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[Dick Allen]

Take away Edwin Jackson's worst 8 starts and he has a 4.20 ERA. Why do the Cubs want to dump him so bad?

4.20 ERA in the NL is still pretty bad. And you are taking 8 away of 27, where Danks has an ERA a run lower taking 6 away from 32.

Edited October 21, 2014 by Dick Allen

[LittleHurt05]

4.20 ERA in the NL is still pretty bad. And you are taking 8 away of 27, where Danks has an ERA a run lower taking 6 away from 32.

 

Sure, Edwin Jackson is an extreme example, but the point remains the same. Take away 5 of Jeremy Guthrie's 32 starts and suddenly his ERA is 3.05, instead of 4.13 and he's a top 10 pitcher in the AL.

 

Either way you can't just ignore nearly 20% of a starter's starts, especially when he gave his team a nearly zero percent chance of winning those games.

[Dick Allen]

Sure, Edwin Jackson is an extreme example, but the point remains the same. Take away 5 of Jeremy Guthrie's 32 starts and suddenly his ERA is 3.05, instead of 4.13 and he's a top 10 pitcher in the AL.

 

Either way you can't just ignore nearly 20% of a starter's starts, especially when he gave his team a nearly zero percent chance of winning those games.

No but I think the point being made is the 20 or so really good starts or the 26 with an ERA of 3.18 are the starts being ignored. Danks will be the first to tell you he didn't have a good year, but overall there were definitely some positives. He wasn't, as a few wanted to point out, the 3rd worst starter in baseball. Not even close.

[caulfield12]

No but I think the point being made is the 20 or so really good starts or the 26 with an ERA of 3.18 are the starts being ignored. Danks will be the first to tell you he didn't have a good year, but overall there were definitely some positives. He wasn't, as a few wanted to point out, the 3rd worst starter in baseball. Not even close.

 

http://espn.go.com/mlb/stats/pitching/_/se...ric/order/false

 

There's SIERA, FIP, FIP+, Defense Independent Pitching....

 

This one has both Danks and Noesi in the bottom five.

 

Of course, that's with the caveat that it's the "top 88" pitchers that are qualified. So you can say he's one of the five worst third starters...along with Noesi, which is the rosy picture.

 

Or you could of course argue that for $13-15 million you could find a lot of pitchers to give you similar or better statistics.

 

If you move the bar down to 100+ IP, you get a screen of 149 total pitchers.

 

Now obviously some of those guys were rookies, some were up and down, some were injured/not durable, etc. However, that screen that would in effect give you roughly five starters per team (some would be 6-7, some just 4, etc.) you'd find Danks at 139/140.

 

Here's the bottom 9 below them...

 

Roberto Hernandez

Marco Estrada

Scott Carroll

Brad Peacock

Miguel Gonzalez (who started a post-season game for BALT)

Nick Martinez

Chris Young

Nick Tepesch

Franklin Morales

 

The presence of three starters in the bottom 11 for the majors should tell you all you need to know about 2014, just like the presence of two rookie Rangers and Colby Lewis.

 

125. Edwin Jackson

131. Justin Masterson

134. Shelby Miller

138. Ubaldo Jimenez

 

With Ubaldo, we would have had 4 of the bottom 12.

[witesoxfan]

Also, since everyone loves when I cherry pick....Throw out his 6 truly dreadful starts and he had a 3.18 ERA for 26 starts (164 innings)....Call those innings luck if you must, but as a 4th/5th starter I'll take a guy who gets shelled once a month if he's also keeping us in games the other 4-5.

 

His contract does change things a bit, so with that said I'm cool with trading him for a decent offer. Don't think we need to just dump him or that trading him should be a priority though.

 

Well then let's look at his worst 26 starts too.

 

5.78 ERA

1.56 WHIP

1.8 K/BB

3.5 BB/9

6.2 K/9

152.2 IP

 

Also, the idea that a "quality start" is 6 IP and 3 ER is a bit crazy anymore considering the league ERA was 3.74 and the league ERA for starting pitchers was 3.82. You'd think that an ERA of 4.50 is no longer a "quality start" given that it's well above the league average ERA. I would say a quality start anymore is 7 IP and 3 ER or 6 IP of 2 ER.

