“Free Agency & Pitching”

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If you’ve got pitching-good for you.
If you don’t you better get some.
And you better have alot of money in your checking account too.

How many arms can you stockpile?
And at what cost?

As you stroll the hallways at the Grand Hyatt and the Winter Baseball Meetings, the race is on to get arms, regardless of the cost.

The New York Mets proved that for the second off season in a row.

A year ago, it was Max Scherzer, the righthanded Soldier of Fortune, who inked a (3Y-130M) contract with the Mets.  That’s an average of (43M) per season heading into 2022-2023.

That followed the bidding war victory on Monday that brought them Justin Verlander, on a (2Y-86M) deal with a third year option, that averages (43M) a season too.

Scherzer is 38-years old at this hour.  Verlander is 39-years old

Scherzer is (201-102) in a career of excellence.
Verlander is (242-133) in a legendary, possible Hall of Fame career.

The signings say alot of different things.

Owner Steve Cohen has deep pockets and doesn’t care about any conversation about the Luxury Tax.  He could have a payroll of 290M…and he could have a luxury tax bill of 90M at the end of the year.

Is this type of operation sustainable, considering he loss of draft picks and international signing money  you lose for going over the tax threshold three years in a row.

It also says the unique durability of these two righthanders, is rare, and probably like the phenomenal run that the Maddux-Glavine-Smoltz regime had during their Braves era in Atlanta.

It also shows the prime example of the frailties of pitching staffs.

Four years ago this week, the Mets thought they had a pitching staff built for excellence for possibly the next 5-years.  They are virtually all gone.

Noah Syndegaard, Jacob DeGrom, Steven Matz all broke down, and they are all somewhere else.  And none has returned to be the pitcher they were before shoulder and elbow woes took them out for a year apiece.

DeGrom signed a blockbuster deal on the weekend with Texas.
Syndegaard has gone from the Mets to Angels, Phillies.
Matz exited in a trade to Toronto, then onto St Louis.

The Mets have the oldest pitching staff in baseball at this hour, just ahead of the Padres pitching staff, which had alot of quality starts, alot of innings, and alot of mileage on those arms last season.

Now we see what happens with the second tier of free agent arms out there, and we know this, alot of those guys have had injuries in the past, and it will cost you a bunch to over pay for those arms.

I guess pitching breakdowns have become part of life in baseball.  The cost of replacing them is stunning.

Wow is the only way to describe what started with DeGrom to Texas and drove us to Monday’s Verlander-Mets deal.

Stay tuned, more to come, more money to be spent, and possibly big trades to be made, because everyone needs pitching.

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