Prior to the lockout this winter, three starting pitchers signed free agent deals for exactly five years:
- Mariners signed Robbie Ray for five years, $115MM with an opt-out after third year
- Blue Jays signed Kevin Gausman for five years, $110MM
- Tigers signed Eduardo Rodriguez for five years, $77MM with an opt-out after second year
Free agent contracts of exactly this length are fairly rare. We saw a pair of five-year starting pitcher deals in the 2019-20 offseason for Zack Wheeler and Madison Bumgarner. Before that, you have to go back to the 2015-16 offseason, when teams incredibly inked five of them. Interestingly, Marcus Stroman signed a three-year deal prior to the lockout even though we predicted five
I think free agent starting pitchers signing five-year deals have some commonality: the combination of their ability and age resulted in enough market pressure for exactly that number of years, no more and no less. I’d say it’s generally a pitcher who is considered good or very good, yet something short of an ace. While it’s true that market conditions may result in a five-year deal for a pitcher in a certain offseason and not another, these guys still seem to fall within the same bracket.
Going back to Gil Meche’s December 2006 contract with the Royals, 11 different free agent pitchers have signed five-year deals that are now completed. Spoiler alert: very few of these ended well. Stat note: ERA- is a park and league-adjusted version of ERA, where 100 is average and lower is better.
Jordan Zimmermann: five-year, $110MM deal with Tigers
- Starts: 97
- ERA-: 127
- fWAR: 5.0
- bWAR: 0.9
- When Regret Set In: In Year 1, when Zimmermann posted a 4.87 ERA.
- How It Ended: Zimmermann made three September outings in the shortened 2020 season. He’d go on to make two appearances with the Brewers this year before retiring. By measure of bWAR, Zimmermann’s performance was the second-worst of this sample.
Jeff Samardzija: five-year, $90MM deal with Giants
- Starts: 110
- ERA-: 103
- fWAR: 6.9
- bWAR: 7.1
- When Regret Set In: Samardzija was solid in three of the five years, including the fourth. So regret never really set in here.
- How It Ended: Samardzija made four starts in the shortened season. He has not pitched since.
Mike Leake: five-year, $80MM deal with Cardinals
- Starts: 124
- ERA-: 103
- fWAR: 8.6
- bWAR: 5.8
- When Regret Set In: Year 1, when Leake posted a 4.69 ERA. In August of Year 2, Leake cleared waivers and was traded to the Mariners along with $17MM.
- How It Ended: Leake opted out of the 2020 season due to the pandemic, forgoing his salary. He hasn’t pitched since September 24th, 2019.
Wei-Yin Chen: five-year, $80MM deal with Marlins
- Starts: 53
- ERA-: 129
- fWAR: 2.1
- bWAR: -0.6
- When Regret Set In: At some point in Year 1, in which Chen posted a 4.96 ERA.
- How It Ended: Chen was released with a year remaining on his contract, with the Marlins eating $22MM in salary. He signed a minor league deal with the Mariners but was released in June 2020. Chen signed with the Chiba Lotte Marines and made four appearances in ’20. He pitched for the Hanshin Tigers in 2021. Chen’s Marlins contract was the worst of all of these five-year deals.
Ian Kennedy: five-year, $70MM deal with Royals
- Starts: 86
- ERA-: 102
- fWAR: 3.9
- bWAR: 6.3
- When Regret Set In: In Year 2, when Kennedy posted a 5.38 ERA.
- How It Ended: Kennedy was moved to the bullpen in the fourth year of the deal, saving 30 games. He struggled in 14 relief innings in 2020 to finish out the contract.
Anibal Sanchez: five-year, $80MM deal with Tigers
- Starts: 118
- ERA-: 109
- fWAR: 12.0
- bWAR: 7.0
- When Regret Set In: In Year 3, when Sanchez posted a 4.99 ERA.
- How It Ended: Sanchez played out the contract with the Tigers and posted a 6.41 ERA in 2017, the final season.
C.J. Wilson: five-year, $77.5MM deal with Angels
- Starts: 119
- ERA-: 102
- fWAR: 7.5
- bWAR: 5.7
- When Regret Set In: Wilson had a 3.89 ERA as late as Year 4 of the contract, so you could argue that regret didn’t set in until he had season-ending shoulder surgery in August of that year.
- How It Ended: No one realized it at the time, but Wilson’s career was over after that August 2015 surgery and he’d be injured for all of Year 5.
