GLENDALE, Ariz. — Sometimes the analytics are wrong, which happened to be the case last season for Jonathan Cannon.
The 6-6 right-hander changed the grip on his sinker in the middle of the season because hitters were pouncing on the pitch no matter where he tried to throw it in the strike zone.
He altered his sinker grip from a one-seam grip — with the index and middle fingers on one seam — back to a typical sinker grip, which has the index and middle fingers between two seams. The latter grip is what worked well for him at the University of Georgia.
“At the end of the day, the [analytics] can tell you what you want and everything, but the final say is the hitter,” said Cannon, 25, who will start for the White Sox in their spring-training opener Friday against the Cubs in Mesa. He’s slated to pitch two innings.
After struggling to a 5.34 ERA last season, Cannon was sent to Triple-A in August. He was recalled about a month later, did not pitch well in one start and was sent back down again. Cannon finished the 2025 season with a 5.82 ERA over 103⅔ innings.
Cannon chalks up the underperformance to trying to do too many things at once.
“Just kind of hit the fire drill too soon, and it just kind of led to other things,” Cannon said. “It was a snowball effect. Once that snowball kind of got going, it was tough to turn around, but I thought it was a great learning experience for me.
“[Being demoted to the minors] was tough, just very mentally challenging. I was probably a year and a half removed from being in the minor leagues, and so to get sent back down there in my second year, [when] I was hoping to take a step forward, was definitely mentally tough, definitely wore on me a little bit. So I feel like looking back on it now — it’s obviously hard to see it when you’re in it — it was just mentally what I needed.”
Sox catcher Korey Lee, also sent to Triple-A last season, said he sees a lot of maturity in Cannon this spring.
“I think people grow as pitchers every single offseason,’’ Lee said. ‘‘I think people learn from their mistakes, what they did during the season, then they continue to grow with what they’re really, really good at. So just making adjustments throughout the offseason is really important for all the pitchers.”
Cannon has simplified things in the offseason and has come back into spring training with more confidence in his sinker, which he often relies on, along with an arsenal that includes a cutter, changeup, four-seam fastball and sweeper.
The version of his sinker that didn’t produce positive results broke sooner after his release than he had hoped, giving hitters a better look at the pitch as it approached the plate.
“[I’m] trying to get it to seam-shift a little bit more,” Cannon said. “I really wasn’t doing that. . . . It [breaks] a little bit later, a little bit sharper. The feedback I’ve gotten back from the catchers and hitters has been great so far, so I think that’ll be a great pitch for me this year.”
Sox manager Will Venable said Cannon has to find creative ways to get left-handed hitters out. Lefties hit .295 against Cannon last year; righties batted .261.
“Whether it’s the changeup, fastball location,’’ Venable said, ‘‘there’s a lot of different ways that he’s able to get guys out. Just want to be able to make sure he understands what those things are. That was part of the calculus of sending him down, and he did a great job of kind of adding or at least rearranging his arsenal to be able to do that.”