[cabiness42]

I do believe that there is some merit to the argument that a bad pitcher with a higher variance in his performance will win you more games than an equally bad pitcher with a lower variance, but I also believe that a good pitcher will win you more games than both of them.

[Eminor3rd]

I would rather he have 20 or more really good starts with the 6 or 7 real clunkers, than have a consistent 5.00 ERA for all of his starts. The fact is, most of the time Danks did not suck, advanced stats be damned.

 

And yet he DID suck plenty enough to single-handedly lose 6 or 7 games, which is tremendously significant. Think about the impact of seven guaranteed losses. And when he wasn't single-handedly losing the game, he came in as a mid-rotation starter giving up a little over 3 runs per nine innings.

 

And you can't get those 25 middling starts without taking the 7 automatic losses. The reason 3.16 is a "good ERA" is because it assumes that you INCLUDE the clunkers. If a guy is allowing over three runs per nine when he's at his best, he isn't very good.

[LDF]

 

what gets me is when Danks signed his contract, he was healthy. he got

hurt in the performance of his job, pitching for the white sox. is it his fault

that he got hurt or that he sign a contract before he got hurt. this is the main

reason why the players combine and formed the union. to protect themselves.

 

if no team wants to take a risk on him the player but they then have to take

his contract. he pitch well for the sox, before his injury and still should have

loyalty of the fans.

 

if not, then fans are indeed fickle.

[caulfield12]

what gets me is when Danks signed his contract, he was healthy. he got

hurt in the performance of his job, pitching for the white sox. is it his fault

that he got hurt or that he sign a contract before he got hurt. this is the main

reason why the players combine and formed the union. to protect themselves.

 

if no team wants to take a risk on him the player but they then have to take

his contract. he pitch well for the sox, before his injury and still should have

loyalty of the fans.

 

if not, then fans are indeed fickle.

 

human nature...half the Royals fans are frustrated with Shields, Giants fans with Lincecum, Bears fans with Cutler, we live in a 24/7, "what have you done for me lately" media-driven culture

 

the reason many Sox fans have been patient with Danks is precisely for those reasons....whereas they weren't so patient with Peavy or Dunn when they struggled or were injured

 

 

[Eminor3rd]

what gets me is when Danks signed his contract, he was healthy. he got

hurt in the performance of his job, pitching for the white sox. is it his fault

that he got hurt or that he sign a contract before he got hurt. this is the main

reason why the players combine and formed the union. to protect themselves.

 

if no team wants to take a risk on him the player but they then have to take

his contract. he pitch well for the sox, before his injury and still should have

loyalty of the fans.

 

if not, then fans are indeed fickle.

 

Oh, I don't HATE him for getting hurt or being bad. I just don't want him on my team anymore. I have a John Danks shirsey I still wear. Also, I don't feel anyone owes him any sympathy -- he signed a contract that guaranteed him fifty million dollars regardless of his performance, and he's going to be paid every penny. He is plenty "protected."

[LDF]

 

when he was healthy, he gave his best for the sox. now he is hurt, but

stat was not that bad. posters are using his salary for getting rid of him

or he is not worth that salary.

 

where is all the backing that he should be getting. he was being paid

for his success. the union made sure that a player should not be punish

if he is hurt.

 

 

[witesoxfan]

when he was healthy, he gave his best for the sox. now he is hurt, but

stat was not that bad. posters are using his salary for getting rid of him

or he is not worth that salary.

 

where is all the backing that he should be getting. he was being paid

for his success. the union made sure that a player should not be punish

if he is hurt.

 

No, his stats were bad. 10 years ago, a 4.77 ERA (and the corresponding FIP and xFIP and any other metric you'd like to use) were slightly below league average. The MLB average ERA for starting pitchers this year was 3.82. John Danks was almost a full run worse than that. He was a 5th starter whose production could just as easily be replaced by someone like Scott Carroll.