Cliff Lee: five-year, $120MM deal with Phillies
- Starts: 106
- ERA-: 76
- fWAR: 19.6
- bWAR: 20.2
- When Regret Set In/How It Ended: One of these things is not like the others, as Lee was an ace when he signed to remain with the Phillies. Lee made his last start for the Phillies, and of his career, on July 31st of 2014 – three and a half years into the contract. He left that trade deadline start with an elbow injury and never pitched again, yet he was so good in those three and a half years that it’s fair to say the Phillies never regretted the contract.
John Lackey: five-year, $82.5MM deal with Red Sox
- Starts: 121
- ERA-: 106
- fWAR: 9.2
- bWAR: 3.6
- When Regret Set In: Quite soon, with Lackey posting a 4.40 ERA in Year 1 and a 6.41 mark in Year 2. At that point, Lackey underwent Tommy John surgery.
- How It Ended: Lackey’s time with the Red Sox ended with a bit of a resurgence, as he posted a 3.60 ERA in 21 Year 5 starts before being traded at the deadline to the Cardinals for Allen Craig and Joe Kelly. What’s more, the Red Sox included a clause in Lackey’s contract that triggered a league-minimum sixth-year option upon the Tommy John procedure. This turned into a six-year deal in which the Cardinals received a stellar 2015 campaign from Lackey for just $500K.
A.J. Burnett: five-year, $82.5MM deal with Yankees
- Starts: 159
- ERA-: 103
- fWAR: 12.2
- bWAR: 8.3
- When Regret Set In: In Year 2, when Burnett posted a 5.26 ERA.
- How It Ended: After three seasons of Burnett, the Yankees shipped him to the Pirates and kicked in $20MM of the $33MM still owed to him. Burnett flourished with the change of scenery.
Gil Meche: five-year, $55MM deal with Royals
- Starts: 100
- ERA-: 96
- fWAR: 8.6
- bWAR: 10.2
- When Regret Set In: In Year 3, when Meche posted a 5.09 ERA.
- How It Ended: Meche underwent shoulder surgery in July of Year 4, and the Royals planned to use him in relief in the final season of the contract. Instead, Meche felt that he didn’t deserve the $12MM he still had coming. He retired, letting the Royals off the hook for all of the money.
Conclusion
It’s not fair to take this 11-pitcher sample and say that the deals for Ray, Gausman, and Rodriguez won’t work out. Teams are evaluating pitchers better, and the Chen contract doesn’t have anything to do with how Ray will hold up. Perhaps we can set the bar for a successful five-year starting pitcher contract at 10 total WAR: 3 in Year 1, 2.5 in Year 2, 2.0 in Year 3, 1.5 in Year 4, and 1.0 in Year 5. By fWAR, Lee, Burnett, and Sanchez were able to accomplish that. By bWAR, only Lee and Meche got there. Over the life of their contracts, only those two produced an ERA better than league average.
How many of these 11 contracts ended with a useful pitcher still working for the signing team at the end of Year 5? Zero. However, five-year deals are given out because of market pressure, not because the team expects five strong years out of the pitcher. Lee produced 17.7 WAR in the first three years of his deal, so the rest didn’t matter. Meche, Wilson, Samardzija, and Sanchez started off their contracts with a pair of strong seasons. Zack Wheeler isn’t in this sample but he’s well on his way to 10+ WAR for the Phillies despite a shortened 2020 season. Madison Bumgarner, however, seems like a long shot.
What do the Mariners, Blue Jays, and Tigers really expect out of Ray, Gausman, and Rodriguez? If they looked at these comparables, they’re likely expecting two strong years and hopefully a third. If Ray or Rodriguez sees fit to opt out, the clubs will likely have gotten the best of them and could duck a few decline years.
In other news, Babe Ruth is in the hall of fame.
And we need to forget that the pitcher win stat ever existed
…as well as Pitcher fWAR, since FIP has never been a good metric for analyzing actual past performance. If you must use a WAR stat for pitchers, always use bWAR, and even then you’re still better off using WPA for relievers!
Pretty easy conclusion don’t ever sign a SP to a 5 year contract. If I were a owner I’d make that a rule. If a guy wants 5 years offer him 4 with a higher AAv and incentives. Once you establish that rule, quickly change it to 3 years and win even more.
Also every team should include that John Lackey clause to every SP contract.
“win even more” right, ya this strategy has worked out very well for the Angels, hasn’t it. They’ve needed pitching for years but settle for reclamation projects because they follow your principle.
I’m sure nobody has thought about offering a team friendly contract. If I was an owner I’d offer them a coupon to subway and watch the wins pile up.
iverbure
If I were a owner I’d make that a rule. If a guy wants 5 years offer him 4 with a higher AAv and incentives. Once you establish that rule, quickly change it to 3 years and win even more.
