- Thread starter
- #1
iowajerms
Well-Known Member
Part 1 of 3
MLB top-10 team rankings: Does Max Scherzer improve No. 1 Nationals? - ESPN
By Buster Olney
The Washington Nationals have agreed to a seven-year contract with Max Scherzer for a reported $210 million, half of it deferred -- Scherzer reportedly will receive $15 million annually for 14 years -- the most ever spent on a free-agent pitcher, the most ever paid out to a right-handed pitcher and the second-most dollars doled out for any pitcher, with the deal slotting in behind Clayton Kershaw and ahead of Felix Hernandez.
With that kind of payout, the Nationals can reasonably expect a marked upgrade in 2015, yes?
Well … not really.
Scherzer is an outstanding pitcher who has 492 strikeouts in his past 434 2/3 innings, and perhaps he'll be the guy who pushes the Nationals to a place they haven't gone before, the World Series.
But if Washington had maintained the status quo with its rotation -- arguably the best in the majors as it was -- the Nationals probably would've had an excellent chance to get to the postseason again. Here is the WAR (wins above replacement) for each member of the Nats' rotation in 2014:
Jordan Zimmermann 4.9
Doug Fister 4.5
Stephen Strasburg 3.5
Gio Gonzalez 2.3
Tanner Roark 5.1
That's a tremendous group, reflected in their cumulative 20.3 WAR, and there really is no reason to think that quintet wouldn't do something close to that in 2015, or maybe even better. Fister, who turns 31 in a couple of weeks, is the oldest of the group, and seems to be getting better and better. Gonzalez is 29, Roark is 28, Zimmermann is 28 and Strasburg is 26.
But the Nationals appear poised to break up the band. In a sense, they are adding a new lead singer in the 30-year-old Scherzer, who posted a 6.0 WAR last year, racking up 220 1/3 innings the year after he won the AL Cy Young Award.
As Jayson Stark reported, the Nationals had no intention of trading a starting pitcher and signing Scherzer until they knew they could offset Scherzer's incoming salary with other moves, and after unloading expensive setup man Tyler Clippard the other day, Washington is poised to move at least a starting pitcher and maybe more.
They have talked with other teams about shortstop Ian Desmond, and they built in a shortstop safety net with the acquisition of Yunel Escobar. But as of Monday morning, the Nationals' plan is to keep Desmond unless they get overwhelmed. As Barry Svrluga writes, Washington theoretically could keep everything intact for 2015, although that would be counter to what they conveyed to other clubs during the first months of the offseason, when their baseball operations folks talked about a lack of financial flexibility.
Rival officials have thought for months that Zimmermann was the primary candidate to be traded this winter because of his looming free agency and the lack of progress in Washington's negotiations with the right-hander. If it turns out he's the guy on the move and Scherzer effectively takes his spot in the rotation, then what the Nationals could get in return for a record-setting contract is an upgrade of just 1 WAR.
What Washington seems to be paying for is certainty, assuredness that after the 2015 season, they will have at least one elite starting pitcher under contract for the foreseeable future after Zimmermann and Fister reach free agency.
What a lot of executives will tell you privately is that when they invest a whopper contract of at least seven years in a player who has reached the prime of his career, as Scherzer has, what they hope for is a couple of years of difference-making production, the best of his best. Then they hope for a decline that is merely gradual, knowing that the last one or two years of the deal, the performance could get ugly. The model of this could be the Yankees' initial seven-year, $161 million investment in CC Sabathia, signed after the 2008 season. He helped them win a World Series in 2009, then continued to be a really good pitcher for a few more years before regression set in. (The Yankees' mistake was giving him a one-year extension, as Sabathia threatened to exercise the buyout in his contract.)
Because the Washington rotation is already really good, the Nationals might not benefit from that big bump of overall production from their major investment in the first year of the deal, while still assuming the enormous risk that is inherent in a long-term contract with a starting pitcher.
You can reasonably argue that the Nationals could've played this more conservatively and still been in better position for 2015 and beyond. If Washington had kept its team intact -- with Clippard, Zimmermann, Desmond, Fister or whomever winds up being moved to account for the Scherzer contract -- the Nationals would still be a strong favorite to land in the postseason and advance to the next level. And next fall they would be in position to dive into a free-agent market that should be flush with options: Zimmermann, Fister, David Price, maybe Zack Greinke, others. If you're willing to spend $180 million -- and apparently they are, given the impending signing of Scherzer -- you're going to get somebody good.
