PHOENIX -- Especially in a spring camp that has 70 invitees at this point, most players get talked about in terms of their potential -- to reclaim their old performance level during a brief spell in a White Sox uniform on a minor league deal, or because they'll soon be headed to Double-A Birmingham and the like.
Davis Martin is in a different category. The organization is largely looking out toward what future years have to offer, but 2025 is supposed to hold Martin's breakout.
"I'm expecting a lot from Davis," said pitching coach Ethan Katz. "Especially now being removed from Tommy John and some of the stuff that guys battle with, the fatigue and all that stuff, hopefully all that is now behind him, having a normal offseason."
Martin left his last start of 2022 with bicep soreness after an ERA-wrecking season finale outing, and was still very much in the throes of rehabbing from Tommy John surgery this time last season. So training without restrictions at the PitchingWRX facility in his native Oklahoma over the offseason was a lot more normal, and a lot more active. The approach there involves a lot more mound work, rooted in the belief that all adjustments to the throwing motion should be made with the idea of pitching off a slope in mind, so Martin threw off a mound roughly twice as often as a normal offseason, ahead of a 2025 season where the Sox want him to blow away his career total of 113 major league innings.
"In 2022, I'm not in big league camp, kind of surprised to be in the big leagues," Martin recalled. "In 2023, I know I'm the sixth guy with the rotation that we had that year. This year coming into it, knowing this is our turn to take the reins a little bit, it's great. Just worked hard. I talked to [Jonathan] Cannon, I talked to [Sean] Burke, I talked to a lot of those guys all offseason, kind of checked in on each other to make sure we're all doing what we need to be doing."
What the White Sox pitching staff lacks in swing-and-miss stuff, they are hoping to make up for with quick, economical innings compiled in bulk by their starters. It's not simply wildness that produces walks at the major league level, but pitchers who lack stuff nasty enough to avoid hard contact in the zone, and it's a precious few starters who have it. To that end, the White Sox are also very intent upon improving the 28th-best pitch framing per Statcast, to make getting ahead of the count feel a bit less like threading a needle.
But Martin doesn't scan like an exceptional candidate to be the White Sox workhorse, or potential Opening Day starter, or any of the ways he's talked about at Camelback Ranch upon first glimpse. He can flash 97 mph, but generally offers league-average velocity. The post-TJ version of his fastball has a generic level of ride, such that hitters are more likely to see a cutter or slider as Martin jabs around the zone with a blend of offerings that are not singularly overwhelming. But in a 28-year-old with a 4.61 ERA, the White Sox see someone who has held their own through command, guile and the ability to wield enough different breaking ball shapes to stay off hitters' barrels, and someone adaptable enough to embrace a nudge forward.
"The professionalism and how mature and advanced he is; he feels like he's an established guy already," said Will Venable.
"I'm just a fan of his at the moment," said Brian Bannister. "Whenever you have a brand new, young pitcher who's breaking into the league, went through some injury stuff, to be able to just handle it and not be rattled out there and give himself a chance to keep getting better and put up league average or better production, is really a nice first step in year one or two. He's done a great job and he's open to anything."
And in Bannister's view, Martin's rapid-fire adoption of a kick changeup answered the central question in his profile: a weapon that moves to his arm side and immediately became a central focus of opposing teams' attack plans against Martin. The right-hander expects both it and his curveball to be more consistent after a full offseason of working on each, but he also looks at the 50 innings he pitched in 2024 and sees a much more obvious route for his performance taking a leap.
"If there was something to really be picky on, it was walks," said Martin, who interrupted a long string of single-digit walk rates through the minors by giving free passes to 10.5 percent of hitters last year. "That wasn't who I was in '22, that wasn't who I was in 2023."
Pitchers have a tendency to talk about walks as if they are a sign of moral decay, and Martin is no exception, but his offseason work in Oklahoma City focused on a more mechanical root cause.
"We learned that I was getting a little pushy on my big toe in my foot position, so sometimes I would spray left or right," Martin said. "Guys talking about pushing off their back foot and it's heel to their whole foot. The way I felt, I was only at heel to mid-foot, pushing to this direction and then as soon as I would get to extension off the back leg, the only thing that's left is my big toe. I would almost push out and that would take me to the right side of my delivery."
Martin was kind enough to clarify that no, this is not something he could feel while in the middle of trying to escape a bases-loaded jam. But it's the sort of tangible work item that's more satisfying than a blanket explanation that command is the last thing to return after TJ. And that Martin isn't satisfied with his inefficiencies, or being cast as a back-end starter, is kind of the big thing the White Sox like about him.
"He puts in a lot of work behind the scenes," Bannister said. "He's just built a really nice floor for himself."
-- Will Venable will maintain a rotating DH, seeing it as a spot to give positional regulars time off from the field, and he has further signaled that a lot of the lineup/rest decisions will be driven by input from the sport performance staff. This jibes with a lot of his references to platooning as well: Luis Robert Jr. crushes lefties and Michael A. Taylor floats around league average against them, so a southpaw opposing starter is a likely scenario to see the former at DH and the latter in center. Chris Getz has also made reference to Edgar Quero and Kyle Teel functioning as a platoon in the future as well.
-- With that in mind, it's of interest that Venable stipulated that Joey Gallo is largely being brought in as a first baseman. He acknowledged that Gallo has versatility and a past history of good outfield defense, but Venable viewed the Sox outfield picture as largely set after the Taylor signing.
"He's a really good defender all the way around, so that versatility will help his opportunity, but primarily, the focus will be at first base," Venable said. "We like what he does defensively at first base. Obviously, a ton of power with Joey. And we feel like there's some stuff with him that we can get him back to who he was."