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The problem with creating rules that apply only to yourself, is that they apply to no one else. So, if/when Buehler and Urias play out, and you tell them you have a ‘rule’, you’re guaranteed to not sign them.
Correct.
@Joe
Lol. This guy cracks me up.
When you find out another team will offer them 5 years—they’ll go sign for them. Might even help them win a pennant or 2 along the way.
Kershaw signed a 7-year $215M contract in 2014 with a player opt out clause after, I think, the 4th year.
Zack Greinke signed a 6-year $147M contract with a player opt out.
Those worked out.
Just sign them for 6 years. Problem solved.
Worked for Cubs/Lester. Probably one of the best six year deals ever for a team that was a loser prior to the signing.
Also worked remarkably well for Pedro Martinez and Red Sox.
Yeah this article would have been more interesting if it was 5 years or longer – unless the point is “don’t sigh good but not great starters”.
Yeah, they are kind of cherry-picking here, especially since it also leaves out the phenomenally valuable 7-year Scherzer contract.
Dodger Dog
Yeah this article would have been more interesting if it was 5 years or longer
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I thought the same thing. It treated the number ‘5’ as if it had some mystical power. It’s just a random number, as all numbers are. It’s like saying that signing hitters exactly 28 years old, to exactly 4 year contracts, always succeed, or always fail.
Give me something with 5 or more, or 32 years old and older, or current career IPs. That would be more meaningful.
Generally very good to great pitchers can land more than a five year deal, so perhaps the point here is if you’ve got someone who will take a five year deal, then maybe they’re not worthy of five year deal!
Cliff Lee was an ace. Most of the others are in a different class. Anibal Sanchez also had some flags. AJ Burnett is an interesting one. Great arm and he was a key component of the Yankees 2009 World Series championship team rotation, including pitching the pivotal game 2 of the World Series that got them even with the Phillies. A loss, they’re down 2-0. I have no doubt the Yankees would sign that deal again, even if he started having difficulty the next year. Guys like Leake, Chen and Meche I thought were overstretches right from the start.
Greinke contract more or less as well.
Anything more than 5 years for pitchers is a terrible idea.
*cough* Scherzer *cough*
For every Scherzer there are 20 Price, Bumgarner, Strasburg,etc…
“Just sign them for 6 years. Problem solved.”
That there’s funny, I don’t care who y’are.
Artie Moreno sponsored content
All those one-year deals have worked out so well for the Angels, haven’t they?
No they haven’t, but for some strange reason people always diss the CJ Wilson deal. It wasn’t a bad signing. It wasn’t a good signing, but it wasn’t a bad one either.
I just don’t understand the Angels’ reluctance to go beyond a one- or two-year deal for a pitcher, especially given the incredibly long deals they’ve done with hitters. Not that those have all gone well…but a three-year deal for Stroman, Rodon, etc. could be worth it.
As with everything in life, balance and good decisions are the key.
The Angels don’t seem to demonstrate a level of competence in either.
A 3-year deal for Stroman is well worth it.
I can’t say the same for Rodon, who showed flashes of who he could be, and who he is, in equal measures in 2021. I would love to have him on a 1+ option to prove himself, but he fell back into his bad ways before the season ended. No way I would extend him $20M+ for multiple seasons.
The thing I can’t shake: The White Sox wouldn’t gamble a QO on him, even if his leaving brought back a pick. Why were the White Sox so afraid he’d take ~$19M for one season, unless they don’t think he’s worth it. If the team which has been his only home for the past 7 years doesn’t think he’s worth $19M, why would I consider paying him. $20M annually for several seasons?
Dude I was literally going to post that I’m pretty sure Arte Moreno wrote this article. He’s been super jaded after that CJ Wilson contract.
Great analysis. I’d argue CJ Wilson’s contract didn’t end in regret since insurance probably covered most of all of that year 5. He was actually a really good free agent signing back when the Angels had SP but little offense. How things have changed!
@ i like al conin;
Insurance on players is extremely expensive, and if franchises can find a company that will offer it they don’t come close to covering a players yearly contract.
Very few players are covered with insurance by their team.
The insurance thing is way overrated. Every time you sign an insurance contract, the insurance company is taking money from you. The only reason to ever buy an insurance policy is for catastrophic losses. It’s to cover costs that you won’t be able to cover in the short-run.
I’m not familiar w the intricacies of player insurance but I would like to see an article on that.
Not sure if it’s feasible but MLBTR might be able to dig around and find an insurance company willing to talk about it a bit.
