John Danks Crystal Ball

Perhaps the most pessimistic CB yet!  Well done.

That distant rumble you hear is the sound of every Pale Hose fan in America rushing to their keyboards to complain.

As Paulie Walnuts woud say: "You got a lotta balls, my friend."  

His minor league track record, to me, seems to show a guy who struggles at a new level initially and then adapts.  Perhaps he has been pushed, but I look for him to struggle initially this year but turn out to be an above average starter.

however I think he will stick around longer as a reliever. As long as he has a pulse, his left hand will get him NRI's until he is at least 40.

the projections for every prospect rated lower than Danks (which is about 80% of the prospects).

2-8 in 2007?  Thats pretty hard to do with Chicago's lineup.  Pitchers will get wins that they would not normally get on other teams.  See Buehrle 2006.

The best part of this is that the supposed reason they traded McCarthy was because he was too HR-prone, yet everything in Danks' history indicates that he's just as HR-prone, if not more so, as McCarthy.  I actually like this CB.  Seems about right to me.

Liriano, etc. in terms of his fastball velocity, from what I have read.

Hello everyone,

Unless I'm mistaken (which is possible,) I've read and heard that Danks' fastball registers in the low-90s, maybe touching 95.  That's less velocity than all the LHPs I mentioned above.  Based on pure velocity alone, I wouldn't call Danks overpowering.  Above-average yes, but overpowering?  Not quite in my opinion.

If he has good movement on his fastball, he can be overpowering, but based on pure velocity alone, I don't think he is, so these comparisons to Johnson and others might be a bit unrealistic.

Personally, I think he's been a bit rushed, and being that he is going to the most HR-happy ballpark in baseball, it would not surprise me for Danks to struggle and put up low numbers, around where John has predicted, maybe a bit higher in the win department (4-5 wins,) but the ERA being in the upper-5 to low-6 range wouldn't surprise me.  

Danks hadn't mastered AAA yet as he nearly gives up a H/IP (8.53,) which is part of the reason why I don't think he will overpower ML hitters this year, a 1.40 HR/9 IP ratio at AAA (and I don't know if Oklahoma's ballpark is more of a hitter's park or not, but US Cellular Field certainly is, so his ML HR rate might be that high or even a bit higher than that,) and an over 4 BB/9 IP rate at AAA - it could be 4-6 BB/9 IP rate in the Majors.  Even with an over 9 K/9 IP ratio at AAA, which might translate to 6-8 K/9 IP ratio in the Majors, I don't think that'll be enough when his other ratios are below-average to average at best to lead me to believe that Danks will have great success in his rookie season for the White Sox.  

Only time will tell.

Just my 2 cents.  :-)

Danks is a guy who has claimed a spot in a major league rotation (and a pretty good rotation at that) as a 21 year old.  How often does that happen?  

I think this is way too pessimistic - if Danks were starting the year in AA (like most people his age) he would be putting up dominant statistics and we would all be saying that he would be an above avg major league starter.  That's what I expect...about 120-150 wins, a career ERA in the low 4's, and a few years where he's one of the top 15-20 starters in the AL.

BTW, I've never heard of him having any arm troubles so I thought the injury stuff was a bit odd...