Through five dominant starts in 2026, Davis Martin is delivering consistent results and emerging as a reliable long-term piece in the White Sox rotation despite underlying metrics that suggest regression.
It’s time to give Davis Martin his flowers. The 29-year-old right-hander has been anchoring the Chicago White Sox rotation through the first 25 games of the 2026 MLB season.
After another quality start on Thursday afternoon—6.1 innings, one run allowed, and seven strikeouts against the Arizona Diamondbacks—Martin now owns a 2.01 ERA through his first five starts of the season.
The White Sox are 4-1 when he takes the mound.
Admittedly, I’ve been waiting for the other shoe to drop with Martin for a while now. When you look at his 5.13 xERA from 2025, or even his 4.65 xERA mark so far this season, and consider that he ranks in the bottom 10% of MLB pitchers in average exit velocity and hard-hit rate, it’s fair to expect some regression. But one thing that remains undeniable when it comes to pitching is production—especially when that production is consistent.
And at this point, there’s a large enough sample size over the last two seasons to show just how solid Davis Martin truly is.
Since the start of 2025, he has appeared in 31 games for the White Sox, just shy of a full season’s workload. Over that span, he’s logged 174 innings with a 3.72 ERA and a 10-11 record, which, given the team context, is more than respectable.
He’s also been incredibly reliable when it comes to eating innings and helping his bullpen. In those 31 appearances, Martin has completed at least five innings 28 times. To begin 2026, he’s gone at least six innings in four of his five starts.
We knew Davis Martin was capable of being a serviceable big league arm, but I’m not sure anyone expected us to be 25 games into the season with him sitting among the ERA leaders in Major League Baseball. At 2.08, Martin currently ranks eighth among qualified starting pitchers, ahead of names like Dylan Cease, Jacob deGrom, Bryan Woo, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, and Tarik Skubal.
Martin will remain under team control through the 2030 season, giving the White Sox nearly five full years left of control. That could make him an appealing trade chip at some point, but it also aligns him with the organization’s next competitive window, even at 29 years old.
He may not sustain this current pace as one of the league’s ERA leaders, but Davis has proven to be a very good starting pitcher at this point, one who deserves a long-term spot in this rotation regardless of what additions come down the line.
He doesn’t need to be the ace. Noah Schultz, Hagen Smith, or even a future free agent could eventually fill that role as the rotation’s perennial All-Star anchor. But there’s real value in stability, and it’s hard to argue against locking Martin in as a fourth or fifth starter on the South Side for the next five years.