Okay, people know who Greg Maddux is, so I can’t just make stuff up on this one. As you probably are aware by now, the Padres have signed Maddux to a 1-year deal worth $10 million that includes a player option for 2008 which will be worth $6-10 million depending on 2007 performance.
With the horrible contracts being handed out to mediocre pitchers this winter (Adam Eaton, 3 years, $24.5 million; Vicente Padilla, 3 years, $34 million), I shudder to imagine what the likes of Jason Schmidt and Barry Zito will end up landing. In that context, now is a great time to invest short term in someone who can provide immediate help and who won’t tie up a lot of resources well into the future.
How do you do that? Simple, find an old guy.
Seven starting pitchers age 37 or older filed for free agency this winter. All but two of them (Roger Clemens, 44; David Wells, 43) have signed. Recognizing that Maddux’s career took a serious downward turn in 2003, here is how the five old starting pitchers (not an elegant description, but accurate) have fared since then:
| Pitcher | Age | Dollars | IP | ERA+ | H/9 | BB/9 | SO/9 | HR/9 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Tom Glavine | 41 | 10.5 | 200.1 | 110 | 9.32 | 2.86 | 4.77 | 0.84 |
| Orlando Hernandez | 38/42 | 12.0 | 94 | 98 | 8.75 | 3.52 | 8.13 | 1.17 |
| Greg Maddux | 41 | 10.0 | 214.2 | 106 | 9.35 | 1.45 | 5.48 | 1.12 |
| Mike Mussina | 39 | 23.0 | 189 | 112 | 8.96 | 1.93 | 7.63 | 1.05 |
| Woody Williams | 41 | 12.5 | 179 | 99 | 9.30 | 2.50 | 5.81 | 1.07 |
| Notes: Age is age at end of contract. Dollars is dollars (million) guaranteed throughout duration of contract. IP is average number of innings pitched during seasons 2003-2006. Stats courtesy of David Pinto’s Day by Day Database, Baseball-Reference, and ESPN’s Free Agent Tracker. | ||||||||
In terms of performance and money commitment, Glavine probably is the best investment. Hernandez easily is the worst. If I had to rank these signings, I’d do it as follows:
- Glavine
- Maddux
- Mussina
- Williams
- Hernandez
Mussina is the hardest to figure, because you have to do the conversion rates for Yankees money. His $23 million probably comes out to around $13-15 million for most other clubs, and that’s a pretty good deal. You could make a strong case for putting him ahead of Maddux, and I wouldn’t argue the point.
Either way, Maddux is a solid investment in the current market. He’s old, but he’s durable, reliable, and reasonably effective — certainly effective enough to be someone’s #3 or #4 starter, which is all the Padres are asking. Maddux really takes over the role held by Wells in 2004 and Williams in 2005-2006. He’s pricier than either of those two guys were, but today’s market is significantly more insane than the one that existed when they signed.
In Maddux, the Padres get a solid innings eater into the back of the rotation without tying up long-term resources. They also get a guy who doesn’t cost any draft picks. The Dodgers, fearful that he might accept, didn’t offer Maddux arbitration.
The only potential downside to this deal is that, at his age, Maddux could fall off the proverbial cliff any moment. But you have to like 19 consecutive seasons of 199+ innings pitched and 100+ ERA+.
An added benefit to having Maddux on the club, as Jake Peavy notes, is that other pitchers on the staff will have the opportunity to “sit on the bench and talk baseball with him.” There was some discussion in yesterday’s comments about the extent to which this might be true and, if so, how much value it would provide, but apparently Peavy and Maddux are friends, so at least one pitcher will have a chance to pick the professor’s brain. Obviously, you bring a guy in for what he can give you on the field, but something like this seems like a nice little bonus to me.
Another benefit is that, with Todd Walker and the Padres apparently headed to arbitration (and with Walker likely to cost around $3 million), there should be plenty of room in the budget for a power-hitting left fielder. Off the top of my head, I believe the Pads have spent about half of the $30 million or so they had available coming into the off-season. That should be enough to land a replacement for Dave Roberts in left — if not in the market as it stands right now, then perhaps closer to spring training or even after the season starts.
(It’s important to remember that payroll flexibility benefits a team even after winter has passed. If it turns out that there isn’t a good fit for the Padres right now, I expect the doors will remain open to finding a legitimate left fielder.)
Time to wrap up what has become a rambling post. Signing Maddux is a solid short-term move that should help the Padres stay competitive in 2007. It doesn’t hurt them long term, in terms of money or draft picks, and there is the potential side benefit of kids like Peavy, Chris Young, and Clay Hensley getting to watch and/or talk to Maddux about his craft.
