Wow.
Here's his recent stats:
| Year | Age | Team | IP | K/9 | BB/9 | HR/9 | %GB | BABIP | ERA | FIP | OBPa | SLGa | OPSa | R/G | RAR | FIPRuns |
| 2005 | 26 | MIN | 178.7 | 4.3 | 2.2 | 1.1 | 44.2% | 0.311 | 4.18 | 4.55 | 0.344 | 0.480 | 0.824 | 5.2 | 15.8 | 19.7 |
| 2006 | 27 | MIN/CIN | 126.7 | 6.9 | 3.1 | 1.1 | 38.4% | 0.333 | 5.83 | 4.34 | 0.356 | 0.504 | 0.860 | 5.5 | 11.2 | 22.1 |
| 2007 | 28 | CIN/PHI | 192.7 | 5.7 | 2.7 | 1.0 | 35.5% | 0.300 | 4.62 | 4.53 | 0.357 | 0.495 | 0.852 | 4.8 | 27.7 | 26.3 |
| 3years | --- | --- | 498.1 | 5.5 | 2.6 | 1.1 | 39.4% | 0.305 | 5.17 | 4.45 | 0.352 | 0.493 | 0.845 | 5.1 | 54.8 | 68.2 |
Ok, so if we use a 5/4/3 weighting scheme over the past three years, Lohse has averaged 19.3 RAR and 23.3 FIP-RAR, the latter being my quick'n'dirty DIPS version of RAR. If we suppose he'll "age" (including injuries) a half-win this year, we can therefore forecast that he'll produce somewhere in the range of 14.3-18.3 RAR next season, or 1.4-1.8 WAR.
At $4.4 million/WAR, that would suggest a salary of $6.2-7.9 million this year would be fair. Tom Tango's salary scale suggests that a package somewhere in the range of $14-21 million over three years would be reasonable. Lohse is not an ace, but he's a reasonably valuable pitcher at the back of one's rotation.
By comparison, I have Carlos Silva, who signed a $48 million/4 year deal this offseason, at ~2.1 WAR over the past three seasons, which gives him a projected ~1.6 WAR this season. Lohse gets a very similar projection. And Silva's making $12 million/year?!
So what on earth happened here? Certainly, Silva is earning too much. We knew that. But I have to think that Lohse and his "super agent" Scott Boras must have severely overplayed their hand, or otherwise must have pissed a bunch of people off this offseason.
The Cards got a nice deal on this one.
Now the Cards have one starting pitcher.
ReplyDeleteBoras thinks every player he represents is AROD
ReplyDeleteThis really surprised me. It's obvious from a glance at last year's standings that a game or two can be the difference between playing in the WS or not making the playoffs. Several NL would-be contenders, like the Phillies, Mets, or even the Reds, have big questions at the back end of their rotation. 5mm is a fine deal (simply based on his projected WAR) for an average team like St. Louis. But it should be a no-brainer for a playoff aspirant.
ReplyDeleteKen, great point about contenders.
ReplyDeleteI'm still amazed by this deal several days later. I would have gladly seen the Reds pay $6 million for another year (and another July trade) of Lohse, assuming they had the room in their budget(??). The Fogg signing was a good one as well givne how little we're paying him, but Lohse is a better pitcher than Fogg.
If anyone's interested, I also brought this up over at The Book blog to see if folks like Tango or MGL could shed some light on it. They both were also pretty amazed at this deal.
-j
I'll bet the Cards make something of him. If they can make Weaver a World Series winner, they can do anything.
ReplyDelete