In a post to his blog, Patrick Flood looks 10 best and worst and free-agent contracts ever signed by starting pitchers, as well as contracts signed by a whole bunch in the middle, and concludes:
“Signing [free agent starting pitcher] to a multi-year contract looks like a bad idea. For all the pitchers listed here, it has cost teams $12.4 dollars per win above a replacement-level pitcher. Outfielders signed to multi-year deals, over the same time period, ran at about $6.5 dollars per win above replacement. Some pitchers don’t pitch as well after they sign. Some are overpaid to begin with. Some get hurt and don’t pitch at all. Sometimes it’s all three. But the result is that signing a free agent starting pitcher to a multi-year deal is a massive risk, and one that usually burns the team.”
According to MLB Trade Rumors, Erik Bedard, Mark Buehrle, Chris Capuano, Bartolo Colon, Jeff Francis, Armando Galarraga, Jon Garland, Livan Hernandez, Edwin Jackson, Paul Maholm, Jason Marquis, Kevin Millwood, Roy Oswalt, Joel Pineiro, Javier Vazquez, C.J. Wilson are eligible to be free agents this winter.
Matthew Cerrone: I started writing this last winter, and I kept hearing it again and again this summer: The current Mets front office is more likely to give a lucrative contract to a hitter than to a starting pitcher – and I assume Flood’s research is exactly why, especially when you consider that the team plays in a ‘pitcher’s park.’ However, the theory goes, why compete on the open market for an arm when the average pitcher will perform slightly better in Citi Field because of the park’s dimensions? Instead, it is better to develop pitching in the farm system and sign guys with significant upside (compared to their market value), while spending free-agent dollars on hitting and defense (since the rest of the league tends to overvalue offense). The thing is, according to Flood, long-term deals for pitching is simply a bad investment (no matter what the market and no matter what team you are).
To read Flood’s entire post, in which he gives details on each of the 10 best and worst contracts signed by free-agent starting pitchers, click here.
