Esoteric,

I like Strasburg and he might well be baseball's #1 SP over the next six years...but you're putting him above Kershaw because Kershaw has a history of injuries and over Verlander because Verlander... doesn't. You can't have it both ways! (Especially since, as mentioned, Strasburg's never thrown 200 IP yet).

As to the signing, Greinke's obviously a level below the Verlander/Felix/Kershaw/CC etc. class, but I don't see why he can't be very good over a lot of innings for the life of this contract. I think LA will be happy with it.

That isn't silly, billy, it's preposterous. It's not even possible to tell what it is you're claiming. Are you arguing that GMs collectively or Alderson specifically thought that 4 months in 2012 represented a return to a level of skills Wright hadn't demonstrated since 2008, and that those four months surely represented the reclamation of a 'level or performance he had amply demonstrated? No one would think it resembled a guarantee, or at the least should admit thinking that.

As for Reyes, he had hamstring problems, then averaged 158 games a season for four years, then had more hamstring problems. Are you arguing anyone paying attention to his career was going to be sure his hamstring problems were beyond him because, one year in three, he was durable? That after demonstrating four years of durablity was no guarantee of continuing durability, one year of durablity magically did?

If Wright replicates his "down" years for the next 8 years he sails into the HOF.

The reason Reyes only got $100 million is because of the hamstring problems. If he had been healthy during his career he gets at least 50% more.

Now, if folks are going to be consistent, there should be a lot of hating on the Dodgers for having such a high payroll. Or does that only happen if they win?

If a Dodger Clapper shows up and spends half his postings on whining on about how his team's owners are getting screwed out of money, then maybe I'll start hating the Dodgers as much as the Yankees.

That isn't silly, billy, it's preposterous. It's not even possible to tell what it is you're claiming. Are you arguing that GMs collectively or Alderson specifically thought that 4 months in 2012 represented a return to a level of skills Wright hadn't demonstrated since 2008, and that those four months surely represented the reclamation of a 'level or performance he had amply demonstrated? No one would think it resembled a guarantee, or at the least should admit thinking that.

As for Reyes, he had hamstring problems, then averaged 158 games a season for four years, then had more hamstring problems. Are you arguing anyone paying attention to his career was going to be sure his hamstring problems were beyond him because, one year in three, he was durable? That after demonstrating four years of durablity was no guarantee of continuing durability, one year of durablity magically did?

The claim you were responding too was as follows: "I think there's a tendency among some baseball folks to treat a player's absolute best season as his "true talent"." That's a weird claim as applied to the Reyes and Wright contracts when both players had clearly demonstrated they were capable of that level of performance (and better) and were still within their primes. If you had argued that Reyes' contract was silly because of his hamstring issues, I would have had no issue with that, but you didn't make that argument. That's just a post hoc rationalization that you're clinging too instead of admitting your error. Also, while there is no validity in any case to breaking up the season in monthly increments, if Wright's season was buoyed by a crazy hot 1 month, instead of a merely normally hot 2/3 of a season, that might be more of a compelling argument.

If a Dodger Clapper shows up and spends half his postings on whining on about how his team's owners are getting screwed out of money, then maybe I'll start hating the Dodgers as much as the Yankees.

Wouldn't that have to be Dodger Redneck?

I understand where you're coming from, but the only reason I'd still prefer Strasburg over them is because Kershaw has already demonstrated serious hip injury issues ... and because Verlander has been SUCH a workhorse for SO long ... Strasburg simply has less mileage.

And Strasburg is on the team you root for, right? It would be so easy to use the same data and come up with the opposite conclusion, that the guys who have demonstrated extreme endurance are more likely to, you know, have extreme endurance.

Wow. To comment further, that's a big number for someone who doesn't quite seem elite.

This really does strike me as a major overpay. Greinke has not had consistently ace-level results.

Over the last three seasons Greinke's been a nice number 2 pitcher. Durable, but without a whiff of greatness. He's hugely odds on to never get near 2009 again, but he still racks up 25m per?

Where were you guys earlier? I got reamed on this site for saying that about Greinke a month or so ago.

Erm...Stephen Strasburg? Weird that you'd omit him,

Doh! It was 1 am and I had some drink in me. But yeah, I'd take him over Greinke.

Wouldn't that have to be Dodger Redneck?