There is life insurance, which pays off the balance of a contract should the player die before the end of the contract. This is term coverage, and it maintained by the team which owns the player contract (when player is traded, the ownership of the contract has to be changed to the new team).
This is very different from insurance which covers the team if the player suffers an injury and is unable to play. Teams which sign long-term, big-ticket deals (Angels/Trout, Padres/Machado, etc) will often bite the bullet and pay for this fairly expensive coverage, because it is still cheaper than being on the hook for $100M+ on some of these deals (like Lindor, Seager, Cole) if the player suffers a career-ending injury a few years in. The policies are usually terminated a few years before the end of the deal, since the bulk of the contract has been fulfilled. Doubtful the Angels paid for such coverage on Pujols past 2019, for example.
Unlike many other sports, MLB contracts are guaranteed, so the owners will seek some protection from catastrophe. But this will happen only with the really fat deals, not the ones for second- and third-level players.
And many people forget the landscape of the AL West during that time. The Rangers were a powerhouse and the Wilson and later Josh Hamilton (oye) signings were addition by Ranger subtraction. The Rangers really never recovered and we know the drama that was brought into the Angels side……
Did a little research on contract insurance a couple years ago and got these basics: contracts are evaluated every 3 years, so any deal longer than 3 years will have at least 1 re-evaluation. The max amount covered is around 75%.
It certainly not a given that the backend of any long term deal is insured to any great degree if at all. When you factor in age, production regression and of course injury, the viability of insurance can evaporate.
Case in point:Jacoby Ellsbury. Yanks kept him years 5 and 6 with him on the IL and finally released him. I suspect his insurance re-evaluation after year 6 nixed any further payout.
Unfortunate when people try to be the smarter guy in the room (even though you probably are Tim), era and win loss record still mean something to us oldies.
Tim, sjw1l1 also doesn’t like that jazz or rock n’ roll music either. Get off of his lawn!
ERA does, but not W/L record.
Of course W/L records mean nothing as many starters can’t make it through five innings anymore. Soon they’ll expand rosters to include twenty five single inning pitchers and no one else. Wins should mean something for starters but as mentioned previously they can’t pitch enough innings these days to qualify. It wasn’t that long ago that guys pitched complete games or played 162 games a season or real close to it. I’m gonna say it, all this money has ruined the sport. It’s brought about the era of soft. I can’t remember guys like Jim Rice, Cal Ripken, Rickey Henderson, or Tony Gwynn taking mental health days. Hell Mike Trout just took off almost an entire season for a strained calf although I’ll bet he played a ton of golf while “rehabbing”.
Welcome to capitalism. What would you have these owners do…not protect their investments?
Capitalism is much more about consumers being able to buy a product for what they believe is a fair price than supply and demand issues.
Capitalism and a free market system combats supply and demand issues.
Are you dissing Mike Trout? That’s weird.
W/L still means something. One of the reasons why some pitchers win more is because they can pitch deeper into games.
Biggest factor in W/L records is run support.
Biggest factor in a starting pitcher getting a W is that they out-pitched the other starter that day. Does the bullpen factor in? Of course. Watching the Tigers growing up, I got to enjoy watching two talented pitchers, Jack Morris and Dan Petry. Both had great stuff, but I always knew that Morris would win the 1-0 game, while Petry would be on the losing end. Some pitchers just win. Give me 4 15 game winners for my rotation and I’ll see you in the playoffs.
I think I have heard something like this before, it went like ….”Your goal shouldn’t be to buy players. Your goal should be to buy wins. In order buy wins, you need to buys runs.”
At the very least, starters should be INCLUDED for consideration for the win no matter how long they pitch. Arbitrarily setting starter-innings at 5 cuts out many instances where that pitcher was actually most effective on a given day and “deserved” acknowledgement as the winning pitcher.
That said, I thought it was a misleading stat back in the Koufax days so not all of us old-timers see it the same way. 😉
I think the Ray contract has the chance to be decent over the 5 year span. But Gausman and Rodriguez? Nah. Think the Gausman contract will be an absolute flop.
@ mrnotsoniceguy;
Why do you feel that way about Robbie Ray? He’s pitched 8 years in the major leagues. He had a very good 2017. A decent 2018. In 2019 and 2020 he regressed again, then suddenly had a great (and totally unexpected) 2021.
This is like Rodon of the White Sox – he was in the league for 6 years with some decent stretchers but overall he was passable at best. Then he has a huge 3 or so months in 2021, gets hurt, and now everyone want to give him a multi-year contract @ big bucks.
This is why pitching factories such as Tampa, Cleveland, Houston, and others are so successful. They can find 3 starting pitchers that will each outperform those guys while being paid less combined than those pitchers will get each year.
