Lohse signs with Cards - Innings Eaters Becoming Bargains?

[Grounded Polo]

Lohse agrees to one-year deal with Cards

JUPITER, Fla. -- The Cardinals moved to address their question-filled starting rotation Thursday by reaching agreement with free agent righthander Kyle Lohse on a one-year, $4.25 million contract, pending Lohse passing a team physical Friday.

Lohse is eligible to make another $100,000 at each of four thresholds: 160, 170, 180 and 200 innings. He also is due $500,000 if traded during the season.

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With Lohse settling for just a 1 year/4.25 million dollar contract instead of 5 years/50 million and Livian Hernandez signing for 1 year/5 million instead of a multi-year deal at 7 million per season, has the signing of Carlos Silva created a slippery slope effect for salaries of other innings eaters? Many fans feared that their GMs would fall for paying mediocre options like Lohse and Hernandez too much money and more importantly, too many few years, to perform as back-end rotation starters who likely will not get hurt but offer minimal upside. It seems like other GMs are starting to wake up and realize the true value of these guys after Hernandez accepted a 1 year contract and Lohse didn't get a contract until spring training after Carlos Silva somehow got Seattle to pay him 48 million over 4 years.

[Amazinz]

The Mets had been linked (in the media anyway) to Lohse for a long time. If there was any truth to that than Minaya must have expected to get him real cheap because the contract the Cards gave him seems very good. However, I don't think this is a concerted effort to pay certain guys less money. It's just a pendulum that is affected by a lot of factors which include excess money and need. Had Lohse been on the market last year I think he would have gotten a substantially better deal.

[MTUCache]

From what Buster Olney was talking about on the radio this morning, he had an offer on the table at the end of last season from the Phillies for 3 years/$30 million, and Boras turned it down.

Frankly, I think this is an isolated incident. He thought he could hang tight and the demand would still be there, and it backfired. This doesn't necessarily mean that this is a trend across the league, just that this one isolated maneuver by Lohse/Boras didn't have the same consequences that they anticipated... the market for his type of pitching fell out as teams got through the meetings and into camp, and the timing of everything was simply horrific from his end.

One pitcher's decisions costing him a bunch of money certainly doesn't mean any kind of a trend.

You could look at this from the opposite direction and claim that the market went skyrocketing this year, as #5 pitchers like Nate Robertson signed extensions for 3 years/$21+, with $10M of that coming just in 2010.

[Big Pimpin]

USS Mariner had a great article the other day. The premise was essentially that baseball is figuring out replacement level. Why pay Kyle Lohse $10M for 4 years when you can use a AAA guy who's essentially free instead? The results aren't going to be terribly different, and it allows you to spend your money in places that will have a greater effect on your team's results. Definitely a good read.

http://ussmariner.com/2008/03/12/mlb-em ... ent-level/


Side note: Unfortunately, our very team/GM has not figured out this concept (say hello Mr. Silva)...