Late Innings

If there’s one thing in common between pitching and a barrel of oil is that both commodities are over-valued right now. Big dollars are still being spent on starting pitching this year, though it seems not as bad as the 2006 offseason (Barry Zito is one contract that comes to mind.) There really weren’t any #1 starters on the free agency market this year. The “best” pitcher out there was Carlos Silva, and he happily collected 48MM this offseason.

What we’re starting to see now is that teams are more willing to take a chance on an arm which is a high-risk, high-reward scenario. Yesterday the Cardinals did that with Matt Clement. Today, two more arms were acquired; Josh Towers for 1.8MM (only 400K guaranteed) by the Rockies and Hideo Nomo by the Royals.

Nomo wasn’t exactly lighting up Winter ball this offseason, but apparently he showed more than enough for the Royals to take interest. Yes there are other expensive arms out there on the free agent market (the most-costly one which comes to mind is Kyle Lohse.) However the Royals didn’t want to invest the 40Mm or so needed to put him in uniform. The reason why is that they are set in the rotation. Gil Meche, Brian Bannister,Zack Grenkie and Kyle Davies make up a solid 1-4 in their rotation. Nomo, if lucky enough to get a roster spot, would take the fifth starter position.

There’s not much sense in investing so much money for someone who if anything will just eat innings. If the team’s lucky enough to make it to the playoffs, he’ll be the long man out of the bullpen for the best of seven series (he most likely won’t make the roster for a best of five.) The Royals could have put the money into one of those pitchers (and they do have money to spend), but they’re spending their money ever so wisely. The same thing goes with the Rockies. Though they extended Aaron Cook for three more years, they are now stocked with young arms including Jason Hirsh, Jeff Francis and Franklin Morales. Going on how well their young arms were developing, there’s no need to bring in a high-priced backend of the rotation arm.

Josh Towers was an interesting pickup though. If anything, he’ll put more competition on the already thick pool of available starters (they also signed Kip Wells this offseason.) Watching Baltimore play most of my life, I’ve seen Towers pitch quite a few times. He rarely walks hitters, rarely strikes them out and puts the ball in play (essentially what Carlos Silva does.) He does make mistakes though, and will give up the long ball. He has a tendency to get in the dog house with the manager, but he also has the ability to go on quality game tears. As to what I’m to expect from him, I’m uncertain. However the 1.8MM should be a strong incentive for him to pitch well in Spring and hopefully make the roster (he’ll have a 3MM option next year as well if he pitches well.)

However in looking at these two signings, they’ll most likely only pitch 200 innings between them, which is exactly what their respective teams are expecting. Granted they could get those from Silva, but the likelihood of them getting better starts is higher with Towers and Nomo (especially Towers in particular.)

Nothing against Silva however. He got his money, and he eats innings. I’m incredibly critical of the signing however since his track record in the Majors has been horridly inconsistent. He was below .500 last year, and the year before that almost spent most of his time in the bullpen. In looking at two of the other big signings from last offseason, Barry Zito and Miguel Bautista in particular, is that both pitchers were proven starters before they got their contracts (Zito was historically a quality innings-eater for the A’s.)

Nonetheless I’m glad to see that teams aren’t giving in to people like Scott Boras to sign their dead-armed clients (I’m referring to Lohse in particular.) In most cases, it’s best to develop from within, however pitching can either be acquired via big trade or by taking a gamble on injured goods (Clement, Mark Prior, et al.) Teams are now avoiding the 14MM/yr suprise pitchers. This could definitely include Oliver Perez next season as well, pending on whether his Dr. Jeckyl (2004, 2007) or Mr. Hyde (2005, 2006) side shows up in April.