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Guest35965 (IP: 69.141.76.197)
Newey^2483
Re: Most Critical Stats for Building a Winning Team <FONT COLOR=BLACK><b>[</font>Reply to #<a href="read.pl?1-4283">4283</a>]</b>
2/22/07, 6:23pm
I'm sorry that you, the apparent author of the original link, took so many of my statements as personal attacks.

Of course teams should look for pitchers with low ERAs.

But they aren't always readily available, as most of them have already been locked up by their current teams in multi-year deals.  You make it sound like pitchers that have better than league average ERAs are waiting on shelves with slashed price tags.  That's hardly the case now and will never be again.  Pitching is too valued in today's game and the current money market.

So most teams that are in need of a starting pitcher during the offseason have to decide which of the 8-10 players to go after and then compete with other clubs for their services.

Free agent pitchers just aren't cheap anymore, regardless of their status as an ace or a #4 guy.  The mere fact that they've pitched in the major leagues for 6 straight years automatically qualifies them to a certain contract level.

During the 2006 season, 73 different pitchers started at least 30 games for their team(s).  Of those 73, around half (36) had reached free agent status in their careers by their service time.  The average salary for these veteran starters was just over $8.5 million dollars last year.

So if you'd like to compare the average salary to a league average ERA or ERA+ (that I used from <b><i><a href="http://baseball-reference.com" target="_blank">baseball-reference.com</a></b></i>, which is adjusted for ballpark), then we can see just how much these three guys were overpaid.

Adam Eaton
Yearly Salary - $8.17 M
Predicted - (0.92)* $8.5 M = $7.82 M

Jason Marquis
Yearly Salary - $7 M
Predicted - (0.94)* $8.5 M = $7.99 M

Gil Meche
Yearly Salary - $11 M
Predicted - (0.96)* $8.5 M = $8.16 M

So, of course, the Gil Meche deal looks the worst out of these three.  But the Royals have been known for desperation in the past, and they seem to keep on rollin' with this one.

But looking at the other two, I just don't see anything that seems all ridiculous within the current free agent market.  Now you and many other people could make a very valid argument that the entire market is out of control and that pitchers such as these shouldn't make annual salaries of $8 million.  And I'd probably agree.

But the real dollar values for these deals come down to the current baseline salaries and the high-demand, low-supply field of veteran starting pitchers.

And one more response before calling this post quits...

You mention that these pitchers have ERAs that are well above league average.  But that's hardly the case.  None are even 10% above league average.

Even if they were, 10% above league average works out to an extra 0.45 earned runs/9 considering a league average of 4.50.  Spread out over an entire season, the additional 0.45 works out to 9 extra runs over the entire season (180 IP).

[Newey from Cincinnati/OH]
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