Yankees Rumors: New York has asked about John Danks

As Brian Cashman has said, the Yankees continue to look around in order to improve their starting pitching. That search has now taken them to the Chicago White Sox and 29-year-old left-hander John Danks. According to Jon Heyman, the two teams are in preliminary talks and though nothing is close to official, these things can move fast.

While Danks might be an improvement over a fatigued Chase Whitley, he's not much of an attractive piece overall. From 2007-2011, Danks was an above-average starting pitcher, compiling to a 4.03 ERA and 4.14 FIP, reaching 200 innings twice and amounting to a 112 ERA+. Then in 2012 he struggled and ultimately required surgery to repair his rotator cuff and a torn capsule and he's not really ever been the same since. Over the last three years he has a 4.76 ERA and 4.91 FIP with an 87 ERA+ without coming close to the 200-inning mark. He hasn't been good and while his 42.1 ground ball rate is nice, his 1.2 HR/9 makes him an even worse fit for the Yankees as well.

Even if they simply wanted him as a warm body in the rotation, Danks still makes $28.5 million over the next two seasons as part of a contract that looked like a mistake even before the ink dried. Maybe the White Sox are cool with taking on a majority of the contract, though I don't know why they would want to pay him so much to play for another team, even if they get some kind of middling prospect in return. Maybe Cashman can pull off another Brandon McCarthy-like deal, but Danks is just not a very good pitcher anymore and they'd be better off looking somewhere else, even if it meant giving up a little more. Hope that this doesn't turn into anything.