White Sox manager Robin Ventura explained that he wanted to break up his lefty starters in the 2014 rotation. There are a few reasons for this move.
Typically, teams order their rotation from their best pitcher ("the staff ace") down in quality to the fifth starter position.
Since the leagues are primarily right handed dominate in pitching and hitting, the left handed starter is an unusual occurrence during a series. But the White Sox are primarily a left handed starting rotation against primarily right handed teams.
Managers believe that you want to keep your opponent off balance during a game or series. That is why pitching coaches like the idea of staggering types of pitchers throughout the rotation so another team does not get comfortable against, say fastball pitcher, fastball pitcher, fastball pitcher.
The same is true on the offensive side. Managers do not want pitchers to face a primarily one sided line up because the pitcher and umpire can get into a strike zone groove against one type of batter. By changing from a righty hitter to a lefty hitter makes the pitcher and catcher throw to a different strike zone, which in theory, evens out the pitching and hitting strategies.
So the White Sox rotation will be LHP Sale, RHP Paulino, LHP Quintana, RHP E. Johnson and LHP Danks. If you order the strength of the starters, it would run: #1, #4, #2, #5 and #3.
In high school chess tournaments, teams are supposed to rank their players by their chess ratings so equal level players would face off with each other. However, there were times when freshman or new team players would not have a high rating but would be above their level of competition. A captain could take advantage of that difference and keep stronger under the radar players at the low end of the tournament bracket, making sure for some easy wins. The same could be said for the White Sox rotation.
Danks may be the strongest #5 starter in the American League. Quintana is clearly the second best starter on the staff, but he will be throwing mostly against other teams' #3 starters. By moving Paulino to the #2 overslot, it puts higher quality pitchers at the back of the rotation which could equate to a pitching advantage.
