December 10, 2006
Understanding the Meche Deal
Ken Rosenthal tries to explain why the Gil Meche deal with the Royals might make sense.
Two years ago, critics bemoaned the Mets' signing of right-hander Kris Benson for $22.5 million over three years, complaining that it raised the bar for other mediocre pitchers.
Guess what?
Benson's deal, which includes a $7.5 million option, now resembles a bargain.
Ditto for the Blue Jays' signing of free-agent closer B.J. Ryan to a five-year, $47 million contract last off-season.
Ditto for the Astros' signing of right-hander Roy Oswalt to a five-year, $73 million deal last summer.
Ditto for virtually every contract awarded prior to this winter's salary eruption.
At the moment, the Meche contract looks horrible. But let's see how we view it two, three years from now.
Of course, all those contract went to either very good players or, in the case of Benson, a decent player. Meche is none of those. If he turns out to pitch as poorly as he's pitched in the past, the contract will be a colossal waste of money, no matter what the market does.
Agreed, and did anyone bad mouth the Oswalt deal? That seemed like a great signing out of the gate
Two years ago, critics bemoaned the Mets' signing of right-hander Kris Benson for $22.5 million over three years, complaining that it raised the bar for other mediocre pitchers.
Guess what?
Benson's deal, which includes a $7.5 million option, now resembles a bargain.
I generally agree with the first comment and have to add:
Doesn't Ken Rosenthal's reasoning seem a bit circular? Maybe I don't know what circular reasoning is well enough, but it sounds like he's saying that Kris Benson's contract "resembles a bargain" now, even though it seemed like too much money two years ago. But if Benson's contract "raised the bar" for other mediocre pitchers, then the reason his contract looks like a bargain now is because... well, because it's cheap in comparison to today's contracts. But if today's contracts are too high in part because Benson got too much money (and so "raised the bar" for what he calls medicore pitching)... well gee whiz, fellas...
Bargain or no bargain on today's market, Kris Benson's contract (and Meche's for that matter) hasn't been good for anyone except Kris Benson and Gil Meche. All that said, I'm extremely glad Meche won't be "pitching" for the Mariner's next season.
Has anyone looked at the fluctuations in value received by teams that have given out huge deals? I'm not really sure why a team - much less the theoretically cash-starved and losing *and* fifth-place-in-the-toughest-division-in-baseball *ROYALS* would pay eleven million a year for a mediocre if somewhat promising pitcher - and that not only do they want to *now*, but they will be *happy* to do so in year five. I would not have thought that's the case, but then again, I'm not part of the KC brain trust...
Re: Gil Meche
If he changes his name to Gil Ga Meche, we'll view it in posterity as a Babylonian/Akkadian/Sumerian epic deal.
--art kyriazis, philly
The Benson deal started looking much better once the Mets were no longer the ones paying him. He's still not worth it.
