ESPN reports that James Shields and the Padres reached a contract agreement that looks like four years, $75 million:
The veteran right-hander, who grew up near San Diego, provides the Padres with a workhorse in pitching-friendly Petco Park. Shields is tops among major league pitchers with 932 2/3 innings over the past four seasons.
He had a 14-8 record with a 3.21 ERA, 180 strikeouts and just 44 walks in 227 innings for the Kansas City Royals last season. Shields made $13.5 million in 2014 after the Royals exercised the option on his contract before the season.
With a high home run rate, PETCO Park neutralizes Shields’s weakness. It’s a good place for him to sign.
What’s interesting to me is that Shields did not get the big money. Given his last four years of performance, the Padres should expect about three to three and a half WAR from Shields per season, making him worth between $21 million and $24 million dollars a year. It seems the market was just not that strong for the pitcher given his age and his home runs. The Padres sign a good pitcher at a good price.
This is continued great news for the Padres and their fans. They’ve never had a post-season like this before. Even adding Nettles and Gossage before the ’84 season don’t measure up to Kemp, Myers, Upton, Norris, and Shields.
Few pitchers get deals that take them past their age 36 year.
Shields was a 3.8 WAR pitcher last year. Assuming a 0.5 per year decline in what is certainly his declining years, you have 3.3, 2.8, 2.3 and 1.8 or 10.2 WAR over 4 years. Thats more than 7 million per WAR, plus the value of a number 13 pick, easily over 10 million.
He also goes to a team he wants to be with, in a park/league that’s a pitchers dream, and an owner that seems to want to win now. I would say he did well for himself.
At the start of the offseason there was a report the Red Sox would sign him for 5/90. I thought the AAV was right then, if not the years, and that’s about what he got, although 1 less year.
Maybe in a year with fewer studs like Scherzer and Lester he gets a better deal.
The bigger story is that top free agents salaries in terms of AAV are not keeping pace with payroll/revenue inflation, and have not since Manny and Arod signed their huge deals in 2001, and was the reason the MLBPA cried collusion in 2003 and off/on until recently. MLBPA has really been weak in this period, in fact, one could call it complacent. Marvin Miller is rolling in his grave at the lost opportunities