I don’t believe the Padres are done yet (in addition to finding a left fielder and a platoon partner for Walker at second, there’s talk of re-signing Wells). The front office still has work to do if they want to bring a third straight division title to San Diego, but adding Maddux to the staff certainly is a nice start.
98: If I remember how they calculate those projections, Schmidt’s injured 2005 would have brought him down, legitimately. One year removed from surgery and having thrown 213 innings, most of that concern should be alleviated.
It’s not that Maddux is a bad signing, although I discount the idea that he’s a coach. Schmidt just has (had) the ability to make us better than Maddux. Right now it’s being sold as this massive leap forward over the 2006 staff, and it’s not. We still need either a couple of big moves, or a couple of players having career years, to win more than 88 games. I’m not sure 88 gets it done this season, and even if it does, I’d be happier with a team capable of winning 95.
Richard,
Don’t go Wade on my account. (Where are the emoticon options?)
I actually used to comment with the last name there, but I neglected to add it when I moved to a new computer.
Ace2110 (San Diego): Who’s left for the Padres in LF? Is it Todd Walker at 2B? For 3M that doesn’t seem like a bad thing as long as someone who can actually hit plays LF full time.
Joe Sheehan: I think the Pads assemble a solution. It’s not an easy thing; they probably need to get some power from left field, while at the same time, they can’t play a troglodyte out there because of the deep fences.
I had a thought about the Padres…what if they go to an offense/defense alignment at second and third? They can play Walker and Kevin Kouzmanoff when Jake Peavy and Chris Young are on the mound, but play glove men when Maddux and Clay Hensley start.
I guarantee you they’ve thought of this.
104: As long as they don’t acquire too many weak-hitting glove men, it’s an interesting idea. Blum at 3rd and somebody at 2nd, and since we’re keeping Blum no matter what, only somebody is a potential waste. How is Alex Cora with the glove at 2nd?
Right now it’s Sledge/Cruz in LF. McAnulty is no troglodyte. Free Paul McAnulty!
105: Cora is interesting. He was one of the best second basemen according to PMR.
Here’s a comment from an article at Yahoo about the recent free agent salaries …
… the Milwaukee Brewers, whose $57.6 million payroll ranked 24th of 30 teams last season and whose $131 million in revenue was 25th …
WOW … the 25th ranked revenue in MLB last year was $131 million??? Uh, ya, that helps explain the recent BOOM in salaries!!! Which means the Padres are very likely (along with most/all other teams) not allocating a high enough percentage of revenue to player salaries … simple as that!
107: What percentage would be high enough?
108 … that’s the right question … it’s Padres’ ownership and management’s call … obviously …
NFL and NBA have “salary caps” right? Isn’t it above 50% of revenue?
That’s all I was trying to say … not make a value judgement … in other words, it sure seems to me that “the market” for a sports franschise is that 50-55% of revenue go to the players … and for whatever reason, MLB seems to have gotten well below that over the past couple of years … and now it’s correcting … with HUGE contracts being given out that look like they are way out of line … but I’m proposing that what was out of line was the payrolls relative to revenue …
109: I get what you’re saying. I wonder how much they’re spending relative to revenue.
Schmidt was not the ace a lot of you keep referring to him as (or even a #2):
Season #’s: 3.59 ERA, 213 IP, 189 H, 1.26 WHIP?
Month-by-month splits:
4.76 ERA & 1.35 WHIP
1.17 ERA & 0.78 WHIP
2.80 ERA & 1.25 WHIP
4.97 ERA & 1.58 WHIP
4.10 ERA & 1.34 WHIP
4.91 ERA & 1.48 WHIP
Maddux is a steal!
I still think we trade Linebrink for Burrell…
Lynchmob: Neither the NFL nor NBA have the transaction costs involved with the longer season nor the minor league development costs that MLB has. I don’t think it is particularly instructive to compare the NFL or NBA to the MLB in terms of spending revenue on major league roster.
112: Hopefully.
113: Good points, TF.
Current count for 22 Padre players is $52MM, including Greene and Bard at $4MM. Say the Padres sign Walker and fill with 2 bottom pay players; that projects to about $57MM, which would be 25th in baseball using 2006 figures. Fortunately the Rockies and Dbacks are also near the bottom. Is San Diego 25th in revenue?
For openers, ballparksofbaseball.com has SD as 12th in attendance in 2006 and 7th in 2005. However, the Padres attendance has droped 200,00 both years. I know there are many other revenue factors to consider. Do we want to go there?
I don’t care about the payroll rankings, I care about the win total rankings. $$$ do not equal W’s.
