John Danks agreed to terms with the White Sox on a five-year, $65MM extension and the deal’s impact extends beyond Chicago. Here’s a look at the ways the contract will affect MLB teams and players:
The White Sox
- The Sergio Santos trade marked “the start of a rebuilding,” according to Kenny Williams and after hearing the GM’s comments it was easier to envision a trade involving Danks than an extension for him. The long-term deal means the White Sox are working with one less trade chip this offseason and makes it harder to decipher the team’s direction. It remains possible that Gavin Floyd will be traded, but it’s hard to get a read on how Chicago’s front office values respectability in 2012 vs. the addition of long-term pieces via trade.
Trade Market
- The extension helps the A’s, who are listening to offers for Gio Gonzalez, another left-handed starter who was born within five months of Danks. Though Gonzalez doesn’t boast Danks’ career numbers, he’s coming off a better season and will be cheaper in 2012 and beyond. With Danks off of the market, Gonzalez’s value likely goes up. The same should apply to other starters on the trade market.
Free Agent Market
- Cole Hamels, Matt Cain, Zack Greinke, Jeremy Guthrie, Francisco Liriano, Shaun Marcum, Jonathan Sanchez and Anibal Sanchez are set to hit free agency this offseason. Some will sign extensions, but for those who don’t the Danks extension is good news. If fewer legitimate starters are out there next offseason, those who are available should enjoy greater leverage.
Danks’ Career Earnings
- Danks will hit free agency again after the 2016 season, when he’s 31 years old. As Danks’ longtime teammate Mark Buehrle and others have shown, durable left-handers who hit free agency in their early thirties are still in high demand. But if anything goes awry and teams have tepid interest in Danks five years from now, he’ll have pocketed $65MM. As a bonus, he’ll have earned the money playing in one city for one team — the club that happens to employ his younger brother.
Extension Market
- No extension occurs in a bubble, so Danks’ deal could impact other starters’ negotiations. Danks obtained less than what Cain or Hamels would get and probably far more than what Guthrie or Jonathan Sanchez could command.
- Right-hander Matt Garza, who has been linked to Danks through arbitration for years, could be affected by the deal should the Cubs look to extend him. Danks and Garza are more statistically similar to one another than to any other pitchers in MLB history, according to Baseball-Reference. One factor to keep in mind: Garza is a super two player who won’t be eligible for free agency until after the 2013 season. Like Danks, Garza is a CAA client (though they have different agents).
Mentioned this in the post announcing the trade. The Danks extension all but assures Garza will go year to year and hit FA after the ’13 season. This AAV of this deal is not high enough to entice Garza to lock himself in now and if anything sets a favorable number for the Cubs. Not to mention, Danks is 2 years younger then Garza is. Expect Garza to go through Arb this year and next year and then be one of the premiere arms in FA following the ’13 season.
Good for Danks – this team is all over the place – still has a good core group. If you watched them last year, Santos couldn’t get anyone(he has one pitch) out in Aug and Sept. Good move by KW. Look out for Addison Reed.
Santos had a 0.96 ERA in August and kept batters to a .297 OPS
lol
i’d have to look at the numbers, but Santos blew 3 or 4 games. it was almost as bad as watching Jenks in 2010.
1 blown save in august, 2 in september. you know who else had two in september? jonathan papelbon. craig kimbrel had 3
bums, all of them
Did you watch the Sox this year or just pulling stats? Do you recall Ozzie giving Santos a week off from closing? When you’re in a “pennant” hunt and your closer is either leaving runners on, having them tie the game or eventually letting them win, he’s replacable. I don’t even know what the argument here as the Sox traded him for a decent prospect. He was an average closer who’s potential might be tapped. Do we need to pull up Shingo’s stats?
is there an argument? you said he blew “3 or 4 saves”. in reality, it was 1. he was outstanding in the month of august, but blew 2 saves during a bad september
two other outstanding closers had poor septembers by that measure. my point was that that measure is pretty useless
He blew six saves overall. While that’s not terrible, it’s not good either. On top of that, two of them were very key games against Detroit. In fact, I think that they were the first and final games when Detroit went on that 12 game winning streak.
kimbrel blew 8. soria blew 7. valverde blew 0, but had 0 tough saves
not a good way to evaluate closers
Valverde was the best closer last year. Closer have one job and that’s finish the game when the lead is less than four runs. He was put in that position 49 times last season and did his job 49 times. Did he have better reliever numbers? Not even close. Was he the best closer? By far.
closers actually have the same job as every other pitcher, but i know what you’re saying
the conversation here is not primarily about the quality of the season, but the expected quality of future seasons. save ratios can tell you a bit about who had a good year, but they are a very unreliable way to predict future performance
since that’s what we’re talking about with santos, we shouldn’t be talking about saves/blown saves
From seeing him, he looks like he has a great fastball and an unpredictable curveball that hangs too much. He is fearless until he blows a save, then it’s time to get him out of there before he gives up too many more runs. I think he is a little above average closer. I’m interested to see how he does against the ALE better hitting.
