Say thanks to Mr. Miller
Cole, Strasburg get mega deals due to late Hall of Famer, analytics
So it was, unlike previous years, this time the Avenging Agent, Scott Boras, came to the winter meetings ready to deal — and subsequently walked away five days later with $814 million worth of contracts in his briefcase.
For this record-shattering haul, he owed eternal thanks to analytics and Marvin Miller.
How ironic it was that three days after Miller, the father of free agency, was finally elected to the Hall of Fame, Gerrit Cole should sign the biggest free agent contract in history for a pitcher — nine years, $324 million, breaking the previous record set the day before, seven years, $245M, by the other Boras client Stephen Strasburg. For Boras, it was the perfect storm of events — in Cole and Strasburg he had the two premier starting pitchers on the market, and all the large market, big spending teams, the Yankees, Dodgers and Angels, unencumbered by luxury tax thresholds and ready to bid and bid for what was a primary need for all of them.
Hideous as the Yankees $324 million contract for one player may seem, however, you can’t label Hal Steinbrenner this year’s one dumb owner for doing such a thing. Unlike so many previous Boras patsies, John Middleton in Philadelphia for Bryce Harper, Mike Ilitch in Detroit with Prince Fielder, Tom Hicks in Texas with Alex Rodriguez, Hal wasn’t bidding against himself. If he didn’t sign Cole – who is 29 and coming off a season in which he was 20-6 and led the majors in ERA and strikeouts – for a record breaking contract someone else surely was. And while Hal is going to severely regret taking on the onerous, untradeable contract of Giancarlo Stanton – a player he didn’t need – Cole was a player he absolutely did need: A top of the rotation starting pitcher that has been the missing link for the Yankees in all the years since their last World Series title in 2009.
And yet, we can only wonder what is going through the minds of the great workhorse Hall of Fame starting pitchers of the not-so-distant past — the Tom Seavers, Bob Gibsons, Jim Palmers, Steve Carltons et al — that Cole and Strasburg were able to get all this money despite each having only two career complete games. Such is the product of the emasculation of starting pitchers in the age of analytics.
The big selling point about analytics to the owners was that they provide GMs far more extensive information, above and beyond the eyes and insight of the scouts, to evaluate players, thus enabling them to make smarter, cost-saving decisions. But one of the principal tenets of analytics has been the restrictions imposed on starting pitchers — pitch counts, innings limits, and removal from the games after the second time around the lineup — along with the greater emphasis on bullpens and lateinning matchups.
It starts from almost the moment starting pitchers sign their first pro contracts. They are immediately put on pitch counts, rarely allowed to pitch more than 5-6 innings in a game all through the minor leagues, don’t learn how to pitch out of trouble, and too often never get to develop their secondary pitches. In many cases, upon seeing those pitchers with triple-digit velocity, player development people are now inclined to throw them right into the bullpen in order to get them to the majors faster. I remember something Seaver told me a few years ago: “They’re not giving these kids a chance to learn how to pitch. It’s a terrible injustice to them.”
As a result, the cost of starting pitching for the owners is skyrocketing – Five years/$118 million for Zack Wheeler? Six years/$140 million for Patrick Corbin?, Heck, two years/$26M for Tanner Roark? – because there are fewer and fewer who can consistently pitch through the third time around the lineup. The Cole and Strasburg contracts were the result of supply and demand. You can count on one hand the number of legitimate 200-inning “aces” still in their prime – Justin Verlander, Max Scherzer, Walker Buehler, Jacob deGrom – and Cole and Scherzer both happened to be free agents.
An interesting case next year will be the Yankees’ James Paxton, another Boras client, who will be a free agent after the season. By the end of last season, after he’d won 10 straight decisions from Aug. 2-Sept. 21, Paxton was acknowledged as the Yankees’ best starter, who had the look of a No. 1 or 2. If he should be able to avoid the nagging injuries that have prevented him from pitching more than 160 innings in the past, what will his price tag be? Somewhere also north of $100 million, one would now presume, and could Hal Steinbrenner really afford to tie up over $400 million long term in two starting pitchers while still stuck with Stanton?
We’re going to continue to see mediocre starting pitchers like Roarke getting paid well above their real value, and any starter who can remotely be determined a solid No. 3 or better a $100 million pitcher. The emasculation of starting pitchers has reached such a point that every team in baseball will soon be resorting to “openers” or “bullpen days” on a regular basis in the back end of their rotations.
Between expansion and the whole different approach to developing starting pitching, there’s just not enough top quality starting pitchers to go around. And if there was one thing Marvin Miller knew would fuel the engine of his free agency, it was supply and demand.