White Sox Interested in Gold Glove Starter After Career-Best Season

January 08, 2026 ,
New York Mets starting pitcher Griffin Canning walks off the mound during 2025 game.

The Chicago White Sox aren’t done shopping for pitching, and Griffin Canning is now on their radar after what amounted to the best stretch of his big-league career. 

The Athletic's Ken Rosenthal and Will Sammon reported that Chicago is looking for another veteran starter on a one-year deal, and Canning is one of the arms they’ve targeted as the team keeps adding rotation depth behind recent signings of Anthony Kay and Sean Newcomb. 

There’s no indication anything is close yet, but the fit makes sense for a rebuilding club that can offer innings and a clear path to a steady role.

White Sox Interested in Gold Glove Canning

Canning’s 2025 season with the New York Mets quietly turned into a legit bounce-back story before it ended in brutal fashion. Pressed into the rotation after injuries hit the Mets in spring training, the former second-round pick posted a career-low 3.77 ERA across 16 starts (76.1 innings), with a 21.3% strikeout rate, 10.7% walk rate, and a ground-ball rate north of 50% that was a major jump from his career norms. 

Early on, he looked like a steal, ripping off a 2.47 ERA through his first nine starts with strong strikeout numbers and a heavy ground-ball profile, before command issues crept in and then a ruptured Achilles tendon in late June ended everything. Even with the ugly ending, teams clearly noticed the progress, especially the way his slider and changeup started generating grounders at elite rates.

Chicago’s interest lines up with where the roster is right now. The White Sox are still building, they’ve got a rotation mix that includes young arms like Shane Smith, Sean Burke, and Davis Martin, and they’re not obligated to rush top prospects Noah Schultz and Hagen Smith. 

A one-year bet on Canning gives them a possible mid-rotation stabilizer if he’s healthy, and it also fits the “prove it, flip it” playbook that rebuilding teams love at the deadline if he performs.

Photo Credit: Gregory Fisher-Imagn Images

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