Scouts don’t write glowing reports on pitchers because of their pickoff moves. Teams certainly don’t hand out super-sized bonuses because of them.
Even the best prospects often have to work on the little things. That’s why John Danks spent six weeks in Arizona in the fall learning how to hold runners on base without compromising his focus on the hitter at the plate.
No wonder Rick Adair, the Rangers’ minor-league pitching coordinator, was so happy to hear about the impression Danks is making in White Sox camp. He practically squealed when he learned Danks had picked off the Rockies’ Matt Holliday in his latest start.
“He realized when he got to Triple A, there were some guys who could change the complexion of the game from a speed standpoint,” Adair said. “Because of his inability to hold runners on base, it affected the way he executed pitches. He was willing to come down here and work on it, and he got better at it.”
It says a lot for Danks, a first-round pick who was ranked as the Rangers’ best pitching prospect, to acknowledge that the little things matter. The Instructional League can be a hard sell to prospects, but Danks went willingly.
“I wasn’t known for my pickoff move,” Danks said. “I spent a month and a half working on [it]. There was a runner on first base the whole time I was in Instructs. It was the only reason I was there.”
Because the pitching-thin Rangers felt they needed a more advanced pitcher to help them compete immediately, it is the White Sox who will benefit from the work Danks did in the Rangers’ organization. The White Sox landed Danks and right-handers Nick Masset and Jacob Rasner for Brandon McCarthy and teenage outfielder David Paisano in a trade in December.
It would be an understatement to say I didn’t like the trade when it was made. My strongest objection was that it was made as part of a strategy to rebuild the starting rotation rather than invest further in the guys who helped win a World Series, specifically Mark Buehrle, Jon Garland and Freddy Garcia. Also, to me, McCarthy had looked like a future star before Javier Vazquez arrived a year ago, relegating McCarthy to the bullpen.
As Opening Day approaches, Ken Williams and Jerry Reinsdorf, the decision-makers, probably feel like a doing a little gloating. They had to enjoy the events in three different camps in a four-day span last week.
Garcia, traded to the Phillies after a season in which he seemed to lose his fastball, could run the radar gun up to only 85 m.p.h. before leaving a start Wednesday complaining of a tight bicep. His uncertain status makes Williams seem wise for trading him, even if the pitchers he received in return (Gavin Floyd and Gio Gonzalez) have been pounded this spring.
Danks shut down the Rockies on Friday in Tucson, cementing his position as the White Sox’s fifth starter to open the season. Then, tying the bow around this package, McCarthy sputtered in a Saturday start against the A’s, getting knocked out in the third inning and pointing a finger at the plate umpire for his problems.
It hasn’t been the best spring for McCarthy, who has yielded 14 runs in 15 1/3 innings. He will open the season as the Rangers’ No. 3 starter in a rotation that is the team’s biggest question mark, and hopes to give his new manager, Ron Washington, 200 quality innings.
A fly-ball pitcher, McCarthy has given up five home runs this spring.
“They’ve been hit on bad pitches,” McCarthy said of the homers. “I don’t have Felix Hernandez stuff. If you throw 97, 98, you can make mistakes. You throw 91, 92, you can’t make mistakes, not up [in the strike zone] anyway.”
He yielded 17 homers in 84 2/3 innings last year, causing the White Sox to conclude that he was a forced fit at the launching pad that is U.S. Cellular Field.
McCarthy is still a good bet to have a long, successful career, but it shouldn’t surprise anyone if he has as many downs as ups this season. It’s a critical year for his career, and he’s going to be even more under the gun in Texas if Danks–a native Texan, no less–turns in a strong rookie season for the White Sox.
McCarthy exchanged e-mails with Danks after the trade and said he wishes him well. He said he won’t be following him closely, however. Others will, though, which could be unfortunate for him.
Danks, 21, exudes confidence, on the mound and off. That might be the edge that allowed him to come from out of the pack to snatch Garcia’s old spot, which once seemed certain to go to McCarthy, then most likely to Floyd or Charlie Haeger.
“He’s got great makeup,” the Rangers’ Adair said. “He’s a great competitor, a blue-collar guy . . . a solid young man.”
This spring I’ve asked executives and scouts from other organizations how they see McCarthy, and the consensus is that he looks like a middle- or even a back-of-the-rotation guy, not the kind of guy you build a rotation around.
The scouts who know Danks seem higher on him, even though his fastball is similarly in the low-90s. He’s left-handed, his curveball can be a weapon and his intangibles are almost off the chart.
According to a major-league source, the Tigers targeted Danks as a player they had to have in any trade talks with the Rangers last winter. But whenever his name came up, the Rangers asked for somebody like Jeremy Bonderman or Joel Zumaya.
One of their scouts was stunned when he heard the White Sox had been able to get him for McCarthy.
While the focus was on Floyd, Haeger and even Masset at the start of spring training, Danks was intent on being among the players who will be introduced at U.S. Cellular Field before next Monday’s opener against the Indians.
“Coming in, I don’t think they expected me to be where I am now,” Danks said. “Coming in, I think [the White Sox] thought it would be a two-man race with Gavin and Charlie. I pitched my way into the competition.”
Spring training doesn’t always provide the best evaluation, of course.
But it says a lot when the eyes of an in-the-trenches coach like Adair light up at the mention of someone’s name.
Building another rotation such as the one that won the World Series won’t be easy–and making a sincere effort to keep Garland and Buehrle long-term is still the right thing to do–but Danks looks like he’ll do as much for that cause as McCarthy could have.
That means anything the White Sox get from Masset and Rasner (who will open the season in Class A) is gravy.
The more you look at this trade, the more you understand why Williams did it. It was an offer he couldn’t refuse.
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progers@tribune.com
