After Garrett Crochet was traded to the Red Sox, the rotation became a wide-open audition. Cannon, along with Sean Burke and Noah Schultz (the lefty phenom everyone is waiting for), represents the next wave.
The White Sox are betting on Cannon's "pitchability." He spent the end of 2025 in Triple-A experimenting with new sequences and even looking at new grips with help from veterans like Mike Clevinger. It wasn't about the results in Charlotte; it was about the laboratory.
Actionable Insights: What to Watch for in 2026
If you’re a White Sox fan or a fantasy manager looking for a deep sleeper, there are three specific things to watch for in Jonathan Cannon’s first few starts this year:
- Ground Ball Percentage: If this is north of 45%, he’s back. If he’s giving up fly balls on his sinker, he’s in trouble.
- Cutter Usage: Look for him to use the cutter more frequently in 0-0 or 1-1 counts. It's his most reliable "get-back-in-the-count" pitch.
- Early Inning Efficiency: Cannon’s goal is to be a 180-inning guy. If he’s at 50 pitches by the end of the third inning, he’s over-thinking the strikeouts. He needs to embrace the "weak contact" mantra.
Jonathan Cannon isn't going to be an ace. He knows that. The White Sox know that. But in a league where finding reliable starters who can give you 6 innings of three-run ball is increasingly rare, a "fixed" Cannon is worth his weight in gold.
Keep an eye on his Spring Training velocity. If that sinker is sitting 94-95 mph with the same old movement, the "identity crisis" of last year might just be a footnote in a long career.
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To see how Cannon fits into the 2026 rotation, monitor the team's transaction wire for any veteran signings that might push him to a long-relief role, though he's currently projected to break camp as the No. 4 or 5 starter. Focusing on his "tunneling" between the sinker and changeup during his first few starts will be the quickest way to tell if his offseason work in Nashville paid off.