In a previous post on this blog, I challenged commenters to identify some of the worst free agent signings in baseball history. The purpose was to gain some context to a free agent market that has gone balls-out gorilla cookies. I cited the signing of Gil "The Mess" Meche as the poster child for this insanity. Our friend Bronxtale met the challenge, confessed to being NY-centric, and offered up the pathetic, execrable Carl "Ow, My Tucches" Pavano as a nominee for all-time bust.
I've done a little number-crunching since we discussed it in the comments, and decided to blow the analysis up into a full post. Now be mindful, this is something of a fool's errand. Pavano has been a complete bust in retrospect, and of course, it's remotely conceivable that Meche could don his new Royals uniform and suddenly channel a young Bret Saberhagen. I'm merely endeavoring to analyze how stoopid (with two "o's") the Meche signing looks when compared to the Pavano signing at the same time, just two short years before (and by extension, this analysis can be applied to other fine fellas like Miguel Batista, Ted Lilly, and somebody who, since my previous post, may have zoomed past Meche ... Jason Marquis). I think you'll see that, by comparison, the Pavano signing was from an innocent, bygone era when owners behaved in a fiscally sound way.
When Carl Pavano was signed, he was simply one of the best pitchers in the world. He had a history of arm trouble, yes, but in the previous two seasons -- including his excellent post-season in '03 (for which he justifiably received extra credit in Yankeeland) -- Pavano had logged an average of 220 innings. In '03, he won 14 games with a 4.04 ERA, and in '04, he won 18 games with a 3.00 ERA, finishing 6th in the Cy Young voting. Manipulating his stats a little, from the end of the regular season in '03 to the end of the regular season in '04, Pavano chucked over 240 innings, was 20-8, with a 2.87 ERA, a 1.13 WHIP, and almost a 3-to-1 strikeout-to-walk ratio. Also, FWIW, his last healthy stint before '03, in half a season in '00, he rolled up 8 wins with a 3.06 ERA. In sum, Pavano came to the free agent market entering the prime of his career, coming off a Cy Young caliber season, with a history of arm trouble but two consecutive years injury-free. He was pretty well proven to be an outstanding pitcher when healthy, and it was reasonable to speculate that his arm problems were finally behind him. There were questions about his "make up" and coming to New York, but surely his performance in the '03 post-season, including an 8-inning 1-run performance against the Yankees in Game 4 of the WS, offered some empirical evidence that he could pitch effectively in a pressure cooker. For this, he received 4 years at $10 million per year (actually, slightly less -- $39.95 million -- a dereliction for which he fired his agent for not securing the $40 mil that had been promised). It was a risk, to be sure, but an eminently reasonable one, especially in retrospect. It is worth adding that in '05, in his first 10 starts Pavano was 4-2 with a 3.69 ERA before the wing starting smarting -- again, proving to be a very good pitcher when healthy. And I haven't even mentioned Alyssa Milano.
Now compare this to The Mess. Gil Meche, frankly, has never had a good year. He's coming off two years in which he logged an average of only 165 innings, with a collective ERA of 4.75, a WHIP of 1.49 (yikes), and a strikeout-to-walk ratio of about 1.5-to-1 (double yikes). His only semi-good part-year was back in '00, when in 85 innings he managed to keep his ERA down to 3.78, but even then had a WHIP of 1.34 and the same wretched 1.5-to-1 K-to-BB ratio. Of course, he's had a history of arm woes similar to that of Pavano. In sum, Meche entered this year's free agent market with a history of ... wait for it ... being a freakin' bad pitcher. All he seemed to offer was a common understanding that he has "good stuff," and thus, perhaps in some world where numbers don't mean anything, he retains some residual perception as having upside (which he is surely less likely to realize on a bad team with a bad bullpen). Meche is also a year older than Pavano was when the contracts were signed (and to my knowledge does not have a celebrity girlfriend). For this package, The Mess received one more year and $1 more million per year than Pavano did just two short years before. That's a huge investment to be grounded on fantasies of people like Chris Carpenter and Jason Schmidt, who overcame arm woes and rank mediocrity to emerge as stars at similar points in their careers.
I don't think this analysis is offering any great revelation. That what is going on now is insane is news to nobody, but I think it puts the degree into a little perspective. The market was literally a much different world only two years ago. The Pavano signing looks horrible now. But if he was a free agent with the same track record this year, anybody care to venture a guess as to what his contract would be?
