A four-year review of White Sox spring training outliers shows breakout performances are unpredictable — but when key players struggle in camp, it’s often a warning sign.
Every year when spring training begins, baseball fans ask the same question: how much do these results actually matter?
Whether you're watching your team stumble out of the gate or jump to a 3–0 start while outscoring opponents by 19 runs — like the Chicago White Sox have in 2026 — it’s difficult to know how much stock to put into what you're seeing.
Not every team is fielding its best lineup. Not every pitcher is attacking hitters the way he would in a regular-season game. Some players are experimenting with mechanics. Some are building arm strength. Some are simply trying to get through March healthy. Spring training is about development and preparation, and that preparation looks different for everyone.
So do spring training stats matter?
To answer that question, I went back and studied the four most recent spring trainings for the White Sox, dating back to 2022. What I found was a trend that surprised me — and one that I don’t think can be ignored.
Before diving into the data, it’s important to acknowledge the obvious: there are exceptions to every rule. A strong spring training does not guarantee a strong regular season. A disastrous spring does not automatically doom a player. Baseball is far too volatile for absolutes.
Results in small samples can be misleading. A hitter can barrel a baseball and make an out. A pitcher can hang a breaking ball and get away with it. That randomness exists in April — and it certainly exists in March. Predictive certainty is elusive in this sport.
But patterns still matter. And over the last four seasons, the White Sox have provided a meaningful one.
The Framework
Dating back to 2022, I flagged spring training performances that stood out as extreme positive or negative outliers.
For hitters, I focused on players posting an OPS around 1.000 or higher — players leading the team in home runs or becoming major storylines during camp. That 1.000 OPS threshold is admittedly arbitrary, but it represents the type of spring that generates buzz and alters expectations.
On the other end, I focused on hitters with OPS numbers below .600 — players whose struggles were jarring relative to expectations.
For pitchers, I identified inflated ERAs approaching 9.00 with concerning walk totals on the negative side, and ERAs near 1.00 with minimal damage on the positive side. Given the even smaller samples for pitchers, I concentrated only on the most extreme performances.
One more qualifier: expectations mattered. If a fringe bench player struggled, I didn’t include him. I focused on players whose production either raised legitimate concern or hinted at a breakout season.
Then I tracked how those players performed once the regular season began.
Breakout Springs: A Coin Flip
When it comes to positive spring training performances, the answer is fairly clear — they don’t reliably predict regular-season success. The carryover rate is essentially 50–50.
In 2025, Brandon Drury posted a 1.260 OPS with three home runs and generated buzz around Camelback Ranch. Then he fractured his thumb in the final week of camp and never made the team. There was no MLB production to speak of, but his numbers in Triple-A, with both the White Sox and Angels, were nothing special.
Kyle Teel put up a 1.119 OPS in his first extended big-league spring. In his case, the performance served as confirmation of talent rather than an illusion, and he followed it with an excellent rookie season.
But relief pitchers Penn Murfee, Cam Booser, and Mike Clevinger also went scoreless for all of camp that same year. None of them pitched effectively once the regular season began and Clevinger and Murfee were gone by early May. That spring dominance meant nothing.
In 2024, Garrett Crochet threw nine scoreless innings with 12 strikeouts and rode that momentum all the way to an AL All-Star appearance. Nick Nastrini, meanwhile, allowed just one run over 11 innings with 11 strikeouts in spring — then posted a 7.07 ERA during the regular season and was eventually waived in 2025. One hit. One miss.
The 2023 breakout list tells a similar story. Hanser Alberto hit .439 with a 1.258 OPS and made the roster, only to be released in June. Seby Zavala crushed five home runs with a 1.066 OPS in camp but had a .511 OPS over 66 games before he was DFA'd. Romy González led the team with six spring home runs then hit under .200 in what became his final season with the organization.
In 2022, Kyle Crick threw seven scoreless innings in camp and actually carried that success into a solid start before an elbow injury ended his career. That same spring, six hitters posted an OPS above 1.000: Eloy Jiménez, Luis Robert Jr., José Abreu, Jake Burger, Micker Adolfo, and Andrew Vaughn.
Abreu hit .304 during the regular season, though his power dipped. Burger delivered a respectable .761 OPS in his first extended MLB opportunity. But Adolfo failed to break through like many Sox fans hoped after watching him in Glendale. Jiménez and Robert battled injuries. Once again, mixed results.
That’s the theme: strong spring training performances are wildly unpredictable.
More often than not, what matters is underlying process, not raw production.
