Just as an exercise, let’s take a look at the top five starting pitchers in Baseball Reference pitching Wins Above Replacement entering the weekend:
1. Tarik Skubal, who is having a breakout year after Tommy John surgery in 2016 and flexor tendon surgery in 2022.
2. Hunter Greene, who underwent Tommy John surgery in 2019 and was put on the IL last week with right elbow soreness.
3. Erick Fedde, who signed a two-year, $15 million contract after reviving his career in South Korea.
4. Chris Sale, who needed Tommy John surgery soon after signing a five-year, $145 million extension in 2019 and made 31 total starts in the first four seasons of that deal.
5. Reynaldo Lopez, who was mainly a reliever the previous three seasons.
If you keep going through, say, the top 20, it is littered with lots of similar stories: converted relievers (such as Seth Lugo and Michael King), surprise breakouts or recoveries (Tyler Anderson, Ronel Blanco, Luis Gil and Tanner Houck), pitchers going further than before after being slowed by lengthy rehabs from arm injuries (Gil, Garrett Crochet, two-time Tommy Johner Cole Ragans) and pitchers who signed relatively short free-agent deals in the offseason (Fedde, Lopez and Lugo).
So I ask this question as the offseason comes into focus: Why would any team sign a starter to a contract longer than, say, three or four years when:
1. The injury rate on pitchers is so great. How would you have any idea who is a good bet to not break? Even the indomitable Gerrit Cole broke this year for half a season.
2. The technology exists to elevate performance via increased velocity, shape, movement and knowing which stuff works and which should be discarded. Fedde, for example, left the States a first-round bust and returned with — among other items — a cutter and increased velocity to become a high-end performer.
3. How many untapped relievers who can be starters are out there after seeing what, for example, Lugo, King, Lopez, Zach Littell and Jordan Hicks have done in recent years?
Now, I want to note that I proposed this theory/strategy to four heads of baseball operations. Each said in some form that it is a lot easier to recommend a strategy and a lot tougher to do when you are in the real decision-making seat and have a bunch of external pressures — fans, media, hunger to win. In that environment, it is difficult to actually have unflinching discipline not to go further contractually with a pitcher than you know is sound business.
And I would add this: I am pro-player, so if Corbin Burnes, Max Fried and Blake Snell — the likely top three starters in free agency — go out and kill it financially, all good. I expect they all will do well. It is just not what I believe is sound within this version of the game.
The best position players are proving so much more worth the large investments. Aaron Judge, who received the biggest free-agent deal after the 2022 season, and Shohei Ohtani, who received the biggest free-agent deal last offseason and is currently just a hitter, are probably the MVP frontrunners. Big free-agent deals for, say, Bryce Harper and Corey Seager are aging well. Of course, there is a long way to go. But, in general the six-plus-year mega-deals are so much better investments on hitters with lots of prime left, especially in an era of decreased offense.
But what about starting pitching when part of the reason for decreased offense is the race to get one fire-breathing reliever into the game after another? Starters are being asked to do less and are getting hurt more. It would suggest a durable, high-end starter such as Burnes is worth more than ever, especially since he is completing just his age-29 campaign.
And I would expect he will be treated great in the marketplace. But would you bet on any starter to stay healthy for a period of, say, six or more years? How do you cook that into a contract? You might get fortunate like Washington did with a seven-year, $210 million deal for Max Scherzer or strike disaster like Washington did with Stephen Strasburg’s seven-year, $245 million pact or Patrick Corbin’s six-year, $140 million accord.
If you were creating odds, what would be your Over/Under for the number of starts over the next six years for Burnes, Fried and Snell? If 180 is the max for each, would you make it 150? 140? 130? Starters like Cole and Zack Wheeler are pitching unicorns with durability and excellence, and, again, even Cole endured an arm injury in Year 5 of his nine-year contract.
What made Yoshinobu Yamamoto so attractive in the market last offseason — beyond his special arsenal — was that he was just 25. That led to escalated bidding with the Dodgers winning at 12 years at $325 million — $1 million more than Cole for the pitching record. Yamamoto lasted 14 starts before incurring a strained rotator cuff. He last pitched June 15, and Los Angeles is hoping he could get back next month.
Do the Yankees and Mets feel relief finishing as runners-up for Yamamoto? There obviously is a long way to go for the righty, and perhaps he will get and stay healthy and hit a Cy Young-ish peak, but already one year of value has been lessened. The Cubs’ less-heralded signing of Yamamoto’s countryman, Shota Imanaga, at four years, $53 million looks good by comparison, to date.
The Yankees, after failing on Yamamoto, countered with Marcus Stroman, who has been durable and above average on a two-year, $37 million pact — Stroman was at 127 ¹/₃ innings and gains control of a 2026 $18 million player option if he reaches 140 innings. The Mets have Sean Manaea at $14.5 million (and almost certain to opt out of the $13.5 million option for 2025) and Luis Severino at $13 million,
They also have been durable and good. But even if they weren’t, you can see the finish line of their contracts from the outset. Yamamoto’s deal expires after the 2035 season.
You might argue that you need elite starting pitchers in the postseason, but Texas won the World Series last year behind Nathan Eovaldi, Andrew Heaney, Jordan Montgomery, and the fading memory of Max Scherzer — and without Jacob deGrom, who has made six starts (last on April 28, 2023) on his five-year, $185 million Texas deal. In other words, good starters — none on long deals — being healthy and rising to the moment got it done.
It will be interesting how long the deals are and for how much for pitchers who performed well on basically one-year deals designed to allow them to rebuild value — think Snell, Manaea, Severino and Michael Wacha? Or will the lesson for teams be to go find their next version of these pitchers?
