That seems like a very reasonable deal.

The two starter deals this week have both been pretty reasonable.

Makes 5/$100MM seem like a good guess for Stroman, who is three years older.

Berrios career numbers through age 27 virtually the same as Patrick Corbin through age 28, heading into his age 29 season for the Nationals in 2019. Corbin got 6/140

Here is comparison between the two, with Robbie Ray added in. Ray older of course, but coming off a likely Cy Young Season. My guess is Ray does better than both Berrios and Corbin


Comparison Link

Seems awfully long for a pitcher, even if one year is an arb year. Looking just at the 6/$120 bit, the NPV is just over $100 M, about the same as 5/$120 or 4/$112.

Using the last 4 years, I get 2.4 WAR/150 IP. Figure over the long run, probably no pitcher should be projected to more than an average of 25 starts, 150 IP per year -- that might take the shape of one entirely missed season and then a handful of starts here or there to usually missing 5-10 starts a year to dropping to a 5 IP/start starter. So over 7 years, about 17 expected WAR so just under $8/WAR but the first year is an arb year and projecting 175 starts might be optimistic.

For 2017-19, only 59 pitchers made it to 75 starts (top Verlander 101). For 2013-19, 35 made it to 175 starts (Bartolo 177 to Lester/Quintana 224). The median ERA+ of those 35 guys was 111; median WAR is 19. Berrios is, give or take, being paid to be a durable lower #1 to upper #2 starter (or a #1 fading to a #2/3). FWIW, his peripherals (incl stuff like EV, hard-hit, LD%, HR%) look pretty stable to me so you know what you're getting when he's healthy.

In short, everything looks about right except maybe the length. I'm a bit agnostic on pitcher contract length -- you never _want_ a pitcher on a long-term contract but (a) deferring is another matter; (b) I simply assume a season gets lost but you never know when that season is going to be and years 6-7 just might be when you make back what was lost in an injured year 3; and (c) pitchers just age differently, even erratically.

A bit long perhaps, but (a) they gave up two really good prospects to get him, so you'd probably like to get more from that trade by keeping him; and (b) this sends a message to Vlad Jr. and the young core.

I will say, that they will have to pay Vlad, Bichette, and Biggio in 2026, with $24M already allocated to Springer, and Manoah and Pearson possibly looking at good paydays by then too. Hopefully Rogers puts up some money!

Let's not worry too much yet about paying Biggio after his 86 OPS+ year.