Rodon will get a multi year deal but I don’t see huge numbers. It is going to be something like 3/55-60
@ mister guy;
Are one of Tampa, Cleveland, and Houston paying their 3 top starting pitchers a combined 55-60 this year?
Houston should be with Verlander at $25M and McCullers at $18M+. If you count Odorizzi as their #3, they definitely hit the $55M-$60M in total payments.
Odorizzi is like there number 7…. Valdez, Garcia, and Urquidy are definitely above him… and an argument could be made that Whitley is even higher on the depth chart then Odorizzi
You’re trying to make a point about those teams being strong organizations but this really doesn’t drive your point home. Cleveland and Tampa don’t have a particularly strong top 3.
The Indians only had Bieber w/ a FIP below 4 last year. Quantrill looked good but so did Zach Plesac before he started looking like a backend arm again…
Glasnow is gone for the year. So it’s basically going to be Baz, McClanahan and some openers/bulk guys.
Not the point I think you’re trying to go for but that’s the reality.
Jays just need decent innings
Needed article.
Would be nice to take it a step further and document what those teams had to do with the rest of their payroll budget because they were stuck with those contracts…..and where in the standings those teams subsequently finished in those years.
Additionally, it would be nice to do a thorough examination of all position players contracts for 4 years and over. I have to believe that most teams have staff that compile something like that.
And include what Boras said about his clients prior to them signing these terrible deals.
If that’s the criteria, then the Leake deal didn’t turn out that badly for the Cardinals, since they still finished over .500 while they had him and were able to dump the majority of the contract in a trade.. Although, they may have actually made the playoffs in 2016 and 2017 if they had more wisely spent that money on other pitching options.
Meanwhile, the Lackey deal looks even worse for the Red Sox, since they gave up much of the best part of it, and while Kelly was a nice reliever for them, they also got stuck with the terrible Craig contract for a guy who got paid multi-millions a year for the next 4+ years to mostly be a mediocre hitter for their AAA team.
Adding the date the contracts were signed would be super helpful for us lazy shmucks
And age of the player at the time
2 things that sucked about the samardzija deal, one he was a QO guy before the first rounders were protected so the giants just gave up the first round pick to sign him and 2 they gave him a full no trade clause so around year 2-3 when he had good peripherals and there was interest in trading for him the giants couldn’t do anything with him despite the org falling down a hole.
what makes no sense is who gets the length and who doesnt sometimes. sure its easy to be revisionist, but guys like Leake and Samardzija, Chen, etc didnt really have the track record for contracts that long given their ages and what AAV thet got. In fact, even add Burnett, Wilson, Meche, Lackey, Sanchez, and Kennedy all had some inspiring warts they came along with. What always confounded me was Zim though. what did him in so quick? he was a killer in WSH, then proceeded to get killed thereafter.
zimmermann was showing signs of falling off in his last season as a nat.
era went up a run, as did fip.
walk rate went up, strikeouts fell, homer rate also went up to his highest ever outside of his mini season in 2010 following tommy john surgery (after being his lowest rate ever in 2014).
in hindsight, looks like plenty of red flags, but tigers still thought their window was open, the old man was desperate to get a ring before he died, and they ended up signing him to that deal.
I’ve always wondered if the Tigers signed Zimmermann as retaliation for the Nats signing Scherzer the year prior. It always stuck out as a signing that wasn’t very well thought out
Zimmerman was signed to replace Scherzer, but got injured after a fantastic start to his first season in Detroit. Never the same after the injury, and more injuries followed.
Jeff Samardzija led the American League in Home Runs Allowed in 2015. Immediately following that, the dumb dumb Giants immediately rewarded him with a 90 Million dollar contract. LOL
Padres trade 4 prospects to Cubs for Darvish. Pay him$21 million. 8-11. 4.22 Era. 28 bombs in 160 innings. 1.3 WAR. $21 million and 4 prospects to win 1 game above a replacement. Cubs, not dumb. Padres? Dude, LOL.
Cliff Lee was a no-brainer for Philly at the time he was lights out. If you don’t risk something on a ace of his caliber when do you? E-Rod been mediocre at best since getting covid, I think that was a mistake by Detroit. Ray and Gausman had great years though I can see that gamble.
Signing Lee was a great move. However not trading him before his injury and subsequently getting nothing will always stick out as one of the biggest blunders by Ruben Amaro
You do know It’s very hard to predict such injuries, don’t you?
Ronk is right. It’s less about predicting an injury in an aging pitcher and more about the Phillies lack of competitiveness at the time. Amaro held onto that core too long on every player too.