MLB top-10 team rankings: Does Max Scherzer improve No. 1 Nationals? - ESPN
By Buster Olney
The Washington Nationals have agreed to a seven-year contract with Max Scherzer for a reported $210 million, half of it deferred -- Scherzer reportedly will receive $15 million annually for 14 years -- the most ever spent on a free-agent pitcher, the most ever paid out to a right-handed pitcher and the second-most dollars doled out for any pitcher, with the deal slotting in behind Clayton Kershaw and ahead of Felix Hernandez.
With that kind of payout, the Nationals can reasonably expect a marked upgrade in 2015, yes?
Well … not really.
Scherzer is an outstanding pitcher who has 492 strikeouts in his past 434 2/3 innings, and perhaps he'll be the guy who pushes the Nationals to a place they haven't gone before, the World Series.
But if Washington had maintained the status quo with its rotation -- arguably the best in the majors as it was -- the Nationals probably would've had an excellent chance to get to the postseason again. Here is the WAR (wins above replacement) for each member of the Nats' rotation in 2014:
Jordan Zimmermann 4.9
Doug Fister 4.5
Stephen Strasburg 3.5
Gio Gonzalez 2.3
Tanner Roark 5.1
That's a tremendous group, reflected in their cumulative 20.3 WAR, and there really is no reason to think that quintet wouldn't do something close to that in 2015, or maybe even better. Fister, who turns 31 in a couple of weeks, is the oldest of the group, and seems to be getting better and better. Gonzalez is 29, Roark is 28, Zimmermann is 28 and Strasburg is 26.
But the Nationals appear poised to break up the band. In a sense, they are adding a new lead singer in the 30-year-old Scherzer, who posted a 6.0 WAR last year, racking up 220 1/3 innings the year after he won the AL Cy Young Award.
As Jayson Stark reported, the Nationals had no intention of trading a starting pitcher and signing Scherzer until they knew they could offset Scherzer's incoming salary with other moves, and after unloading expensive setup man Tyler Clippard the other day, Washington is poised to move at least a starting pitcher and maybe more.
They have talked with other teams about shortstop Ian Desmond, and they built in a shortstop safety net with the acquisition of Yunel Escobar. But as of Monday morning, the Nationals' plan is to keep Desmond unless they get overwhelmed. As Barry Svrluga writes, Washington theoretically could keep everything intact for 2015, although that would be counter to what they conveyed to other clubs during the first months of the offseason, when their baseball operations folks talked about a lack of financial flexibility.
Rival officials have thought for months that Zimmermann was the primary candidate to be traded this winter because of his looming free agency and the lack of progress in Washington's negotiations with the right-hander. If it turns out he's the guy on the move and Scherzer effectively takes his spot in the rotation, then what the Nationals could get in return for a record-setting contract is an upgrade of just 1 WAR.
What Washington seems to be paying for is certainty, assuredness that after the 2015 season, they will have at least one elite starting pitcher under contract for the foreseeable future after Zimmermann and Fister reach free agency.
What a lot of executives will tell you privately is that when they invest a whopper contract of at least seven years in a player who has reached the prime of his career, as Scherzer has, what they hope for is a couple of years of difference-making production, the best of his best. Then they hope for a decline that is merely gradual, knowing that the last one or two years of the deal, the performance could get ugly. The model of this could be the Yankees' initial seven-year, $161 million investment in CC Sabathia, signed after the 2008 season. He helped them win a World Series in 2009, then continued to be a really good pitcher for a few more years before regression set in. (The Yankees' mistake was giving him a one-year extension, as Sabathia threatened to exercise the buyout in his contract.)
Because the Washington rotation is already really good, the Nationals might not benefit from that big bump of overall production from their major investment in the first year of the deal, while still assuming the enormous risk that is inherent in a long-term contract with a starting pitcher.
You can reasonably argue that the Nationals could've played this more conservatively and still been in better position for 2015 and beyond. If Washington had kept its team intact -- with Clippard, Zimmermann, Desmond, Fister or whomever winds up being moved to account for the Scherzer contract -- the Nationals would still be a strong favorite to land in the postseason and advance to the next level. And next fall they would be in position to dive into a free-agent market that should be flush with options: Zimmermann, Fister, David Price, maybe Zack Greinke, others. If you're willing to spend $180 million -- and apparently they are, given the impending signing of Scherzer -- you're going to get somebody good.