Impossible – Blew the game in Det on a Saturday in August – Sox winning 8-1. End of season.
september*
September 4th.
Santos had a bad Sept, that’s it. He was great for most of the year and he is not a one pitch pitcher. He throws his 4 seam FB 95-98 which he generally controls well and has one of the best sliders in the game. Occasionally he’ll throw a change but you may only see it once every outing to let hitters know he has it.
This is the nicest way I’ve ever seen someone explain a scenario in which they are completely mystified.
Simply put, the extension makes no sense.
I can’t find anything on his NTC situation, if he didn’t get one, then this deal makes sense as $13M a year for the next 5 years of Danks is very reasonable and tradeable.
depends on his 2012 season really..
if his numbers keep going the way they did in 2011 it will be harder to trade.. but if he returns back to his 08-10 form then ya.
There has been zero Paul Konerko rumors this offseason, which is strange for a rebuilding team to have a veteran who posted a 906 OPS last year. Konerko had better numbers than 12 AL teams did at DH, or an NL team who plays in a hitters park who need a 1B could take him too. One would think that because of his contract, the taker would only need to give KW one A ball player with decent upside for him. The Rays, Yankees & Jays immediately come to mind as perfect fits for him.
The yankee phillosophy for the past few seasons is to not have a permanent DH and Konerko would be. Also I’m pretty sure that Konerko stated he wanted to stay in Chicago.
When Kenny started spouting his “rebuilding” plan at the winter meetings, someone asked him about Konerko and he said that PK has flat-out told him he wants to stay in Chi through a rebuilding phase. However, KW also indicated PK can do whatever he wants. They love him for his general baseball awesomeness, but also his veteran presence and leadership qualities. But, they would probably also like what they got back in trade. So, it seems like PK can punch his own ticket, where KW is concerned. And, so far, it does appear that he wants to stay.
That’s all well and feel good, but it flies in the face of what “rebuilding” means.
Next question: Does KW know what “rebuilding” means?
I’m going with “no”.
PK’s got 10-and-5 rights. Even if the Sox wanted to trade him, if Konerko wanted to stay in Chicago through a rebuilding phase, he could use his no-trade rights and stay.
With his NTC and salary (and that he’s of very little use to any NL team), he’s really difficult to trade.
Maybe he’s operating under the Lego Principle, which dictates that the only way to rebuild something is by using the exact same pieces.
Would also be a pretty quick change of heart for him and CWS. In mid-October he was rumored to be the player-coach and then they would ship him out of town for a A-ball player? Wouldnt be a good look. But hey, when has K-dubs every worried about his or CWS’s image…
It’s not a good look to throw around the word “rebuilding” and then do the polar opposite to that.
I fully expect KW to start signing FA’s and trading prospects for veterans now.
This extension doesn’t inhibit the ability to “rebuild.” Signing BOTH Danks and Floyd would. I take this extension to mean they made their decision and are going forward in their “rebuidling” phase with a SP rotation of Danks, Stewart, Sale and Humber (no particular order). ALL guys they have control over for 5 years. That’s not a terrible way to start rebuilding
Correction: Humber for 4 years, the rest for 5
Yankees are trying to break Montero into the DH/C role next year and would like to spot Arod their a few games too. Rays couldn’t afford Konerko. Jays could make sense.
I find it cute that people still try to make sense of what Kenny Williams does.
I think people do it for the sporting aspect. It used to be Reagins, now we just have Kenny left.
Used to be Hendry, used to be Minaya too. There’s been a league-wide cleansing of horrible GM’s the past couple years.
Colletti, Sabean, and Moore (to some extent) are still in power.
When it comes to rebuilding a team from the ground up, Moore’s your guy. When it comes to making a good team better, I’m not so sure.
Moore can scout and draft. Beyond that, he’s epic failness.
Does the Danks extension include a no-trade clause? If not, Danks just got alot more valuable as a trade chip.
Cole is worth $20 million per year if this guys worth $13 million.