From the minor leagues to the World Baseball Classic, Sam Antonacci keeps getting hit by pitches — and it’s a valuable on-base weapon that will help the Chicago White Sox.
There are seven primary ways for a batter to reach first base safely in a game of baseball.
And how much stock we put into each one is often at the center of debate as the modern game takes a more analytical approach to player value.
Traditional thinking tells us the best players in baseball are the ones with the highest batting averages. A more modern philosophy — one adopted not just by teams but by the vast majority of baseball fans — believes a walk is just about as good as a hit.
We use metrics like OPS now to determine a player's offensive value. And it's really quite simple. We care about how often a player gets on base, and once they do, we care about how much damage they cause.
In a roundabout way, that brings me to Chicago White Sox infield prospect Sam Antonacci and a unique skill he possesses that could benefit the White Sox at some point this season.
Some players get on base because they collect a lot of hits. Others get on base because they draw a lot of walks. Antonacci does both of those things, but he’s also tremendous at getting hit by pitches.
Yes, you read that right. Antonacci is one of the most skilled players in all of baseball when it comes to getting hit by a pitch. Whatever that means.
I don’t entirely know what goes into making one player more susceptible to getting drilled than another. But I do know the numbers are becoming increasingly difficult to ignore. We’ve already seen it on display in the minor leagues, and it’s even carrying over into the World Baseball Classic.
As a result, Antonacci has posted a strong on-base percentage and a healthy OPS at every level he’s played. And as long as he’s getting on base, who really cares how he gets there?
In his one season at Coastal Carolina before being drafted by the White Sox in the fifth round, Antonacci was hit by a pitch 27 times in only 61 games.
In his first full professional season, Antonacci played in 116 games in the minor leagues and was hit by a pitch 35 times.
The last Major League Baseball player to be hit by a pitch 35 times in a single season was Don Baylor with the 1986 Boston Red Sox. That was over 160 regular season games. Ron Hunt was hit by 50 pitches in one season with the 1971 Montreal Expos (152 games), but those are the only two instances in the 125 years of baseball’s modern era in which an MLB player has been hit by at least 35 pitches in a season.
That’s what Antonacci did in his first year in the minor leagues — in just 116 contests.
Now, it might be easy to call that an anomaly. Any player could theoretically luck his way into getting beaned a record number of times. But that’s just not how it works.
Getting hit by a pitch is actually more sustainable than you might think. The guys who get drilled tend to keep getting drilled.
Ron Hunt led Major League Baseball in hit-by-pitches six consecutive seasons. Don Baylor led the league in the category seven times during his MLB career.
For certain hitters, it isn’t random at all — it’s simply part of their game. And that certainly seems to be the case for Sam Antonacci.
In the 2025 Arizona Fall League, Antonacci was hit by four more pitches in 19 games. Add that to his 15 walks, and his on-base percentage sat at .505 in the AFL.
On Tuesday night, as Team Italy stunned Team USA with an 8–6 upset win in the World Baseball Classic, Antonacci made a name for himself on a national stage. He clubbed a home run, later pushed a run across with a fielder’s choice, and scored on a wild pitch thanks to tremendous baserunning instincts.
Oh…and he also got hit by a pitch.
Because of course he did.
It’s hard to say exactly why Antonacci has a knack for getting drilled. Perhaps he crowds the plate a bit and can afford to do so thanks to his quick hands and bat-to-ball skills, which allow him to turn around inside pitches. Maybe it’s the game plan opposing pitchers deploy against him. Or maybe it’s simply his toughness — a willingness to hang in there and take one for the team.
But whatever the reason, it’s a pretty significant factor moving forward.
Even if his 2025 total of 35 hit-by-pitches never happens again, if Antonacci is getting hit 20 times in a season, that may as well be 20 extra walks or 20 extra singles he brings to the White Sox lineup.
And that’s only going to continue raising the floor of a prospect who already appears to be developing a lot of intriguing tools as he matures.
At some point in 2026, the White Sox will likely begin reaping the rewards of this unusual — but very valuable — skill.