White Sox Lock Up John Danks

With the free agent starting pitching market consisting of a few pricey aces and then a glut of arms with age or injury concerns (or both), John Danks' name has appeared in more Tweets, status updates and MLBTradeRumors posts than just about anyone this offseason. The 26-year-old lefty, eligible for free agency after 2012, didn't seem long for the South Side with the White Sox looking to pare payroll after losing 83 games last season and lacking much in the way of farm talent.

Instead, Chicago has locked up Danks (pending a post-holiday physical) with a five-year, $65 million contract extension covering his last year of arbitration and four free agent seasons. Whether or not the ChiSox intend to keep Danks for the long haul (there's no word of a no-trade clause yet), the deal looks eminently fair for both sides and won't be a burden if Chicago looks to trade him in future years.

The term "ace" is rather subjective, and Danks doesn't seem to fit the archetype. He doesn't spit fire in the upper-90s, possess a best-in-baseball breaking or offspeed pitch or lead the league in a particular category. But his mix of an average K rate (seven per nine innings during his career), solid control (2.9 BB/9) and durability (he has averaged about 195 innings over the past four years, though he did serve his first DL stint last summer for an oblique strain) has made him one of the best in recent years. Since 2008, Danks ranks ninth among starting pitchers in Baseball-Reference Wins Above Replacement:

Rk	Player	WAR
1	Roy Halladay	27.7
2	Cliff Lee	23.4
3	CC Sabathia	23.3
4	Tim Lincecum	21.2
5	Felix Hernandez	21.2
6	Jon Lester	21.0
7	Justin Verlander	19.5
8	Jered Weaver	19.3
9	John Danks	18.1
10	Dan Haren	18.0

Danks isn't a huge "stuff" guy, but he has three solidly above-average pitches in his low-90s fastball, high-80s cutter and low-80s changeup (he also throws a high-70s curve, but probably shouldn't considering how hard it gets hit). Check out his opponent batting average, OBP and slugging percentage with those three offerings since' 08, and then the average for starters:

Fastball: .270/.348/.424 for Danks, .283/.357/.452 MLB average

Cutter: .245/.280/.367 for Danks, .260/.315/.410 MLB average

Changeup: .213/.255/.335 for Danks, .251/.293/.398 MLB average

Danks' cutter (thrown about 18 percent of the time since '08) and changeup (19 percent) are his bread-and-butter pitches.  The former Rangers farmhand, acquired in a rare prospect challenge trade for Brandon McCarthy in December of 2006, picked up the cutter from Sox pitching coach Don Cooper. Hitters have an awfully hard time laying off the Cooper cutter, especially those zipping away from lefties and in on the hands of righties:

Opponent swing rate by pitch location vs. Danks' cutter, 2008-2011

Average swing rate by pitch location vs. cutters, 2008-2011

Opponents have chased 41% of Danks' cutters out of the zone over the past four years. Jon Lester, Josh Tomlin, Jon Niese and Dan Haren are the only starters with more enticing off-the-plate cutters.

Danks also gets a bunch of chases with his changeup, as right-handed batters stretch for pitches well off the outside corner:

Opponent swing rate by pitch location vs. Danks' changeup, 2008-2011

Average swing rate by pitch location vs. changeups, 2008-2011

Hitters have chased 37% of the time Danks has pulled the string. While that's not elite, it's comfortably above the 34% league average.

Danks' contract gives him $8 million during what would have been his last year of arbitration, and then $14.25 million each season from 2013-2016. Assuming that a win presently costs about $5 million and there is 5% inflation each year, the contract basically requires him to be worth 10 Wins Above Replacement overall during the 2013-2016 period. The Hardball Times' Oliver projects around 12 WAR over the time frame, so there's a good chance he earns his cash if he stays healthy.

One could question whether an also-ran club with few building blocks outside of Chris Sale should be locking a guy like Danks up instead of turning him into trade goodies. But Danks is young enough that he could be part of the next contending White Sox team, and they won't have a hard time finding a trade partner later on if they decide to move him, considering his new deal is a market-value contract that might have some surplus value. This isn't a coup for Kenny Williams and company, but it locks up one of the few long-term assets the Sox have at a rate reasonable enough to be marketed later on.

Santos Returns to Toronto

Four years ago, Sergio Santos was flailing to the tune of a .183 average for the Toronto Blue Jays' then-Triple-A Affiliate, the Syracuse Chiefs. The 6-foot-2, 230 pound Santos, a former first-round pick of the Diamondbacks, was too slow for shortstop and clearly wasn't going to hit his way to the majors. His big league window appeared closed.

Yesterday, Santos returned to the Jays -- to close. The converted infielder, who has established himself as one of the game's great strikeout artists out of the 'pen, was traded from the White Sox to Toronto for another infield convert, Nestor Molina.

For Chicago, the Santos trade may signify the beginning of a painful rebuilding process that could also put the likes of Carlos Quentin, John Danks, Gavin Floyd and Alexei Ramirez on the market (no one's touching Adam Dunn, Jake Peavy or Alex Rios). A fastball/splitter righty with sublime control (he had a 148-to-16 K-to-BB ratio in 130.1 innings between High-A and AA), Molina was recently graded as a B+ prospect by John Sickels. The soon-to-be 23-year-old doesn't have a great breaking ball, but he could be a nice mid-rotation starter. It's a start.

