After 10 years, White Sox cut ties with Danks
In the dugout and the clubhouse, John Danks was a valuable member of the Chicago White Sox.
"He was my mentor," said 23-year-old starting pitcher Carlos Rodon. "Just somebody I would hang out with a lot of the time during the games, sometimes outside of the field. Just a good guy all around, a good influence."
"He was a big part of the chemistry we had going on in here," ace starter Chris Sale said. "He was a personality. He was a character."
If you notice, Rodon and Sale were both talking about Danks in the past tense. The 31-year-old lefty is alive and well, but he's no longer with the Sox.
Before Tuesday night's game against Boston at U.S. Cellular Field, the White Sox announced Danks is going to be designated for assignment, most likely Thursday when Erik Johnson comes up from Class AAA Charlotte to start against the Red Sox.
As good as he was off the field, Danks simply wasn't getting the job done on the mound. He lost all 4 starts this season, and his ERA swelled to 7.25 last Thursday after he pitched 5 innings at Baltimore and allowed 6 runs on 9 hits and 2 walks.
"There are 24 guys in here that are setting the world on fire," Danks said after being shelled by the Orioles in a 10-2 loss. "That's probably the most disappointing part of it. Shoot, we were hot and we still are. But I got in the way of something special tonight."
As the White Sox showed over the first month of the schedule, this has a chance to be a special year. And while Danks is owed just less than $12 million the rest of the season, his poor pitching was even more costly.
"As I talked about with John yesterday, he was an important part of some very good White Sox teams, an important part of the division winner of 2008," general manager Rick Hahn said. "Obviously, all of us with the White Sox will forever look back fondly on his role in one of the more iconic White Sox games of all time, Game 163 against Minnesota (in 2008), when we won thanks in large part to Johnny.
"At the end of the day, though, this is about putting us in the best position to win ballgames going forward. We feel we have a pretty special thing going on in this clubhouse right now. We have the opportunity to build off some of the momentum we already have created for ourselves, and we wanted to put ourselves in the best position to win games going forward."
In 10 seasons with the Sox, Danks was 79-104 with a 4.38 ERA and 1,102 strikeouts over 1,503⅓ innings. Acquired in a Dec. 23, 2006, trade from the Texas Rangers for Brandon McCarthy, Danks and the White Sox agreed to a five-year, $65 million contract extension before the 2012 season.
On Aug. 6, 2012, Danks had season-ending shoulder surgery and was never the same pitcher.
"As far as work ethic and just guts, he had all of that," manager Robin Ventura said. "That was never a question. He's always been able to do that, and there's a lot of respect for him in the clubhouse for all the things that he did, and one of them is coming back from an injury and trying to gut through it."
After getting the news of his impending release from Hahn on Monday, Danks was prepared to walk away from the Sox and not look back.
But Sale, his closest friend on the team, asked Danks to come by the Cell early Tuesday and say so long to his teammates.
"He's upset," Sale said. "I've talked to him for a few days about it now. And last night, I texted him and he was going to leave early this morning. I was like, 'Man, you have to come in and say bye to the guys.'
"I know it made everyone happy. He's bummed about it, but maybe a fresh start for him.
"He's the type of guy I look at and see a team picking him up and just kind of recreating himself and becoming the guy we all know he can be."