Cryptonerd is spot on. The Phillies were going nowhere heading into 2014 and there was widespread interest in Cliff Lee among other teams. Amaro kept holding out in hopes of a better trade package but wound up with nothing.
Raltongo also brings up a great point. Nothing is ever guaranteed but the Phillies would have been very hard to beat in 2010 if they had held onto Lee. The woefully bad group of guys they received from the Mariners didn’t help either.
Trading Lee away before 2010 might have cost the Phillies a 2nd championship in 3 years but not trading him a few years later probably prolonged their rebuild.
I guess the biggest takeaway here is that Ruben Amaro was an incompetent buffoon and there’s a reason he’s in the broadcast booth instead of the front office these days. Although he’s not very good at that job either
trading him the first time, as Halladay was just coming in, was a much more devastating Amaro-Lee trade debacle than the potential one you mentioned
I agree he was an aging star trading Lee after his 2nd year made sense just because of his age. However injuries are unpredictable and they happen. You premise though that they weren’t going to compete and they should of traded while his value was high makes sense.
Yes the whole point was that the Phillies weren’t content with any of their offers for Lee and wound up ultimately getting nothing. The clown above though doesn’t know how to have a constructive conversation so they made a witty comment using a straw man argument. It’s been a common thing on Twitter for a some time and has now made its way to MLBTR
I don’t think it’s five year deals necessarily. It’s the type of pitcher getting those five year deals. Many, if not most, were questionable at the very start.
meche probably the most (considering he missed like 2 years with injuries).
his deal was during a weird few offseasons where so few pitchers were available, teams were overpaying like crazy trying to get guys who should have never gotten more than 2/8 or 3/11.
it’s like everyone saw pavano flake out with the yanks and thought “hey, i should overpay for my own pavano”.
Now mlbtr mentions this? Seems like an agent site. Fangraphs and mlbtr predict so and so pitcher will (and should get) 6/120 in every free agent article?
Worked out for the braves and maddux/smoltz/glavine.
I think it’s just incredibly rare for pitchers to have an uninterrupted run of 5 consecutive years of great results, and when it does happen, it’s usually earlier in their careers when there is less mileage on their elbows. It will be fascinating to see how pitching is deployed and valued on the open market moving forward.
when there is less mileage on their elbows.
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This is what I’d like to see an article on. Take a look at the ages of the pitchers mentioned in the article.
In no particular order, their age at the start of the contract was:
32
31
32
31
29
31
30
28
30
31
That’s an average age of 30.5. and the guys commanding 5 years likely have a decent amount of innings in order to command those 5 years. the lesson here might be to not sign guys that are already > 30 to long-term deals.
To be fair though Joe that’s probably close to the average age a pitcher reaches free agency. Pitchers typically take longer to develop and they’re more likely to suffer a serious arm injury that takes a year or two off.
I agree w/ you that’d be more interesting to see a breakdown but there’s probably a lot smaller sample of guys who have enough service time to hit FA and are 29 or younger
This article sums up why WAR can be a poorly used measurement of total player value. The article states: “Lee produced 17.7 WAR in the first three years of his deal, so the rest didn’t matter.” Of course the rest mattered! He was signed to a 5/$120M contract which was big money at the time. It was great that his first 3 years went well but it was still very disappointing to Philly fans and Philly ownership that he missed the last 1.5+ years of his contract due to injury. They basically paid him Scherzer money for a 3 year deal. I loved Cliff Lee but I’m sure Philly would have passed on that contract has they known he would miss close to 2 full seasons out of the 5 they signed him for, even though those 3 seasons were excellent.
Ehhhh.those Phillies teams were finished.
It would’ve been best had they rebuilt bc all their studs best days were behind them. Cliff was one of their few bright spots
Better than those 8 and 9 year deals.
Lesson: Always give pitchers an early opt out and a John Lackey option
I’ve always believed that teams signing pitchers to long-term contracts should be open to pretty much always including opt outs early on, even if the pitcher and his agent don’t ask for one. The argument against is the team assumes all the risk and loses the upside. Fine. The team has ALREADY assumed all the risk once ink hits contract. The opt out will tempt the pitcher to leave and file for free agency again with the goal of getting even more money. The team in the process mitigates paying for decline or significant injury in the latter years. They can then turn around and invest that money in a younger player.
In retrospect, the Yankees gave Sabathia an opt out after year 3, which he tripped. They probably would have been better off taking the great three years up front and letting him leave. Now, that said, I’m sure they were happy with what he brought to them overall, but he did have a three-year stretch in the middle where his knee gave out and he became pretty ineffective before rebounding at the end. Overall, though, a World Series win, 2,000 innings of pitching, and he’ll go into the HOF as a Yankee says they’re fine with the deal. Yet, they’d totally have made out if they let him leave after year three. Early opt outs can benefit the team. Agreed.