Schmidt just wouldn’t be a good signing for the Padres. He’s fine for one of the high revenue teams but he’s not a good fit with the Padres. It doesn’t make sense to pay that much and tie up a high % of your payroll on a pitcher like him. He’s just too much of a question mark — he’ll probably be good but why take the chance on a pitcher who you don’t really need and may not be an improvement?
Just because the Padres have money to spend doesn’t mean that they should. I’d rather them keep $15m in case they can trade for someone later in the season than spend it on someone like Jason Schmidt.
I think they should be in serious talks with the Devil Rays. They have an excess of outfielders although I’m not sure that the Padres have much that they could give to the Devil Rays as I doubt they would take Linebrink for Baldelli or Crawford.
Would we rather have Cruz Jr. over Ben Johnson?
119: I wouldn’t, but I think I might prefer Ring, Bell and Cruz to Johnson.
118: Having a player the whole season is better, in almost all cases, than trading for a player at the end of July. Even great players can only do so much in 2 months.
Well put RBW (#120)
121: Having a great player the whole year is better. That said, not all players are available at the beginning of the year.
123: Players aren’t always available during the season, either. You pay more for free agents in money, but that’s all it is, no prospects (good for us, since we have few).
124: Fair point. With the exception of course being free agents that have been offered arbitration.
I’m not sure if anyone else heard Sandy Alderson on XX earlier today but he said that the padres are looking to add another utility IF (which will not be Mark Loretta) and a fifth starter (which may be David Wells) and that’s it, Walker would play 2B and Sledge, Cust and P Mac would fight for LF.
Im not sure how much to buy into this because at this time last year the padres had David Ross and Doug Mirabelli platooning at catcher.
Giles
Cameron
Walker
Gonzalez
Bard
Greene
Kouzmanoff
Pmac/Sledge/Cust
Will that score more runs than the 06 lineup?
126: I think so. That’s hardly the batting order I’d go with, though.
I didn’t hear Sandy today, but I did hear the last hour of Darrin Smith and Philly Billy and it seemed to me that Sandy said that the Padres were ok with starting the season with Bard, Sledge, and Walker as starters. Since the Barfield trade, we’ve had three holes to fill and it seems like each one is going to be plugged by the 2006′s team’s backup. I realize that the offseason is far from over, but as I see it today, Bard, Walker, and Sledge is significantly worse than Piazza, Barfield, and Roberts.
I think we may especially miss Piazza. Without him, the Padres don’t have a true cleanup hitter (I suppose you could say that Adrian Gonzalez is one, and I’d be inclinced to agree, but the problem there is that he can’t hit both 3rd and 4th at the same time). I happen to believe that the reason Josh Bard was so great last year is that Bochy used him sparingly and put him in positions to succeed; a full season may wear him down. He also probably won’t hit 22 home runs like Piazza did. Good teams hit home runs, and I don’t think the current 2007 lineup is going to hit many.
There is going to be a lot of pressure on Kevin Kouzmanoff. If he can be a 20-30 home run guy and essentially replace Piazza’s production, we should be fine. If he’s any worse, and I think this is your run-of-the-mill 80-win team.
Also, in the far-from-scientific area of simply comparing teams position by position, the Dodgers are better everywhere except first, center, and right. Granted our rotation is better, but they’re going to score more runs than us. You can laugh all you want about the money they’ve given to mediocre guys like Juan Pierre, but top to bottom it looks like they have a better team.
Kouzmanoff likely will be better than Betemit at third base. I think Walker in for Barfield is a pretty even swap, at least if we’re going to compare Walker this year to Barfield last year. Shortstop should be an upgrade for us if Greene just stays healthy, because Blum last year was pretty bad.
RE 128: I think it’s a fair bet Walker will be as good as Barfield was last year, which I’m assuming is what you’re comparing to. I don’t think Sledge will be as good as Roberts was last year, but neither will Roberts be, imo. Bard won’t be as productive as Piazza, but he won’t even be as productive as himself, as I think you alluded to. However, with careful management of he and Bowen, it’s possible we could still get good production from them. Still, you’re right that the team won’t have any real power/cleanup hitter unless we pick one up in trade to play LF.
Is Cust still under the Padres’ control? I realize he’s regarded as a AAAA player, but I’d like to see him get a shot in LF. Probably can’t run him out there when Young is on the mound due to his defensive shortcomings though…
I thought I saw somewhere that he was a minor league free agent, but Padres.com has him on the 40 man roster.
I don’t think the 06 Roberts was significantly better than the 04 Sledge. Of course, we have no idea if Sledge’s rookie year remains any kind of fair barometer for things to come.