On the other side, credit Jays GM Alex Anthopoulos and company for landing an elite reliever without paying the Papelbon premium in free agency -- Santos is signed through 2014 for a total of $8.25 million, and he has team options for the three seasons after that for a combined $22.75 million.  While Santos' control isn't great (4.3 BB/9 over the past two years), his power slider might be the nastiest pitch in the sport.

Santos has thrown the mid-to-high-80s breaker slightly less than a quarter of the time over the past two seasons. Hitters have whiffed at the pitch 60 percent of the time they have swung, trailing just the Angels' Jordan Walden and Atlanta's Jonny Venters in slider miss percentage. Santos buries the pitch out of the zone to his glove side...

Santos' slider location, 2010-2011

...And hitters don't have a prayer against those below-the-knees pitches. Check out opponents' contact rate by pitch location vs. Santos' slider, versus the league average:

Opponent contact rate by pitch location vs. Santos' slider, 2010-2011

Average contact rate by pitch location vs. sliders, 2010-2011

Santos' slider makes MLB athletes with Jedi-like coordination look like, well, Santos did as a hitter. Opponents have batted .101 against the pitch, with a .131 OBP and a .187 slugging percentage. By the way, pitchers hit a collective .141/.175/.182 this past year.

The 28-year-old loves to go to the slider with two strikes, throwing it half the time in such situations, and he has racked up 99 of his 148 Ks with the pitch. Santos couldn't hit the slider. Luckily for him, no one can hit his, either.

Gavin Floyd With Ducks on the Pond

The 2011 Chicago White Sox were a $128 million disaster, slogging to a 79-83 record and a third-place finish in the AL Central. Sans Ozzie and possessing perhaps the worst farm system in baseball, Chicago could take advantage of a lukewarm market for free agent starters by shopping John Danks and/or Gavin Floyd. Both are drawing interest, according to Ken Rosenthal.

Floyd, 29 in January, is under contract for $7 million in 2012 and also has a $9.5 million club option for 2013. The reasonable financial commitment and the flexibility afforded in not having to lock into a three or four-year deal mean that the ChiSox should fetch a decent prospect if they decide to trade Floyd. But just how good of a prospect Chicago gets could come down to whether teams value Floyd by his peripheral stats or his ERA.

Over the past three seasons, Floyd has a 3.66 Fielding Independent Pitching (FIP). That's 27th among qualified starting pitchers. Based on that, you could say that Floyd is a number one on a pitching-starved squad or a solid number two starter. The righty's ERA, however, is a half-run higher at 4.16. That's 55th among qualified starters, and makes him look more like a mid-rotation arm.

So, why the disconnect between FIP and ERA? The answer is his rate of leaving runners on base. Floyd has a 69.2 percent strand rate since '09, while the big league average for starters has sat around 71-72 percent. You might be inclined to write that off as a product of bad luck, and you might be right. But let's dig deeper into Floyd's performance from the stretch.

Generally speaking, pitchers perform worse with ducks on the pond. Since 2009, starting pitchers have struck out 18.4 percent of hitters faced and walked 7.1 percent with the bases empty. With men on, they have punched out 16.8 percent of hitters and walked 8.7 percent. So, strikeout rate declines by nine percent with men on, and walk rate increases by 24 percent.

But Floyd? He has struck out 20.8 percent of hitters and walked 6.1 percent with the bases clean. Once a runner reaches, he has a 17.3 K% and a 7.8 BB%. His strikeout rate declines by 17 percent with men on, and his walk rate increases by 28 percent. Also likely not helping matters: Floyd has a slow move to the plate, and runners are often successful when they take off (82 percent of the time against him since '09). Those steals put runners in scoring position more often.

The big difference between Floyd with the bases empty and Floyd with men on is his fastball. Floyd has thrown his fastball in the zone 53 percent of the time with the bases empty, and 46 percent of the time with men on. Aside from missing the zone more often to the arm side, he also elevates the fastball more with runners on base. Check out his heater location with the bases empty, compared to when a runner reaches:

 Floyd's fastball location with bases empty, 2009-2011

Floyd's fastball location with men on, 2009-2011

He has thrown 37 percent of his fastballs high in the zone with no one on, and 42 percent with runners on base. Whether Floyd is missing his spots and leaving the ball up or he's intentionally trying to blow the ball by hitters, it's not working. Batters do pretty well against Floyd's fastball when no one's on base (.290/.349/.434), but they're hitting .340/.386/.487 against the pitch with men on.

While Floyd's K and walk rates with men on base decline more than most when compared to performance with the bases empty, they're still better than those of the average starter (i.e. he strikes out more hitters and walks fewer with men on than the average starter, despite his larger-than average decline in those categories between bases empty/men on situations). The main reason for his low strand rate is a .285 batting average on balls in play with no one on, and a .316 BABIP when runners reach. That's an 11 percent increase, compared to less than a half-percent increase for the average starter.

Are Floyd's woes with runners on base merely bad luck, the product more hitter's counts, poor pitch location or a mix of all of the above? Unfortunately, I don't have a definitive answer. But how teams answer that question will determine whether they view Floyd as a well above-average starter or just a serviceable rotation piece.