If I get a guy cheaper, because I give him an opt-out, I would do that every time.
1-How many guys actually opt out? Upton, CC, anyone else?
2-My theory is that, if you can trade a FA halfway thru his contract, that you would be right to do so about 90% of the time. so the same goes for opt-outs.
3-An opt-out incentivizes the players to stay in better shape. How often do players opting out have career seasons? IMO, Cincy hit a HR with Castellanos because they got 3.2 bWAR for two years get rid of him before he declines, and get a draft pick.
4-And as a follow-up to #3, if a player opts out, there is a decent chance you can tag him. The RS averaged 3.7 bWAR/650 with JD. That’s pretty good. Had he opted out this year, I’d have happily taken the draft pick and invested the salary savings elsewhere.
You make great points. Dodgers did a opt out after 3 on a 7 year deal with Greinke and lost some of the upside but I was still happy with the contract overall.
rarely end well…for the team
Price of doing business.Highest bidder wins.Players have 1 maybe 2 cash days(FA).From the players standpoint you owe it to your family to get that last penny .If the contracts fail, it’s immaterial.Because of what the market bares & were suppose to give a shout if the owner steps on his Richard?Please,I pay my bills even if it’s not running.We buy insurance & they buy insurance on players contracts,Price of doing business
Yes, probably due to market pressure. But most longer term deals are about what you get up front anyways. Teams often expect that the player will not be worth whatever they spent at the end of the contract. What they are looking for is what they get up front. It is another cost of doing business. This sample represents players who are not elite and thus are more prone to decline in the back end of the contract. Plus injuries can play a role in any contract, and certainly did with Jordan Zimmermann.
So the question is not whether or not these three are worth their contract at the end of 5 years, but will they deliver enough value up front to make any decline at the back end worth it.
Yes. Context is important. Teams factor in the decline years, fans rarely do.
Fans need to think of contracts using an accounting theory of depreciation. Instead of thinking of Story’s assumed $126M/6 as $21M a year, they should think of it as more like:
Year 1 $33M
Year 2 $28M
Year 3 $23M
Year 4 $18M
Year 5 $13M
Year 6 $11M
Depreciation coupled with inflation. Teams also expect higher production in the early years, especially if they’re in a potential championship window.
I tried saying something similar on the renovations going on at the Rogers Centre….1 billion dollars is equivalent to 100 million like 20 years ago so the $250 million being used to renovate is really peanuts.
I’m kind of waiting for the story breaking down how the Mets/Bonilla 326 year deal worked out.
Lol, good luck to the Tigers with ERod. Patience is what will take watching him pitch with his every pitch excruciating slow delivery. Yearly trips to the IL will continue to be his norm. Above average stuff with average results. So relieved Bloom did not resign him.
Ultimately, it depends on what he does with Detroit and what his replacement does in the Boston rotation.
I like these kinds of articles. Maybe they’ll do a position player equivalent.
Yes. I do think longer-term deals for position players are a better bet, especially if you sign the player in his 20s.
Chris Davis who signed the worst contract in MLB and possibly sports history is proof positive that is not necessarily so.
Along with Cobb for the Orioles
After signing with the Chicago White Sox as a free agent before the 2011 season, Dunn nearly broke a less prestigious mark when he was hitting .160 at the All-Star break. Only John Shelby in 1989, at .157, had a lower average by a player with 200+ AB in the history of the All-Star break. He finished the season at .159 and would have achieved the dubious distinction of the player with the lowest batting average to qualify for the batting title since before World War I except that he was short six plate appearances to qualify (perennially weak-hitting catcher Bill Bergen hit .139 for the 1909 Brooklyn Superbas). After 4 years with the White Sox he ended with a Batting Average of .201.
And how has that Chris Sale 5 Year Contract (2020-2024 Plus 2025 Vesting Option) that was signed with the Red Sox working out so far? So Far they have Paid him $60M and he has not even pitched a game. If there is a 2022 Season & he pitches, his numbers for this year will have cost them $90M.
I would say this is a pretty bad contract too.
I’d like ro see this analysis applied to conventional marriages, especially the ‘When regret set in’ part.
I second this motion.
You have to go to Marriage Rumors dot com and read a article posted by William Shatner’s ex wives.
There were also some successes. Scherzer with Washington, Mussina and Sabathia with the Yankees come to mind. Mussina is already in the Hall of Fame, Scherzer is a first ballot Hall of Famer and Sabathia might be as well.
