The past two seasons of White Sox baseball have seen heavy contributions from rookies. The 2025 season saw major impacts from Shane Smith, Colson Montgomery, and Kyle Teel. The rookie success has continued into 2026, with players like Munetaka Murakami, Noah Schultz, Tristan Peters, and Sam Antonacci making significant contributions to the roster. While the story for Murakami has been his game-changing power, Antonacci’s contributions have been of a much different type.
Since his big league debut on April 15th, Sam Antonacci is slashing .286/.386/.379 with a .765 OPS. His one big league home run was a wild inside-the-park homer against the Diamondbacks, so there hasn’t been much power from Antonacci, but he’s demonstrated the ability to get on base at a high level. Antonacci’s on-base ability was on full display in Wednesday’s game against the Twins, where he became just the third rookie in White Sox history to reach base six times in a single game. He has just 12 walks this season, but he’s holding a .386 on-base percentage thanks to excelling in another category.
Sam Antonacci:
— Patrick Nolan (@SoxMach_pnoles) June 8, 2026
HBP: 15
Walks: 12
This will be fascinating to follow.
Antonacci's propensity for getting hit by a pitch predates his big league career
Sunday’s first-inning hit-by-pitch was Antonacci’s league-leading 15th of the season, and marked the fourth consecutive game he’s been hit. On the surface, 28 strikeouts and 12 walks isn’t terribly impressive, but adding the times he’s been hit by a pitch makes it a much stronger 28-27 ratio. This isn’t a new thing for Antonacci either. Antonacci led minor league baseball with 35 hit-by-pitches in 2025. He seems to have a knack for it, and doesn’t mind taking one to reach base. Antonacci has a chance to tie or break a major league record this week. Former White Sox outfielder Carlos Quentin currently holds the longest streak of games getting hit by a pitch with six, which he accomplished with the White Sox in 2008. Antonacci enters Tuesday’s game against the Braves with four in a row.
It’s hard to tell the reason for Antonacci’s tendency to get hit often. From the eye test, it doesn’t look like he’s crowding the plate too much, though to be fair, he doesn’t exactly try too hard to get out of the way when the ball is coming. White Sox manager Will Venable considers it a skill rather than luck:
It’s a skill that he has developed,” Venable said. “He’s not leaning into stuff. He just ends up getting hit a lot”
Regardless of the reason, it’s been a large enough sample size to conclude that getting hit by a pitch is just a part of Antonacci’s game. Maybe there’s more power in his bat to be unlocked, but if not, he’s shown an ability to be an excellent table-setter for the White Sox. Antonacci will have an impact on the White Sox lineup for the foreseeable future, even if it requires a little bit of pain.
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