White Sox Non-Tender Jenks
Earlier today, the Chicago White Sox announced they would not tender a contract to closer Bobby Jenks. The decision marks the end of the hard-throwing righty’s career on the Southside while adding another worthwhile relief pitcher to a free agent market already full with them.
The White Sox’s chief motive might be finances. Jenks’ salary had the potential to shoot over $8 million for the upcoming season. With numerous alternatives in place (Matt Thornton, Sergio Santos, and Chris Sale come to mind) and the aforementioned relief market, Kenny Williams must’ve decided he could find a suitable replacement while using the money on another player (or two) to enhance his roster more than he could with Jenks’ salary present.
Unfortunately for Williams, the same details that made Jenks an expendable part of the White Sox roster also made him an unattractive addition to the rest of the league; capsizing whatever trade value a pitcher of Jenks’ talent level would usually hold. One has to imagine Williams investigated potential trades wherein he would throw in some cash as well, but ultimately found them unappealing.
As for Jenks, he now becomes one of the most interesting free agents available. With no free agent compensation required, teams will only part with money in order to sign him. The disagreement between Jenks’ earned run average (4.44) and peripheral-based run average metrics (2.59 FIP) might lead to a discount rate as well. This is a guy coming off a season with a career-low xFIP (2.62) who also had the worst strand rate (65.4%) and batting average on balls in play against (.368) of his six-year career.
Those last two are vital to his inflated ERA. It’s common baseball sense: the fewer runners you strand, the more runners you allow to score and the larger your ERA grows. How BABIP plays into an increased ERA is no philosophical issue either, as more hits have a tendency to mean more baserunners and more run-scoring opportunities. Given how the rest of Jenks’ career has played out, it seems safe – if not concrete – to say 2010’s hit and strand rates will become apparitions rather than telltale embodiment of Jenks’ abilities.
How Jenks fares on the open market will be worth watching. Jenks has everything going for him; saves, the proven closer tag, no Type A compensation required, and even transcendent facial hair; everything but an above average ERA. Yet, interest is likely to be high on the 29-year-old, meaning a team cannot hold that against Jenks too greatly in their offerings without running the risk of losing him.
Williams’ hands being tied could ultimately result in a sweet deal for a pretty good closer. The question is which team becomes the benefactor.
This isn’t all that surprising. Chris Sale, IMO, gave the CWS a lot of options.
Jenks was a great deal out of the Rule 5. CWS got a lot out of him, and is cutting ties before he can become a drain (or a bigger drain).
The craziest thing to me about Jenks is that he never played HS ball. He could not be academically eligible … so he was signed out of American Legion baseball.
Made some decent coin.
Pretty sure he was just a waiver claim, even better.
If the Sox are looking to Sale, I don’t agree with it. I imagine they might be looking to Sergio Santos to take a larger role.
Sale belongs as a long term consideration for the rotation still, even if he begins in the bullpen to start this season.
Perfect option for the Red Sox? Looks like it.
True, he’s fat and white and has stupid facial hair.
I’m a red sox fan, but this was very funny.
Great option for the Mets. Having him in the fold would allow them to limit Krod’s appearances, thereby voiding his absurd 2012 option. If they tried limiting his appearances now, a grievance would be filed – but if they tried limiting his appearances with another established closer in the mix, it would be allowable.
Unless he is the next K-rod.
Beneficiary
Maybe he meant benefactor? It’s probably pretty good for Jenks now, he’s likely to get multiple years. But yeah, he probably meant beneficiary.
Looking at his player page he had a pretty significant jump in K rate and a pretty significant decrease in SwingK%. Possible red flag?
It was time to part ways with Bobby…we’ll always have Houston in 2005. The fact is spending $8MM + on a closer just isn’t a good allocation of the Sox money. I think the plan for 2011 is to use Sale in the bullpen, then in 2012 with Buehrle and E-Jack gone, slide him into the rotation. The idea of Sale, Thornton, Santos in the bullpen is nice. Santos and Sale still have growing to do and I think they will continue to improve in 2011. Now, they just need a few more complementary pieces and it should be a well-rounded bullpen.
It would be great to see him close for the Jays if they could sign him to a deal similar to (if not identical) to the one Gregg signed late last offseason.