[2nd_city_saint787]

Take away Edwin Jackson's worst 8 starts and he has a 4.20 ERA. Why do the Cubs want to dump him so bad?

 

4.20 isn't 3.18 though....If the number I was cherry picking wasn't really good, like I think 3.18 is, I wouldn't even bring it up.

 

 

 

[BlackSox13]

But reality doesn't work that way, lol. He did NOT have a 3.18 ERA because he DID have 6 dreadful starts. EVERY pitcher looks good when you remove all their bad performances.

I know what you mean but basically Danks averaged one s***ty start per month over a six month season and outside of that one s***ty start, he was pretty good. I'll take that. I believe this is what scs787 is saying, and I agree.

 

Maybe I just prefer rainbows and unicorns, leave me alone you hippo.

Edited October 21, 2014 by StRoostifer

[LDF]

No, his stats were bad. 10 years ago, a 4.77 ERA (and the corresponding FIP and xFIP and any other metric you'd like to use) were slightly below league average. The MLB average ERA for starting pitchers this year was 3.82. John Danks was almost a full run worse than that. He was a 5th starter whose production could just as easily be replaced by someone like Scott Carroll.

 

and while you are using the advance stat to make this point. I can not

dispute it. I really, to my embarrassment, do not know enuf of it to comment

however my point is how posters can discard players on a whim. my counter

is the union made provisions to prevent that from happening.

 

I am also saying is do not use salary or injury as an excuse to misrepresent

that nothing can be done. this is a situation that can not be fix.

[Chisoxfn]

I know what you mean but basically Danks averaged one s***ty start per month over a six month season and outside of that one s***ty start, he was pretty good. I'll take that. I believe this is what scs787 is saying, and I agree.

 

Maybe I just prefer rainbows and unicorns, leave me alone you hippo.

Agreed; Bottom line is, if you look at the good start vs. bad start component and in general your season long statistics are more negatively weighed by bad starts and in general you had much more good starts, then over the course of the season you gave your team a much better chance to win. And in theory, each individual start has its own components that go into it so when you are going bad, often times it stays bad and that isn't necessarily an indication of future starts (you could be feeling off, have a mechanical hitch that can be corrected, etc). It is still a good season stat and telling stat but if a pitcher historically had some mechanical yips that would occasionally show up and cause bad starts, offsite by quick corrections and significant good starts, you could almost correlate that as a trend and identify a player with good value who you could pencil in a few losses and maybe not as good of an ERA (as it will be more largely skewed by the bad games) but in reality a guy who gave you much better overall win probabilities.

 

The key in all of this is that people buy into the fact that when you are going bad you tend to be much worse then when you are going good to average and thus your bad will significantly outweigh the good, which means you need to have shown indications that in reality you tend to be a pretty high upside guy more often then not. One season could very well be an anomaly but over multiple seasons you can see there are guys that tend to be more I'll either give up 3 runs or less and do it majority of time but occasionally I'll give up 7 vs. the guy that will consistently give up 4 with a very rare 1 run game but also more rare 6 run games.

[2nd_city_saint787]

What's strange is of those 6 dreadful starts, 5 were against teams who had worse records than the Sox.

 

Whereas in his 11 starts against playoff teams he has a 2.64 ERA.

 

#BigGameJohn

Edited October 21, 2014 by scs787

[witesoxfan]

4.20 isn't 3.18 though....If the number I was cherry picking wasn't really good, like I think 3.18 is, I wouldn't even bring it up.

 

But his ERA if you take out his 6 best starts, his ERA is 5.78 (or something, I don't remember). You can't just take out his worst or his best starts and assuming everything is roses.

 

Let's rephrase this. If someone said "I will take John Danks for free off of your hands," what would your response be? If they said "I will do it if you include Matt Davidson and we give you nothing," what do you say? If they say "if you eat $5 mill of his remaining deal, we'll take on his deal," is that too much? At what threshold are the White Sox eating too much value to move John Danks? Is there a combination that you wouldn't move him for?

 

I know for certain that if a team was willing to eat his entire contract, I'd give him away without a second thought.