Er, um, blush, yes. Apologies to the Clapper.

How many pitchers would you rather have over the next 6 years just based on performance alone? This is not some rhetorical or gotcha! question. Genuinely curious.

My list
Kershaw
Felix Hernandez
Verlander
Sabathia (although he started showing some wear and tear this season)
Maybe Jared Weaver
Maybe David Price

Making any baseball projection 6 years forward is silly, especially so when it comes to pitchers but I'd take your list, Strasburg and the following:

Gio Gonzalez
Cole Hamels
Mat Latos
Matt Cain
Madison Bumgarner
Chris Sale
Yu Darvish
Trevor Cahill

Independent of salary, there are another 10 or so pitchers that I find to be ~ even w/ Greinke making it pointless to distinguish between them.

Then there are another handful of guys that I could lean toward picking over him but the data is less reliable then I'd like to do so definitively. These would be guys incorporating MLE data and/or that have missed time with injury (Brett Anderson is one example of the latter).

Wouldn't that have to be Dodger Redneck?

Er, um, blush, yes. Apologies to the Clapper.

Yeah, I'm the reason you hate the Yankees.

Wright's deal is in fact a huge bargain

I agree, the Mets got Wright for a very good price. I think they're nuts not giving Dickey the 2 year $30M extension. They must really be broke.

Trevor Cahill?

Having watched Greinke a fair bit in the past two years, I can certainly see why he has underperformed his FIP/fWAR. Other great K/BB guys like Pedro, Schilling, and Maddux were able to maintain their low walk rates while continually making pitchers' pitches on the corner of the zone. Greinke, on the other hand, makes a lot of mistakes in the middle of the zone, and often enough hitters are able to capitalize on the mistakes. Greinke's opposite is probably someone like Glavine who never gave in to the hitter even if it meant a walk. Greinke reminds me of another Brewer, Ben Sheets, who was able to put up several years of great K/BB ratios, but only one year did he manage the dominant ERA results you would hope to get from the fantastic peripherals. Ben's fastball was just a bit too straight, and he would leave it in the zone just a bit too much. Greinke can throw all types of great pitches, but he makes too many mistakes.

I wonder if the fact that Greinke is aware of DIPS (and perhaps intentionally pitches to the theory) causes him to underperform his DIPS.

@JimBowdenESPNxm: According to a Dodger source:Greinke has a full player opt out clause after 3 yrs & if traded during contract he can opt out at end of yr

This doesn't really surprise me. Greinke has been far more involved in the process than most free agents are, and he knows himself well enough that he may not enjoy playing for the Dodgers very much.

I'm content with this signing. Not elated, not horrified.

The weird part is coming to grips with the Dodgers as free-spenders. The last time us fans thought we pulled for a team willing to pony up the dough was... 1999, with the signing of Kevin Brown. That deal was worth $105M over 7 years, if you're wondering.

Doing the math, that's a 63% increase in AAV between the two contracts. Over 14 years... 4.5% annually.

I think the option to opt out if he is traded is a nifty piece of negotiating. I'm not sure if I've seen that before.

I think the option to opt out if he is traded is a nifty piece of negotiating. I'm not sure if I've seen that before.

It used to be standard in the players' agreement. A player traded during a long-term deal had the right to demand a trade to a team of his liking, and opt out if it wasn't granted.

Interesting, thanks.

i have written more than enough on zack and wish the young man all success with his new team

And Strasburg is on the team you root for, right? It would be so easy to use the same data and come up with the opposite conclusion, that the guys who have demonstrated extreme endurance are more likely to, you know, have extreme endurance.

Yeah, homerism probably does play a role here.

Trevor Cahill?

Yes, though I'll hedge on that a bit. I think he's a case where I factored in his team friendly contract too much. They're probably closer to a push but they're certainly not dissimilar. Keep in mind that the question was "who you would want going forward for 6 years" and there's a 4 year age gap between them. That's not a trivial difference and pitcher performance at best tends to stay at a plateau before declining.

Greinke is already at the point of decline on the aging curve and it's evident in his K-rate. If you adjust for park (MIL is very beneficial for K-rate) and index his K-rate vs the league, 2012 was his worst rate of the last 3 years. I don't see much upside there (the Dodgers are going to regret this contract very quickly IMHO).

