On December 9th, 2014, Jeff Samardzija was traded to the Chicago White Sox for a package of four prospects. Being a White Sox fan, I was ecstatic. The one-two punch of Sale-Samardzija had me thinking playoffs, dare I say World Series. I personally believed that they were as talented as any other one-two in the major leagues. Sale is an elite lefty and I thought Samardzija would be the elite righty that the White Sox rotation had lacked for years. And then the regular season happened. Sale was his dominant self, breaking the White Sox single season strikeout record and leading the American league in strikeouts, strikeout per nine, and FIP. Samardzija was a different story. He set career highs (since becoming a full time starter) in ERA, FIP, hits per nine, homeruns per nine and a career lows in strikeouts per nine and total strikeouts. He also led the the American league in hits surrendered, homeruns surrendered, and earned runs allowed. After my dreams of seeing a prolific pitching rotation were dashed and with Samardzija heading into free agency, I wanted to investigate to see if there were any underlying reasons to why he struggled and too see if these struggles would continue to hurt him in the years to come or if they were more of a fluke. Below are some of my findings.
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