Overpaying for Pitching Part II

 

By Keith Glab, 12/19/05

 

          One year ago, I wrote an article in wonderment of how mediocre pitchers were getting more lucrative contracts than star position players.  This offseason, not only is that trend continuing, but General Managers across the league are making a more fatal error: they are only looking at the last line of statistics on these pitchers’ baseball cards.  Thirty-something pitchers who are coming off career years are getting enormous raises despite mediocre career numbers.  As usual, I have a table to illustrate this:  

 

Pitcher

New Team

Age

Contract Length

2005 ERA

Career ERA

2005 Salary

2006 Salary*

Paul Byrd

Indians

35

2 Years

3.74

4.23

$5M

$7.1M

Hector Carrasco

Angels

36

2 Years

2.04

3.94

N/A

$3M

Elmer Dessens

Royals

34

2 Years

3.56

4.40

$1.3M

$1.7M

Scott Eyre

Cubs

33

3 Years

2.63

3.52

$1.5M

$3.7 M

Kyle Farnsworth

Yankees

29

3 Years

2.19

4.45

$2M

$5.7M

Tom Gordon

Phillies

38

3 Years

2.57

3.93

$3.8M

$6M

Roberto Hernandez

Pirates

41

1 Years

2.58

3.33

$700,000

$2.8M

Bob Howry

Cubs

32

3 Years

2.47

3.58

$900,000

$4 M

Todd Jones

Detroit

37

2 Years

2.10

3.91

$1.1M

$5.5M

Esteban Loiaza

Oakland

33

3 Years

3.77

4.60

$2.9M

$7.1M

Kenny Rogers

Detroit

41

2 Years

3.46

4.21

$3.3M

$8M

BJ Ryan

Blue Jays

29

5 Years

2.43

3.54

$2.6M

$9.4M

Bob Wickman

Indians

36

1 Years

2.47

3.62

N/A

$1.4M

Jay Witasick

Oakland

33

2 Years

2.84

3.58

$900,00

$4M

 

* Salary shown is the per-year average of each pitcher’s new contract

 

Shame on the four teams who appear on this list twice.

 

I can’t blame the Yankees or Blue Jays for wanting Farnsworth and Ryan respectively, as they will only be thirty years old when the season starts and could each realistically still have their best days ahead of them.  I will blame Toronto for giving Ryan a $6.8M/year raise, however.  I know he’s been great for the past two years, and I know they’re trying to load up on pitchers with acronyms for first names, but if you’re only pitching 70 innings a year, do you really need that kind of a raise?

 

Shame on the other teams who gave these aging pitchers $4M/year or more raises (Oakland – Loiaza), (Detroit – Jones and Rogers).

 

One season is barely enough of a sample size to gauge a reliever’s ability with.  A career is.  So super-shame on the teams who signed aging relievers based on less than 100 IP worth of stats (Super-ultra-shame on the Cubs, who signed two such pitchers).

 

Shame on all the teams that gave pitchers a raise based on one season where their ERA was more than a full point lower than their career ERA (LAA-Carrasco, NYY-Farnsworth, Phi-Gordon, Chi-Howry, Det-Jones, Tor-Ryan, Cle-Wickman).  Hey, what do you know?  They’re all relievers. 

 

Shame on the Pirates and the Tigers for giving sizable raises to pitchers in their forties.  Shame on the Phillies for signing Tom Gordon to a huge contract that won’t end until he’s in his forties.

 

          Does it seem like I’m shaming the Tigers an awful lot?

 

And finally, shaaaame on Colorado for giving 39 year-old reliever Jose Mesa a $500,000 raise despite posting a worse ERA than his career (4.76/4.29), and moving from a closer’s role to a setup role.  Ridiculous!