48,000,000

by RJ Anderson on Dec 20, 2007 8:24 PM EST in Trades & Transactions

Four - eight - zero - zero - zero - zero - zero - zero. That's size zeros. Six. For this:

A pitcher who just a year ago was detrimental to his team is now making 12 million annually. In fairness to Silva he did allow more line drives than before in 2006, but this signing is inexcusable for me - pitchers like Ted Lilly, Javier Vazquez, and Gil Meche are making - Silva isn't nearly as good as that trio.

Apparently this won't effect the Mariners' pursuit of Erik Bedard, but I sincerely hope Bill Bavasi doesn't think that signing Carlos Silva would give him enough leverage to not give up a king's ransom for the Orioles' left-handed ace.

As for the pitchers in Seattle, their rotation looks something like: Felix Hernandez, Jarrod Washburn, Miguel Batista, Carlos Silva, and the "winner" of Horacio Ramirez, Cha Seung Baek, and R.A. Dickey. It's just an okay rotation, and the five spot looks atrocious, but isn't the biggest problem with the Mariners the fact that they have two huge underachievers on their roster all ready? Why add another huge salary to a player who doesn't put you over the top and is just as overpaid as your current issues?

Let's just assume that Horacio wins that fifth spot, the rotation could make a combined 34.5 million next year and with their three top pitchers having ERA+ within the 100-110 range the price tags clearly don't match the production. I'm not sure if it's possible to do so in the game with the current crazy market, but the Mariners are spending nearly double the Marlins on their rotation alone, and it's essentially league average! That's nuts.

On behalf of agents and pitchers everywhere: thank you Bill Bavasi, thank you a ton for making the demand on starting pitching even greater. All that's left for him to do is go out and give a similar contract to Kyle Lohse or Kris Benson, that or sign Sidney Ponson.

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Comments

your comparisons are kind of interesting

vazquez of course is a superior pitcher. but the others? you're laying into silva for having a poor year two seasons ago. what did the season two years prior to their free agent contracts look like for lilly and meche? pretty much the same as silva's. i look at the past four seasons for lilly and silva and they look about the same. meche looks worse to me.

i'm not going to pretend this was a great signing. but i do find it interesting that there is such consternation around the blogosphere with it. the deal is market rate for league average-ish fellows. i also find it amusing that you cite gil meche - a signing that, quite rightly, was roundly criticized as ridiculous last year, and probably will still end up looking bad, and now is being held up as a model (i don't know what your thoughts were on the meche signing at the time so don't take it as a shot at you - it's just interesting to see it used by anyone in such a manner).

by larry on Dec 21, 2007 11:20 AM EST reply actions

Statistically they are similar

However, remember that Meche had that untapped potential of becoming a good pitcher, same story with Vazquez. At least you had hope they could put together a few seasons of 110 ERA+ seasons, does anyone have that hope for Silva?

DRaysBay

by RJ Anderson on Dec 21, 2007 3:07 PM EST up reply actions

he's done it twice already

by larry on Dec 21, 2007 3:49 PM EST up reply actions

Indeed

Once as a reliever and one time when he got his walks under control, but since his control reverted back to his Phillie days.

DRaysBay

by RJ Anderson on Dec 21, 2007 4:28 PM EST up reply actions

not right

he did it as a starter for the twins in 2004 and 2005.

by larry on Dec 21, 2007 6:20 PM EST up reply actions

My apologies

I didn't see that year - selective reading I suppose - but it does appear he got extremely lucky as well.

I was probably a bit too harsh on Bavasi - which is easy to do obviously - so while Silva could post a 110 ERA+ year, he's going to have to be lucky or drop the amount of baserunners allowed.

DRaysBay

by RJ Anderson on Dec 21, 2007 7:12 PM EST up reply actions

i'm not going to pretend

silva is some sort of great player or has much upside. but i think he's a pretty decent bet to be a league averageish, inning eating starter for at least the first two or three years of that contract. it's just been kind of surprising to see the reaction to the signing, which seems to be pretty much negative and really negative at that.

by larry on Dec 21, 2007 7:19 PM EST up reply actions

I would have to assume

Part of that is - like I stated - because the Mariners' rotation doesn't need another average pitcher.

Anyhow, hopefully you'll stick around good points all around.

DRaysBay

by RJ Anderson on Dec 21, 2007 7:38 PM EST up reply actions

sometimes you have to grab what you can

it's only money, after all. and baseball has lots of it right now.

always been here; this site just doesn't really engender much debate so i didn't think it was useful to post.

by larry on Dec 21, 2007 7:51 PM EST up reply actions

I suppose

But I'm always of a small market mindset, so wasting money is pointless to me.

DRaysBay

by RJ Anderson on Dec 21, 2007 7:58 PM EST up reply actions

what is a waste

is all in the eye of the beholder. and is quite fluid. see, e.g., meche, gil.

by larry on Dec 22, 2007 12:01 PM EST up reply actions

I Believe

I forget where I read it, but there was a measure that had Silva actually being worth $11.5M a season for the duration of his contract - given inflation, the market, etc.

I don't think this is a terrible signing, its more telling of the way things are in baseball. Lets also not forget that the Mariners had NOTHING in the rotation last year outside of Felix and Washburn. The #4/5 starters combined for an ERA upward of 5 or 6 last year (I know, ERA is blah, but these are the numbers I read in an article during the signing).

In any event, for the market, this signing isn't terrible today. In two or three years I may have a different song and dance.

The internet's latest attempt at understanding what is going on inside baseball - http://theoutsiderslook.blogspot.com

by Brandini on Dec 26, 2007 1:56 AM EST reply actions