Last August, when Sam Antonacci was two weeks into his Double-A career and his slugging percentage was nearly 100 points lower than his OBP, he said something to Sox Machine that appears to be pretty prophetic at the present moment.
"I look at it, the power will come," he said. "I think I have a lot of room to grow and get stronger, so I think the power will come as I age."
Six games into his 2026 Cactus League season, he's slugging a whopping .846 thanks to his second homer of the spring, whose projected distance Statcast measured the same as his first: 416 feet.
He also boosted his OBP to .500 with a pair of HBPs, neither of which appeared to faze him. The first one deflected off his knee and manscaped Austin Hedges on the ricochet, and then the second one caught his elbow armor flush.
Antonacci's spring stats -- 4-for-13, two homers, a double, three walks, two HBPs, zero strikeouts -- should freeze for a bit as he reports for the World Baseball Classic, although the Cactus League won't quite be done with him yet. Team Italy has exhibitions against the Cubs on Tuesday and the Angels on Wednesday before heading to Houston for their opener against Brazil on Saturday.
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Contrary to popular belief, the White Sox are fielding players in addition to Antonacci. One of them is Jedixson Paez, who made his Cactus League debut against Cleveland with a 1-2-3 fifth inning.
Even if Paez fared poorly, the inning would've been instructive for putting him in the closest thing he's seen to a major league context, which is somewhat urgent since he's a Rule 5 pick who hasn't pitched above A-ball.
Fortunately, he fared well. He needed just 12 pitches to retire the bottom of Cleveland's lineup in order, and had no issue attacking the inside corner against lefties, which was the side all three hitters batted from. His misses all avoided flirting with danger save his last one, a first-pitch changeup in the middle of the zone that Angel Genao sizzled 103.4 mph into Chase Meidroth's glove at second base.
Paez only topped out at 91.4 mph on the afternoon, but he packed five different offerings into his 12 pitches. Both of those facets are characteristic of his game, and the more MLB-caliber hitters Paez can see before the last full week of March, the better understanding we'll have of whether it can immediately work at even replacement-level effectiveness in the majors.
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Speaking of Statcast data that's helpful to see even this early, Noah Schultz made his 2026 debut against the Brewers on Saturday. The pitch information is especially useful since the game wasn't televised, although it would've been nice to see what the changeup looks like. It’s been a point of emphasis in developing a more confident third pitch against righties, and he threw six of them, including one that registered strike three.
Sight unseen, the performance represented a return to form, in ways both pleasant and frustrating. He threw a lot of strikes -- 23 of 33, to be exact -- and none of his sliders were recognized as curveballs, which was one of the indicators of lost sharpness last season.
On the other hand, he got BABIP'd for a run in his first inning of work on a soft liner single and some misfortune over his remaining pitches of the seventh, which is why the White Sox would like to see him miss more bats. But before the White Sox can get carried away with attempting to rework his arsenal again, they need to make sure he's structurally sound to execute his bread and butter. Theoretically, additional outings like the one he had on Saturday to confirm the old/new normal is how that process would begin anew.
