Davis Martin's injury-shortened clunker in his last start of the season made it a little less clear, but one of the remarkable things about his contributions to the 2022 White Sox was how well he pitched in the majors relative to Triple-A.
Through his first 13 games (eight starts) with the Sox, Martin had a 3.65 ERA over 61⅔ innings, compared to a 6.11 ERA over 53 innings with the Charlotte Knights. Martin ended up finishing with a 4.85 ERA after allowing nine runs over 1⅔ innings before leaving with bicep tightness, but the point, while diminished, still stands.
The gap became a little more explicable when looking at Martin's home/road splits at Triple-A, which were extreme even by the normal standards of Truist Field.
- Home: 1-5, 8.70 ERA, 30 IP, 44 H, 33 R, 29 ER, 15 BB, 40 K, 8 HR
- Road: 2-0, 3.00 ERA, 21 IP, 16 H, 7 R, 7 ER, 3 BB, 26 K, 3 HR
And looking at Baseball America's updated park factors for 2022, it turns out that Truist Field reached new levels of insanity for offense.
For those new to park factors, here's how BA defines them:
Park factors presented here are basic comparisons of minor league teams' production in home games compared with road games. The result is park factor (PF), where 100 is average and 120 signifies that the outcome is 20% more frequent in home games than road games. Conversely, a PF of 80 indicates that outcome is 20% less common in home games.
And here's how they played out in Charlotte from 2021 to 2022.
New to this year, BA also published the team run context for each park. Charlotte finished with an International League-leading 5.68 TRC, which means that Knights pitchers spent half of the season playing in one of those Pacific Coast League Parks at altitude.
The White Sox's other parks played less extreme. Regions Field in Birmingham suppressed homers, but otherwise played middle-of-the-pack in runs per game, and the same can be said for Winston-Salem.
We're still learning how Atrium Health Ballpark in Kannapolis plays two seasons in, and just like its fellow metropolitan area neighbor, it also experienced a big swing in home-run hosting in 2022.
I've always sensed that the White Sox use Birmingham's far more neutral environment as the proving ground, and hold off on promoting key prospects to Charlotte until the severe environments can't disproportionately inflate or wreck self-esteems. Martin's got a nice little boost for most of the year with his work in Chicago, and here's hoping his last start (and the injury underneath it) doesn't negate the progress.
Speaking of which, with the White Sox using Project Birmingham as their Arizona Fall League for their best High-A and Double-A prospects, the actual AFL is more of an afterthought this year. James Fox ran through the seven minor leaguers the Sox sent to the desert a month ago, and Moises Castillo is the only one who has distinguished himself so far.
The 23-year-old shortstop is hitting .478/.538/.652 with four doubles, three walks and two strikeouts over 26 plate appearances, leading the 6-5 Glendale Desert Dogs in average and slugging.
As for the other position players:
- Adam Hackenberg: 5-for-21, 0 XBH, 5 BB, 5 K
- Terrell Tatum: 5-for-17, 0 XBH, 3 BB, 4 K, 4-for-4 SB
And the pitchers:
- Sammy Peralta: 6 IP, 6 H, 2 R, 2 ER, 2 HR, 1 BB, 4 K
- Declan Cronin: 3 IP, 5 H, 2 R, 2 ER, 0 HR, 0 BB, 2 K
- Chase Solesky: 7 IP, 9 H, 7 R, 7 ER, 2 HR, 4 BB, 5 K
- Lane Ramsey: 3.1 IP, 5 H, 4 R, 4 ER, 0 HR, 4 BB, 2 K
