Jonathan Cannon Aims To Defy Projections And Build On Strong 2024

In less than two weeks, pitchers and catchers will report to Spring Training for the White Sox, officially transitioning to the 2025 season. It will signal the end of the dreadful 2024 season, allowing the players who still remain on the roster to purge the historically bad season from their minds. 

The Opening Day roster will look very different than it did last year, and as the year progresses, some of the White Sox top prospects will join the roster as they earn promotions to Chicago. There are many variables to how a player will perform in a given season, but certain baseball reference websites try to give their best evaluation on how a player will perform for the upcoming season. 

Each year, FanGraphs releases their Steamer projections on how they believe each player will perform in the upcoming year. We will be taking a look at each player’s 2025 projections as we approach Spring Training.

Now, we take a look at the first pitcher of the series, Jonathan Cannon. Cannon broke out with the White Sox last year, as he made 23 starts for them. At the beginning of the year, nobody thought Cannon would make the type of impact he did, but it was a pleasant surprise.

In 124 innings, Cannon pitched to a 4.49 ERA that was inflated by a few bad starts, otherwise it would have been lower. He struck out 91 batters and had a 1.3 WHIP. For a rookie pitcher that wasn't considered a top prospect, this was a fantastic season.

However, FanGraphs believes that there is regression in store for Cannon, as they believe he will pitch to a 4.75 ERA over 160+ innings. While his WHIP was a bit elevated last season, I believe that he will pitch better than last season, as he now has a better idea how to approach major league hitting and has an offseason working with the major league staff.

While it's unlikely that Cannon pitches to a sub 3 ERA next year, there is a good chance that he is around the high 3's or low 4's rather than the projected 4.75 ERA. Cannon showed that he could be a workhorse back of the rotation arm, as he consistently would go deep in games, getting better as the game went along.

Jonathan Cannon's 6th and 7th Ks pic.twitter.com/dYfND5noHv

— Rob Friedman (@PitchingNinja) September 25, 2024

While Cannon doesn't have overwhelming top of the rotation stuff, he has a good feel for all his pitches and has a very good slider/sweeper that was a good out pitch for him last season. Cannon showed that he could get consistently get outs and if he can replicate that this year, he will carve himself a role in the major leagues for a long time.