To anyone following Major League Baseball’s Hot Stove transactions this offseason, two things stand out regarding the progression of free agency: feared sluggers like Justin Upton and Yoenis Cespedes remain unsigned with no official offers yet announced, while a there's been a mad dash for the best available pitching, which has resulted in teams granting a series of unprecedented contracts to arguably undeserving pitchers.

The contract Jeff Samardzija signed with the San Francisco Giants on December 9 epitomizes the lengths to which teams will go to acquire a frontline starter. But the issue of whether or not the Notre Dame product can be considered a frontline starter remains up for debate. Although he is not being asked to anchor the rotation, a role that will remain in the hands of 2014 World Series MVP Madison Bumgarner, the thirty-year-old right hander is guaranteed an average of $18 million a year for the next five years.

Without doubt, he offers the Giants much upside. Since becoming a starter in 2012, he has fanned over 200 batters in three of the last four seasons, and he has also managed to avoid serious injury while maintaining mid-to-high 90s velocity on his four-seamer. On the other hand, his win total has hit double digits only once in his career, a statistic which can be attributed to his pitching for lackluster Cubs and White Sox teams, but his 2015 season, the infamous “contract year,” left much to be desired. Samardzija led the American League in hits allowed, as well as both earned runs and home runs surrendered, while his earned run average ballooned to 4.96. While some players earn extra money for their postseason performance or clubhouse leadership, Samardzija has yet to find himself in either of those roles all too often. His playoff experience consists of one inning of relief with the Cubs in the 2008 NLDS.

Meanwhile, the Giants inked another free agent starter to replenish their once-dominant rotation: ex-Cincinnati Reds ace Johnny Cueto. Cueto’s career actually has many parallels to that of his new teammate. Both have offered comparable durability; each appears to be a lock for at least 200 innings. They are also similar in age, with the two born only months apart. Furthermore, both struggled significantly in 2015, although Cueto’s struggles primarily began after his midseason trade to the Kansas City Royals, where he posted an earned run average only two tenths lower than Samardzija’s. However, other statistics show Cueto to be the superior pitcher. His lifetime earned run average of 3.30 (typically below 3.00 in recent seasons) far surpasses Samardzija’s 4.09, as does his lifetime WHIP of 1.181 versus Samardzija’s 1.278. While sabermetricians often dismiss win-loss records as archaic stats with little relevance, the bragging rights associated with being a pitcher whose team wins for him cannot be dismissed. In 2012, Cueto put together a 19-9 record, which he surpassed in 2014 with a 20-9 record; each of those seasons put him in the top five in National League Cy Young Award voting. As relief pitching becomes more specialized, the famed twenty win threshold will become harder to reach. Despite Cueto’s advantages, he signed a six year contract worth $130 million, or a little over $21 million annually on the average, only a three million dollar difference from his future rotation-mate.

By no means is this trend unique to the San Francisco Giants. Around the league, recent signings reaffirm the trend of overpaying for pitching. On December 22, the St. Louis Cardinals added sinkerballer Mike Leake, a pitcher who has again been durable but little more than above-average, signing him to a five year, $80 million contract. Meanwhile, in one of the biggest head scratchers of the offseason, the Detroit Tigers imported Mike Pelfrey from the Minnesota Twins, signing him to a two year deal worth a guaranteed $16 million, this despite his 6-11 record and 1.47 WHIP in 2015, as well as his 2014, in which he pitched his way out of the rotation after five starts. The tall right-hander is far removed from his career year of 2010 with the New York Mets, and even then, his statistics would have been an average to plus season for the aforementioned Mike Leake.

Speaking of the Mets, one would presume their arsenal of young pitchers to keep them immune from the overpay bug. They won the National League pennant in 2015 with their fearsome foursome of Matt Harvey, Jacob deGromNoah Syndergaard, and Steven Matz, all of whom have yet to hit arbitration, let alone free agency. In addition to these young arms, the Mets also have Zack Wheeler expected to make a midseason return from Tommy John surgery, as well as a couple prospects and farmhands down the pipeline.

Despite this wealth of pitching, they decided to re-sign veteran Bartolo Colon for another year at $7.25 million. While some may consider this a proactive move (especially given the Tommy John epidemic), as the starter delivered strong performances and invaluable veteran leadership with a team-first attitude (even pitching in relief in the 2015 postseason) the prior two seasons, numerous issues remain with Colon, including his age (43 on May 24), his weight (long reported at 285 lb) and potential related health problems, and his history of prior PED use. Although these have long been concerns about the right-hander, they become magnified with another year. While the New York sports media expected Colon to earn in the four to five million dollar range from the Mets with the possibility of more from the open market, he will be earning $7.25 million from the notoriously cash-strapped Mets to presumably end up a long man or trade bait by the end of July.

