Black Sox Blog

The White Sox inked Jon Garland for the next three years and avoided salary arbitration in the process. The three year, $29 million deal is back loaded as he’ll earn $7 million next year, $10 million in 2007 and then $12 million in 2008.

There’s no doubt Garland had a monster year. Garland had 24 Runs Saved Above Average (RSAA) last year and his career mark is only 26. He had never won more then 12 games in a season and this year he netted 18. What’s interesting is, his strikeout rate was actually down slightly, and it’s been continually but slowly going down since 2002. Most of his success can be derived from a spike down in his walk rate. While it’s come down for each of the six years he’s been in the bigs, it was always above 3.00 walks per nine innings. Last year he walked 1.91 per nine innings.

So if Garland pitches like he did in 2005, the White Sox got a bargain. If that walk rate comes back up to 2.50 or even 3.00, then you might see Garland drop back to the 13-11 type of record he’s had in the past.