{"id":1827,"date":"2010-11-12T12:41:48","date_gmt":"2010-11-12T18:41:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thegoldensombrero.com\/wordpress\/?p=1827"},"modified":"2010-11-16T18:15:49","modified_gmt":"2010-11-17T00:15:49","slug":"cliff-lees-potential-contract","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/thegoldensombrero.com\/wordpress\/archives\/1827","title":{"rendered":"Cliff Lee’s Potential Contract"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

As we have already mentioned on this site, the selections for the Gold Glove were confusing.\u00a0 With guys like Jeter winning this once prestigious award, it may be best to now consider it completely meaningless.\u00a0 What a joke.\u00a0 Papi\u2019s option was picked up and will inevitably be regarded as a gross overpayment.\u00a0 This is the one that baffles me, though: Cliff Lee is asking for 7 years at over $160 million.\u00a0 What?\u00a0 This guy is 32.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

I consider Cliff Lee<\/a><\/strong> to be easily the top free agent on the market, as well as one of the top 3 pitchers in the game, probably at the very top of the list.\u00a0 His K\/BB was over 10 in 2010.\u00a0 He made it to 200 IP with insane efficiency and has the rare ability to pitch deep into every start despite high K totals.\u00a0 Any team would be lucky to have him\u2026for a few years.\u00a0 Not 7.<\/p>\n

The misconception here revolves around the assumption that Lee\u2019s style of pitching will age well because he is a control specialist.\u00a0 Wrong.\u00a0 Every pitcher suffers when they lose pace.\u00a0 Lee is no soft thumber.\u00a0 The guy touches the mid-90\u2019s in most starts with the 4-seamer.\u00a0 Lee\u2019s control is the best in the game, but 88 is not enough to get in on the plate to elite right-handed bats, and his slot already generates a lot of balls in the air to that half of the plate.\u00a0 Nothing unusual there.\u00a0 Most lefties from that slot are going to generate a lot of flyballs.\u00a0 Think Hamels and Parra.\u00a0 Assuming that Lee will no longer be reaching the same velocities at the end of this contract, we are left with the question of how he will perform with less pace.\u00a0 Will he be $20 million a season good?<\/p>\n

Well, who is $20 million a season good?\u00a0 I consider that amount to mean something along the lines of \u201ctop-5 in the game\u201d.\u00a0 Cliff is without a doubt that good now.\u00a0 If he ages like a normal human being, then his decline likely already started, which means the length of this contract is financially imprudent at best.\u00a0 At worst, they are being the Yankees of old.\u00a0 I thought that with Brian Cashman at the helm, the years of overpaying for aging veterans were over.\u00a0 They have 3 excellent catching prospects and a handful of elite minor league arms that they could trade for Zack Greinke<\/a><\/strong>, along with plenty of dough to also sign two great bats.<\/p>\n

This is going to be a terrible contract. \u00a0My guess is that it eventually turns into a 6-year, mutual option for a 7th<\/sup> with a no-trade clause, and some kind of IP incentive after the 4th<\/sup> year type of contract.\u00a0 At that point, maybe it\u2019s not looking quite as bad, but it\u2019s still absurd if you ask me.\u00a0 All the while I am hearing talk of Braun, Werth, Pena, and Greinke landing in Boston.\u00a0 What the Yankees need to remember is that there will be baseball in New York when Jeter retires, and that the expectations will be no different when that day arrives.<\/p>\n

The AL East is going to look a lot different this season.
\n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As we have already mentioned on this site, the selections for the Gold Glove were confusing.\u00a0 With guys like Jeter winning this once prestigious award, it may be best to now consider it completely meaningless.\u00a0 What a joke.\u00a0 Papi\u2019s option was picked up and will inevitably be regarded as a gross overpayment.\u00a0 This is the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[15,6,11,13,14],"tags":[558,1258,321,579,1260,344,618,1259,496,71,57,171],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/thegoldensombrero.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1827"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/thegoldensombrero.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/thegoldensombrero.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thegoldensombrero.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thegoldensombrero.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1827"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"http:\/\/thegoldensombrero.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1827\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1831,"href":"http:\/\/thegoldensombrero.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1827\/revisions\/1831"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/thegoldensombrero.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1827"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thegoldensombrero.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1827"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thegoldensombrero.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1827"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}