Every season, someone comes out of nowhere. A pitcher nobody had circled in spring training suddenly starts dominating lineups, and by mid-May, the baseball world is scrambling to figure out how. This year, that pitcher is Chicago White Sox right-hander Davis Martin, and his emergence might be the most improbable breakout story in baseball this season.
To understand why this is so surprising, you have to start with who Martin was before 2026. He debuted with the White Sox back in 2022 and bounced between the majors and minors for years, getting optioned seven separate times. He never posted an ERA under 4.10 in any of his major league seasons before this one. He never posted an xERA under 4.10, or an xFIP under 4.42. The peripherals never hinted at what was coming. He was a back-of-the-rotation arm on a rebuilding team, and that is about as far from a breakout candidate as you can get.
Then 2026 happened. Through nine starts, Martin owns a 1.61 ERA and a 0.98 WHIP across 56 innings. His six wins and seven quality starts are both tied for the most in the American League. He is third among qualified starters in both ERA and WAR. Those are not back-end starter numbers. Those are legitimate ace numbers.
So what changed? Martin spent the winter working on his mechanics at PitchingWRX in Oklahoma, where the focus was on keeping his release point consistent. The fix was keeping him more linear toward the plate, and the results have spoken for themselves. As Martin put it: "Last year, when it was good, it was good. When it was bad, it was bad from a command standpoint."
The other major change has been the pitch mix. Last season, Martin threw six different pitches without a clear identity. This year, the slider has become the headliner. He is throwing it nearly 32 percent of the time, up from 13 percent a year ago, and the results have been phenomenal. His offspeed pitches, including his slider, currently rank in the 95th percentile in offspeed run value, and they have become the pitches that make everything else work. Martin is now using his sinker and cutter early in counts to establish the zone, then burying the slider out of the zone in two-strike counts. Hitters are chasing at a rate that puts him in the 88th percentile in baseball. For a guy whose fastball sits at just 93.7 miles per hour, putting him in the 35th percentile in velocity, that kind of swing-and-miss is remarkable.
Underneath the strikeout improvement, the command has been elite. Martin is posting a 1.61 BB/9 this year, the lowest walk rate of his career by a wide margin. Furthermore, he has only allowed three home runs in 56 innings. When you combine that kind of strike-throwing with the ability to generate chases and whiffs, you get a pitcher who is simply not giving hitters anything to do damage with.
Now, is it all sustainable? That is where we have to be honest about the red flags. Martin is carrying a .300 BABIP, the second highest of his career, which could signal some regression on the horizon. He is also allowing a 45.5 percent hard-hit rate, the highest of his career. His 8.5 percent barrel rate is the second highest of his career as well. Those are the kinds of numbers that can catch up to a pitcher in a hurry, and if hitters continue squaring him up at this rate, the long ball could become more of a problem. There is also the question of whether opposing lineups will adjust to the slider-heavy approach once scouting catches up. Martin's slider has been elite, but the pitch itself is not dramatically different from what he threw last year. He is simply using it more and in better counts, and that advantage may not last forever.
But even with those caveats, what Martin is doing deserves more attention. He is a 14th-round draft pick who was optioned seven times, lost an entire year to Tommy John surgery, never showed breakout-level stuff at any point in his career, and is now pitching like one of the best starters in the American League. The mechanics are better. The pitch mix has an identity. The command is the sharpest it has ever been. And for the first time in his career, everything is clicking at once.
He is the most unlikely breakout candidate of 2026, and right now, he is making the most of it.
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