In-Santana-ity
⊆ 2/01/2008 08:20:00 PM by Tommy Ricchezza | Johan Santana , MLB , New York Mets . | ˜ 0 comments »I understand that pitching wins championships in baseball. I get it. But isn't there something wrong with the state of contracts in Major League Baseball?
How does Johan Santana get 7 years/$150.75 million? Broken out, that's an average of $21.5 million/year. And that includes 2008 when is owed only $13.25 million. That means he'll be making almost $23 million per year starting in 2009.
Let's break this out even further. (Yikes, math...)
He's a starting pitcher meaning he'll pitch every 5 days. Assuming he doesn't miss any time or starts due to injury, that breaks down to 32 or 33 starts in a season. Being generous and giving him 33 starts in a season, that's $651,000 for each start. That's insane. Cole Hamels made $400,000 all of last season.
No doubt, Santana is one of the best starters in baseball. But does he really deserve to be paid that exceptional amount of money. That's paramount to giving him $1 million per win each season...and that's if he's healthy and pitching his ass off each year. And that's a big if. Mets fans don't have to look too far to see an example of an ace who signed a huge contract and never stayed healthy: Pedro Martinez will be following Santana in the rotation.
Santana's contract makes him the second-highest paid player in baseball behind Alex Rodriguez. A-Rod's new contract will pay him a total of $275 million over the next 10 years, which seems far more reasonable than Santana's. Compare their contracts for 2009, the year when both should be maximizing their annual salaries. A-Rod will make $32 million and Santana $23 million. Yes, A-Rod makes $9 million more, but look at what each gives the franchise for the money: Rodriguez will play in 150+ games while Santana will likely see no more than 35 games in a season. A-Rod will play in more games in the next two season than Santana will over the length of his entire contract.
It seems absolutely ridiculous to pay a pitcher such an absurdly high amount of money for him to pitch every five days. Worst of all, though, now Santana has set the bar for the rest of the league. Now you are going to get more people like Kyle Lohse who are career sub-.500 pitchers looking for $11 million per year. C'mon, Ryan Howard isn't even asking for that much money and he's got an MVP award, Silver Slugger, and Rookie of the Year in his trophy case already.
I'll let Kyle deal with the rammifications of having Santana in the NL East. But I'll leave you with this question that I have been thinking about recently: how high will contracts go before managers and owners decide to get more for their money and go with a four-man rotation again? It would not surprise me for it to happen in the near future.
No doubt, Santana is one of the best starters in baseball. But does he really deserve to be paid that exceptional amount of money. That's paramount to giving him $1 million per win each season...and that's if he's healthy and pitching his ass off each year. And that's a big if. Mets fans don't have to look too far to see an example of an ace who signed a huge contract and never stayed healthy: Pedro Martinez will be following Santana in the rotation.
Santana's contract makes him the second-highest paid player in baseball behind Alex Rodriguez. A-Rod's new contract will pay him a total of $275 million over the next 10 years, which seems far more reasonable than Santana's. Compare their contracts for 2009, the year when both should be maximizing their annual salaries. A-Rod will make $32 million and Santana $23 million. Yes, A-Rod makes $9 million more, but look at what each gives the franchise for the money: Rodriguez will play in 150+ games while Santana will likely see no more than 35 games in a season. A-Rod will play in more games in the next two season than Santana will over the length of his entire contract.It seems absolutely ridiculous to pay a pitcher such an absurdly high amount of money for him to pitch every five days. Worst of all, though, now Santana has set the bar for the rest of the league. Now you are going to get more people like Kyle Lohse who are career sub-.500 pitchers looking for $11 million per year. C'mon, Ryan Howard isn't even asking for that much money and he's got an MVP award, Silver Slugger, and Rookie of the Year in his trophy case already.
I'll let Kyle deal with the rammifications of having Santana in the NL East. But I'll leave you with this question that I have been thinking about recently: how high will contracts go before managers and owners decide to get more for their money and go with a four-man rotation again? It would not surprise me for it to happen in the near future.
