The White Sox are next as we continue our series looking at each team's arbitration eligible players.
- First time: None
- Second time: None
- Third time: John Danks, Carlos Quentin, Tony Pena
Pena is a non-tender candidate. Though he could be retained with no raise on his current $1.6MM salary, he may need Tommy John surgery and might not be able to contribute much in 2012.
Quentin has solid production in the categories arbitration favors: home runs and RBIs. That should lead to a salary in the $7.5MM range.
Danks is an interesting case for arbitration nerds. He missed around four starts for an oblique strain this summer, at a point in his career where an inning is worth about $24K and a win around $80K in salary. He's likely to come in under 180 innings and 10 wins. There are few recent comparables for a five-plus service time starter like Danks, but Jeremy Guthrie and Matt Garza are current-year comparables whose fates will be intertwined. A vintage Danks year might have resulted in a $10MM salary, but we see him closer to $8MM for 2012.
Retaining Quentin and Danks could put the White Sox around $105MM in commitments for 2012. That's well below this year's $128MM payroll, but with attendance down the team may pull back spending.
Matt Swartz contributed to this post.