[Chisoxfn]

Agreed; Bottom line is, if you look at the good start vs. bad start component and in general your season long statistics are more negatively weighed by bad starts and in general you had much more good starts, then over the course of the season you gave your team a much better chance to win. And in theory, each individual start has its own components that go into it so when you are going bad, often times it stays bad and that isn't necessarily an indication of future starts (you could be feeling off, have a mechanical hitch that can be corrected, etc). It is still a good season stat and telling stat but if a pitcher historically had some mechanical yips that would occasionally show up and cause bad starts, offsite by quick corrections and significant good starts, you could almost correlate that as a trend and identify a player with good value who you could pencil in a few losses and maybe not as good of an ERA (as it will be more largely skewed by the bad games) but in reality a guy who gave you much better overall win probabilities.

 

The key in all of this is that people buy into the fact that when you are going bad you tend to be much worse then when you are going good to average and thus your bad will significantly outweigh the good, which means you need to have shown indications that in reality you tend to be a pretty high upside guy more often then not. One season could very well be an anomaly but over multiple seasons you can see there are guys that tend to be more I'll either give up 3 runs or less and do it majority of time but occasionally I'll give up 7 vs. the guy that will consistently give up 4 with a very rare 1 run game but also more rare 6 run games.

By the way, I should also point out we probably should be looking into a lot of other variables in those starts as well, to try to skim through lucky starts, etc. I think you'd want to see what his OPP BAA was, LD%'s, K to BB in those games, etc to see whether he truly was pitching good or are we talking about him getting lucky in a few more starts, etc. Just looking solely at the ERA of those starts isn't enough.

[2nd_city_saint787]

But his ERA if you take out his 6 best starts, his ERA is 5.78 (or something, I don't remember). You can't just take out his worst or his best starts and assuming everything is roses.

 

Let's rephrase this. If someone said "I will take John Danks for free off of your hands," what would your response be? If they said "I will do it if you include Matt Davidson and we give you nothing," what do you say? If they say "if you eat $5 mill of his remaining deal, we'll take on his deal," is that too much? At what threshold are the White Sox eating too much value to move John Danks? Is there a combination that you wouldn't move him for?

 

I know for certain that if a team was willing to eat his entire contract, I'd give him away without a second thought.

 

That's because those 6 starts were absolutely atrocious. I mean were talking about 44 earned runs in 28 and a third.

 

14% of his innings pitched he gave up 43% of his runs.

 

I've already said I could go either way about trading him just because he's making a ton of money. I haven't said he's earned the money whatsoever, I'm merely saying as a 4/5 starter I'll take a guy who gets shelled once a month.

 

I just don't see it as a priority.

[BlackSox13]

Agreed; Bottom line is, if you look at the good start vs. bad start component and in general your season long statistics are more negatively weighed by bad starts and in general you had much more good starts, then over the course of the season you gave your team a much better chance to win. And in theory, each individual start has its own components that go into it so when you are going bad, often times it stays bad and that isn't necessarily an indication of future starts (you could be feeling off, have a mechanical hitch that can be corrected, etc). It is still a good season stat and telling stat but if a pitcher historically had some mechanical yips that would occasionally show up and cause bad starts, offsite by quick corrections and significant good starts, you could almost correlate that as a trend and identify a player with good value who you could pencil in a few losses and maybe not as good of an ERA (as it will be more largely skewed by the bad games) but in reality a guy who gave you much better overall win probabilities.

 

The key in all of this is that people buy into the fact that when you are going bad you tend to be much worse then when you are going good to average and thus your bad will significantly outweigh the good, which means you need to have shown indications that in reality you tend to be a pretty high upside guy more often then not. One season could very well be an anomaly but over multiple seasons you can see there are guys that tend to be more I'll either give up 3 runs or less and do it majority of time but occasionally I'll give up 7 vs. the guy that will consistently give up 4 with a very rare 1 run game but also more rare 6 run games.

 

 

By the way, I should also point out we probably should be looking into a lot of other variables in those starts as well, to try to skim through lucky starts, etc. I think you'd want to see what his OPP BAA was, LD%'s, K to BB in those games, etc to see whether he truly was pitching good or are we talking about him getting lucky in a few more starts, etc. Just looking solely at the ERA of those starts isn't enough.