The hyperinflation in free agent pitcher salaries is not limited to aces and mid-rotation starters; even the most obscure pitchers and lefty specialists are seeing a similar salary hike. While on the subject of the Mets, in addition to re-signing Colon, they also brought back thirty-two-year-old left handed relief pitcher Jerry Blevins on December 15. Although he excelled in his appearances for the Mets in 2015, retiring every batter he faced, he appeared in only seven games before taking a line drive to his pitching arm, fracturing it. Ultimately, when beginning rehab attempts in the thick of the Mets’ chase for a postseason spot, he broke it again in a freak accident. The Mets had two other lefty specialist options in the organization: Josh Edgin, who is returning also from Tommy John, and Sean Gilmartin, a Rule 5 pick who put together a strong showing in 2015, despite being limited almost exclusively to low pressure situations. Yet they added Blevins, at roughly double his salary from the prior year despite his injuries and his relatively weak 2014 performance (a 4.91 ERA with the Washington Nationals).

To combat the rising costs of pitchers through free agency as well as the fears of underperformance and injury associated with long term contracts, other teams have looked to the trade market, yet even they’ve had to overpay for quality pitching. The Arizona Diamondbacks established themselves as in “win now mode” with the signing of Zach Greinke and supplemented their pitching staff with a trade in which they sent outfielder Ender Inciarte, an elite defender, as well as pitching prospect Aaron Blair, ranked in the top 100 of all MLB prospects, and their first round draft selection Dansby Swanson to the Atlanta Braves for twenty-five-year-old right-hander Shelby Miller, a pitcher who put together an impressive 2015 despite leading the National League in losses while pitching for a rebuilding Braves ballclub. However, the potential Arizona has sacrificed could certainly come back to ruin them.

No team understands this better than the Toronto Blue Jays, who sacrificed current Mets phenom Syndergaard and catcher Travis d’Arnaud, as well as outfield prospect Wuilmer Becerra and catcher John Buck in 2012 for then-National League Cy Young Award winner R.A. Dickey and a pair of backup catchers capable of catching the knuckleball. While d’Arnaud and Syndergaard appear to be cornerstones of the Mets’ future, Dickey never replicated his career year.

The trend is nothing new. Year in and year out, teams that commit to pitchers for several years often watch as their performance fails to justify the dollars pledged in the contract. No shortage of examples exist to demonstrate this trend. Almost four decades ago, the New York Yankees signed former Big Red Machine ace Don Gullett to a six-year contract, only to watch as shoulder problems limited the remainder of his career to only a season and a half. Thirty years after the Gullett debacle, the Yankees imported Japanese starter Kei Igawa, signing him to a five-year contract worth a total of $20 million. His struggles were near immediate, and after June 2008 (the first year and a half), he languished in the minors. Even the Giants, the team who made the Samardzija and Cueto signings this month, have been burned before. After the 2006 season, they signed former Oakland star Barry Zito to a seven-year contract worth $126 million in guaranteed money. In his seven years, his statistics were unimpressive: a win-loss record of 63-80 with a 4.62 ERA and a 1.439 WHIP.

Given the patterns of failure, or at best moderate success, one question remains for fans and executives around the sport: why haven’t teams become smarter with their years and their money? Although this question remains up for debate, one reality remains. The absence of a salary cap in MLB and the fact that the luxury tax only typically hurts one or two teams a season enables a series of competitive market bidding. All executives share one common objective: winning. Their contracts are perpetuated based on the success of their clubs, and postseason teams yield greater revenues, which excite owners and local sports networks alike. To these contending teams, a starting pitcher who has succeeded in the middle of a rotation before offers a safer bet for success than a rookie or journeyman, despite the large contract. If this starter can provide a couple wins his alternative cannot, those wins might make the difference between an agonizing second-place finish and a World Series title. As fans, as representatives of the fans, and as self-interested employees seeking contract extensions, a move that seems like overpaying to an outsider can easily make all the sense in the world, provided the team honestly thinks it stands a chance at playoff contention.

The other issue at hand, the issue that often escapes our minds when we read the sports sites and newspapers, is the inflation rate associated with salaries around the league. Truly elite starters are fetching record average annual values in free agency. Last season, the Washington Nationals signed Max Scherzer to a contract exceeding $30 million per year, while this offseason, that record has since been eclipsed by those given to David Price (by the Boston Red Sox) and Zach Greinke this offseason. In a world where Greinke fetches $34 million per year from the Diamondbacks, a division rival like San Francisco must honestly ask itself if a starter like Samardzija and the expected 200 innings and 200 strikeouts he will likely deliver is worth half as much as Greinke. So far, the answer appears to be a resounding yes.

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About the author
Michael Pavliv
Michael hails from MTV's Jersey Shore and joins VAVEL after a less-than-prestigious career in the Toms River Little League and Toms River Basketball Association. He also attends Haverford College in Philadelphia's Main Line suburbs, where he is an Economics major and serves as Managing Editor for his school's paper. He covers primarily baseball, especially his beloved NY Mets.