Would like to see a larger analysis of 5+ year contracts and overall WAR produced vs 4 years or less. that would be interesting to compare!
They are right that you can’t generalize from such a small sample but it is interesting to see. Also of note that 4 of 11 were Tiger and Royals contracts. Hum!
The top 3 names are in their prime, most of the 11 listed below were mid 30’s playing out those contracts to late 30’s. Not even close to a reasonable comparison.
This was a subpar list of pitchers to begin with, apart from Cliff Lee. There really was a dearth in pitching talent during these years…oy.
If this “theory” proves to be true for Gausman, he could be Gasman by the end of this deal!
It’s the nature of the MLB salary structure.
With the salaries of a vast majority of players suppressed before free agency, a team has the choice of overpaying a top free agent on a long-term contract or simply losing out on that top free agent.
A club signs a top free agent with the hope the player will lift the team to the next level, at least in the short term, not with the expectation that the player will be a bargain over the life of the long-term contract.
Speaking of Anibal Sanchez, whatever happened to him last spring? There was an MLBTR article indicating he was choosing between either 3 or 5 offers, and the line went dead thereafter.
I really enjoyed this article, thanks! It’s funny, as a fan you want your team to sign these deals because you need them to get better, but in the back of your head you know it’s not a great gamble. Me and my buddies were all stoked when the Ms signed Ray, but I pretty much knew the success rate of these kind of deals.
Besides Cliff Lee, every other SP was mediocre before signing and they were overpaid for their services which obviously didn’t provide the value to the dollar’s worth.
There are other 5+ year contracts that do work out that are not part of this article that already have been mentioned in other comments.
One current contract is Jacob deGrom’s contract! Even with his health issue, that contract and player I would take ALL day Every day!
Just saying…
Because a pitcher can blow out his arm with every pitch and ages with every pitch that doesn’t blow out his arm, all you should really hope for from an SP over 30 is one year, maybe 2, 3 in a stretch.
Given that pitchers not only age but can injure that golden arm in a dozen ways, every year that he isn’t hurt sort of makes the next year more likely — for most pitchers, it IS going to happen.
Make up a number like 10% as the chance a starter will get hurt each year, He has a 90% chance of being worth his contract the first year, 80% the second year, and so forth.
1 year 90%
2 years (.9 times .8) 72%
3 years 50%
4 years 30%
5 years 15%
6 years 6%
Sign pitchers for what he’ll give you the first couple years. The rest is widhful thinking.
I’ll take the over on Eduardo, since his age 29-33 seasons will be among the youngest, if not the youngest, of all the arms on this list.
After seeing this, I like the deal my Tigers gave E-Rod! Also after seeing this, MLB should give guys like Nolan Ryan & other long, productive career having pitchers about $50 million just for the hell of it, lol.
If the teams aren’t going to have pitchers throwing 400 to 600 innings per year like they used to then stop signing starting pitchers and go with relief pitchers only.
Gone are the days of actually starting pitchers like Old Hoss Radbourn and Cy Young.
old York, 400 to 600 innings? Well, I can’t argue with you cuz you’re correct. Gone are the pitchers throwing 600 innings. They’ve gone the way of unicorns and leprechauns
Check the stats of those pitchers. They were workhorses.
I stand corrected. 1890s and 1900s should definitely correlate to 2020s. BTW, damn York, you are old.
1900: Workhorses
2020: Openers going 2 or 3 innings after chucking 80 pitches. Most of the so-called pitchers are not pitchers, rather chuckers with no command of the zone.
120 years is quite a time difference. Things have changed. Dead ball still used? 3 man rotations vs 5-6 man rotations. Diminutive light hitting middle infielders vs 6ft 5inch power hitting middle infielders. I could go on but SO MUCH in the world has changed in 120 years you’re being foolish to compare ANYTHING. What perks do you take advantage of that your great grandparents didn’t have available? Do you have a desire to crank start an old car instead of being able to crank the key in the ignition? Do you enjoy using a riding mower for the lawn that you want people off of? The game has changed dramatically. It’s too bad you havent.
It has changed for the worst when you have so-called starters going 3 or 4 innings. Just hire bullpen guys.
As a Yankee fan, I don’t regret the AJ contract at all. I don’t think they beat the Phillies in ‘09 without him, he won at home after Cliff Lee took the opener and brought momentum back. His last ever start was a playoff W, in a series the Yankees lost 3-1 (his W was the only W). I think that he got a bad rap, and I stand by what I said, anyone would pay for any of these contracts if it garnered a WS win in one of the 5 years…