I think its quite possible that Danks 2014 season was the year he transitions back into what he was pre-injury. He did show some fleeting glimpses of hope throughout the season while rebuilding the endurance in his arm.

 

I think too many fans ( including myself) are looking at the grass is green on the other side.... Dump Danks and let's trade for this guy! Let's sign this reclamation project, Coop can fix em!

 

What if the Sox already have their reclamation project in Danks. He is, after all, only 29 with a rather successful career before his injury in 2012 and just gave the Sox 32 starts in 2014.

 

My POV on this has changed and am willing to wait and see what Danks does in the first few months of 2015. If that means the Sox end up with four lefties in the rotation then so be it as long as those lefties are keep the team in the game and giving the team a chance to win. Danks is surely not the end of the world.

Edited October 21, 2014 by StRoostifer

[Eminor3rd]

I know what you mean but basically Danks averaged one s***ty start per month over a six month season and outside of that one s***ty start, he was pretty good. I'll take that. I believe this is what scs787 is saying, and I agree.

 

Maybe I just prefer rainbows and unicorns, leave me alone you hippo.

 

[Eminor3rd]

The only argument for keeping Danks is that we don't have anything else to spend the money on. But if you're (the collective you're) one of the posters who wants the Sox to get in on buying some talent, you've got to be comfortable with the fact that $15m of what we can afford is going to John Danks over each of the next couple years. That is a substantial portion of the resources our front office has to make a winning team.

 

I applaud all of your efforts to squint really hard and see some semblance of hope, but no matter how much you cherry pick, the reality is this: Danks had a shoulder injury that sapped a significant amount of his velocity. In order to throw at his old velocity, he has to sacrifice his command. In order to regain his command he has to pitch at 88. To succeed at 88, he has to have elite control, and he does not have said elite control.

 

There IS a chance he rebounds into a good pitcher next year, either by recovering velocity or by simply pitching his nuts off all year with no mistakes. That chance is VERY small. If you think the team needs another punted year to develop and build talent, then taking those long-odds on Danks makes a ton of sense. But if you want to compete, there's a 90-95% chance that Danks is a financial hurdle; 5-10% chance he contributes.

[LDF]

 

 

this is not a Danks response but a response for any player in this situation.

The contract is sign and sealed. no one can change that, no one. he got

hurt, thru no fault except for bad luck. am I happy no. am I saying dump

him, no, the sox can not do that. why, rule and the union will prohibit that.

what can the sox do about him, nothing. trade him, been there and no one

is biting. can he come back, maybe, doubt it, but crazier things have happen.

 

the sox will have to coop with this hole for the length of his contract.

[witesoxfan]

this is not a Danks response but a response for any player in this situation.

The contract is sign and sealed. no one can change that, no one. he got

hurt, thru no fault except for bad luck. am I happy no. am I saying dump

him, no, the sox can not do that. why, rule and the union will prohibit that.

what can the sox do about him, nothing. trade him, been there and no one

is biting. can he come back, maybe, doubt it, but crazier things have happen.

 

the sox will have to coop with this hole for the length of his contract.

 

I don't want to speak on anybody's behalf, but what I asked previously is what people would essentially give up to move Danks. John Danks is set to make $28.5 million over the next 2 years. I think I'd probably be willing to eat about half of that if the right situation came up and it made sense for the Sox, and that's in a straight dump of Danks' contract. However, I don't see any way a team would be willing to make a trade like that.

 

I think the best route would be in a deal for a bad contract - the two names that come to mind are Ethier and Hamilton. For Ethier, the Sox would also have to include a prospect to get the deal done, and if they want some of the contract in 2016 paid for, they'd likely have to include another prospect or include a better prospect, neither of which are ideal. If they did it for Hamilton, the Angels would still have to kick in about $30-40 million based solely on how terrible Hamilton's contract is. Neither of these are attractive options.

 

Danks is basically a ketchup popsicle right now.