I also don't support a purely FIP/XFIP based approach to evaluation. If you're going to bother w/ regression (you should), look at the entire spectrum of performance and apply the right amount to each variable. With that understanding, Cahill's evaluation is a bit rosier than it 'should' be via a FIP/XFIP evaluation, while Greinke's looks worse.

decline on the aging curve

Unless something has come out in the last several years that I may have missed, pitchers aging curve are shifted right and flatter than that of position players.

Based on that if I'm comparing pitchers for a 6 year term I would give no inherent or little advantage to a 25 year old relative to a 29 year old.

Zack Greinke is a much better bet than Cahill over the next 6 years.

Ryu has been signed.

I wonder if Billingsley is seriously injured. Otherwise, they're spending a lot of money to upgrade the fifth spot in their rotation.

Ryu has been signed.

Golly that's a lotta pitchers the Dodgers have.

Golly that's a lotta pitchers the Dodgers have.

Possibly on the block are Capuano, Harang and Lilly.

I don't see much upside there (the Dodgers are going to regret this contract very quickly IMHO).

Although I'm critical of the lavish praise heaped on Greinke I don't agree with this. As I said in my original post in this thread I think Greinke is a perfectly reasonable bet to continue to be a good pitcher for the length of his contract, I like his chances of throwing 200 innings with an ERA+ over 100 as much as many of the good pitchers in the game. The only quibble is the Dodgers possibly paying him excessively for that and since they obviously don't mind and are unlikely to be hampered by the contract regardless of his performance I doubt they're going to have any real regrets.

I wonder if Billingsley is seriously injured. Otherwise, they're spending a lot of money to upgrade the fifth spot in their rotation.

Wasn't it basically a toss up whether they were going to do TJ or try to rehab his elbow? I doubt they're confident that his elbow will hold up.

The interesting thing will be seeing what kind of trades they're able to make with the likes of Capuano and Harang and Lilly in a market where Joe Blanton has already been snatched up for 2 years/ $15M total.

I think the amount of money is silly, because pitchers get hurt and any time you sign someone for 5+ years I feel you have to assume that they'll be hurt for roughly a years worth of time and include age related decline, but trying to argue that Greinke isn't a special pitcher (and ignoring that he's by a significant amount the best pitcher on a scarce market with several teams looking for high quality starting pitching) is just silly.

Curious. Scott's arguing against an argument no one is making. How's that working for you, overall?

This Wright stuff is weird. Even if Wright repeated exactly his 2011 in 2012, if he repeated his worst season out of 7 in the league, there is no way in hell he would be willing to sign anything close to a 4/55 extension. If evaluations of Wright are too past-driven, it's not at all about 4 months in 2012, but the thousand games before that.

Which, bizarrely enough, include three consecutive season's worth of games in which by his standards he was awful.

You're forgetting that there was some discussion after 2011 about whether the Mets should even renew Wright at 16m for 2012. The idea that Wright didn't need a huge season to get close to the money he got is, well, weird. You're saying a player not getting to three wins in a dog's age should sneeze at a 4/55 deal? That player should be glad you're not his agent.

If Wright replicates his "down" years for the next 8 years he sails into the HOF.

Yeah, no.

It gives him less than 60 bWAR at a position that's historically undervalued, and he hits no major milestones.

Not only doesn't Wright 'sail in', he probably doesn't get in, period, and that's even granting your implied premise, that he magically stays at 3B into his dotage.

The reason Reyes only got $100 million is because of the hamstring problems. If he had been healthy during his career he gets at least 50% more.

Yeah, no. Reyes playing another 20 games a season (he's averaged 136 a year since becoming a full-time player in 2005) doesn't grab 25 million a year on the free agent market. No one was going to confuse a durable, average fielding shortstop (below average at the time of free agency) with a 107 OPS+ with the top players in the game.

Let's say Hamilton signs with the Mariners. How does this affect Dickey and the Rangers?

You're forgetting that there was some discussion after 2011 about whether the Mets should even renew Wright at 16m for 2012.

Not amongst sane people there wasn't.

The idea that Wright didn't need a huge season to get close to the money he got is, well, weird. You're saying a player not getting to three wins in a dog's age should sneeze at a 4/55 deal? That player should be glad you're not his agent.

My post said that he didn't need a huge season to get way more than 4/55, there's a huge difference between that and what he got. If you were his agent you would be the laughingstock of the business.