For example, I’m less concerned that White Sox infield prospect Sam Antonacci homered off Jameson Taillon in his first at-bat of 2026. I’m far more interested in the fact that the ball left his bat at 109.5 mph. Exit velocity stabilizes faster than batting average. For a player like Antonacci who is known for bat-to-ball skills and base running, showing that kind of developing power is meaningful. The home run itself isn’t the takeaway — the data is.
Negative Springs: A Warning Sign
Here’s the surprising bit.
When players struggle badly in spring training — true negative outliers — that failure almost always carries into the regular season.
I found two exceptions.
In 2025, Chase Meidroth hit .146 with a .471 OPS in 17 spring games after being acquired from Boston. It was a rough first impression. But once the regular season began, he raked in Triple-A Charlotte, earned a call-up on April 11, and showed enough as a rookie to cement himself as part of the future core.
The other exception is Lance Lynn in 2022. He posted a 10.50 ERA and 2.17 WHIP in spring while unknowingly pitching through a knee issue that later required surgery. After returning in June, he delivered a respectable 3.99 ERA for the season, but context matters there.
Lynn's struggles in camp were likely caused by the lingering knee issue. Had he not had a few months to recover and reset himself, the struggles in spring training could have easily carried over into the regular season.
Outside of those two, however, the pattern is difficult to dismiss.
Jonathan Cannon posted a 10.31 ERA in spring 2025, allowing 22 hits in 11.1 innings. He followed it with a 5.82 ERA during the regular season, was sent to Triple-A, and failed to regain footing. He's now on the outside looking in at the future White Sox rotation.
Jared Shuster surrendered 17 hits and nine runs in nine spring innings in 2025. His regular-season ERA ballooned to 8.04 before he was DFA’d.
Dominic Fletcher hit .204 with a .598 OPS in spring 2024 after the White Sox traded for him with clear internal optimism. He was a major disappointment to the front office and finished with a .508 OPS before being sent down.
Martín Maldonado hit .129 in camp and then .119 in the regular season before being released.
In 2023, Dylan Cease walked 12 batters in 16 spring innings with a 7.31 ERA. Coming off a Cy Young runner-up season, the struggles were dismissed as an outlier. But then Cease's ERA jumped more than two runs that year and hindered his trade value.
In the same season, Michael Kopech’s spring walk issues carried directly into a 5.43 ERA and the worst year of his career — one defined by inconsistency.
Andrew Benintendi posted a .588 OPS in his first spring after signing a $75 million contract with Chicago. He finished the regular season with a .682 OPS and didn’t hit his first home run until June 16.
In 2022, Dallas Keuchel’s 7.94 spring ERA foreshadowed his disastrous 7.88 ERA to open the season before being released. That was the beginning of the end of Keuchel's MLB career. That same year, Vince Velasquez’s rough spring preceded one of the worst barrel rates and average exit velocity allowed in baseball.
Yoán Moncada hit .121 with a .264 OPS in spring 2022. He walked only once, shocking for an offensive profile built on plate discipline. During the regular season, he hit .212 with a .626 OPS — the worst year of his career — and his walk rate cratered from 13.6% in 2021 (94th percentile) to 7.4%.
Yes, he was hurt at various times throughout the season, but Moncada flat out never looked right. And the warning signs were visible.
When people say spring training stats don’t matter, that often isn’t true for the players who are slumping.
Why Does This Happen?
So why does this happen? Spring training is unique because of the talent disparity on the field. And that could be one reason why.
Major League players regularly face minor leaguers from various levels of camp. A veteran pitcher can throw a 1–2–3 inning against hitters who have never played above Double-A. An established slugger can feast on a 20-year-old arm from A-ball.
Those matchups inflate numbers. They create illusions.
But if a big-leaguer struggles in that environment — if he can’t produce against mixed competition — that’s far more concerning.
When Moncada couldn’t buy a hit in 2022 spring training, he wasn’t exclusively facing frontline Major League pitching. He was seeing minor leaguers as well — and still couldn’t find his rhythm. If success is hard to come by in February and March against uneven competition, why would it suddenly become easier in April against the best players in the world?
That’s the key distinction.
This is only one organization and four years of data. It’s not exhaustive. It’s not definitive. But the trend is consistent enough to take seriously.
Breakout springs are coin flips. They might be real. They might be fool’s gold.
Disastrous springs, however, are rarely random.
When a player looks fundamentally off in March — when a hitter’s timing is off at the plate, or a pitcher's command is gone — history suggests that concern is justified. Those struggles usually aren’t isolated to camp. They’re early indicators of larger problems.
Spring training stats don’t tell you everything. But sometimes, they tell you exactly what you need to know.