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End note: I just read Mark McCloskey's recent post about free agent pitchers, and he conjured a name that surely now leapfrogs to the top of the list of all-time free agent busts: Chan Ho Park. Of course, you could write a similar post as to why, at the time, the signing of Ho made more sense than the signing of Meche. Pavano was at least good for 10 starts and then got hurt. Ho was ... er, a freakin' Ho from the first day he stepped on the field for the Rangers. Overnight, from good pitcher to somebody you wouldn't trust to get out a little leaguer.
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As some one that has had to listen to all the analysis of Meche over his years out here in Seattle...I'll that this is even more ridiculous when you think that he's a guy that is supposedly in his prime, and yet everyone is talking about his potential. This is due to his "good stuff"...
But here's the problem, good stuff doesn't make a pitcher. It definitely helps...but to be a dominant pitcher, or even a decent one, you have to have a "Not in my house, not against me" attitude. Meche doesn't have that. Instead he's the type if you get to him early, he snowballs to disaster.
Speaking of FA busts...
Edgar Renteria?
Jamie Navarro (God awful signing)
Mo Vaughn (Once he left Boston...ouch)
Most of the '80's Yankees
Those are just a few off the top of my head...sorry I didn't post them to your other post...had my head up the NFLs rear.
Josh
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You got this comment twice now.
I'm just a simple bus driver from the Bronx, not a lawyer but let me defend myself. Your question asked for nominees for worst ever, not worst this season who could be worst ever. By offering Pavano, we gave a standard to measure Meche against. Until he drives his porche under a garbage truck, Meche can overcome.. But before we think Pavano was a good signing... he always was a rockhead. The Yankees wanted him to pitch but also to keep the red sox from signing him. The Yankees have already paid about $20 million for nuthin. When he was hurt in 2005 he said he'd be back in three weeks. No more innings that season. In spring training he fell on his arse trying to make a play and wound up missing most of 2006 as a result; the remainder of the season was lost when he mangled his car and was told to go home. His signing is one of the reasons the Yankees finally let cashman realy be the GM. And, all those little old ladys getting on my bus put their metro card in the fare box and look at me and say, "can you believe the Yankees gave Pavano $40 million? Worst signing ever." .
bronxtale
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Bronxtale, you have nothing to defend. This post was not to evaluate the worst ever in retrospect [and since Pavano has two years left on the contract, he's got a long way to go to rival the Ho in that regard], It was to use the Pavano signing, which is looked upon so skeptically now, as a benchmark to look at the how goofy the market has gotten in just two years. Your reference to Pavano only inspired it; but this post was not criticizing your retrospective on Pavano.
Howard Camerik
Weston, FL
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your right; i got too defensive. but it was all those old ladys.
who wins more next season? pavano or meche or batista or the Ho? we know the Ho gets paid the most.
bronxtale
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On that list? After all I've said, I'd have to go with Meche. And the magic number is: 9. I would have said 11, but I just saw a vision of Octavio Dotel blowing a handful of them.
If healthy, Pavano is clearly the best pitcher on that list. But if grandma had balls she'd be grandpa.
Howard Camerik
Weston, FL
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This just in, the Royals are looking to compound the mistake with Meche...
"Joel Pineiro has always intrigued the Royals, though they certainly wouldn't be interested in paying anything near what he made last season ($6.8 million), the Kansas City Star reports."
So don't just overpay an underachieving pitcher, sign is equally underachieving former teammate...just brilliant. Can somone tell the Royals that the M's lost 90+ game with these guys pitching for them last year?
Josh
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Let's clarify, the M's lost 90 games with Felix Hernandez, Jamie Moyer, and Jarrod Washburn pitching decently for them, and these two bow-wows dragging them down.
If they sign Piniero for more than $1.50 and an autographed picture of Art Pincus, they should hide thier heads in shame. A once proud and pitching-rich franchise -- Saberhagen, Gubicza, Splitorff, Liebrandt, Dennis Leonard -- wha' happened?.
Howard Camerik
Weston, FL
Total Comments (123)
Hey wait a minute......did you a a buck fifty AND the picture? That sounds like a pretty good deal to me.
seriously all those guys were developed, if not originally signed, by the Royals. and who knows who were the pitching coaches in the minor leagues who brought those guys along.
Arthur Pincus
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I thought when Dayton Moore took over, he'd bring some of his Braves magic. Looks like asst. GM is only a title and not a function. Oh, a majorly overlooked all-time bust - Russ Ortiz. Since he signed his four year $33 million contract with the Diamondbacks , he's gone 5-11 with a 6.89 era in '05 and 0-8 with a 8.14 in '06. The Diamondbacks even paid him $22 million not to pitch for them anymore, a distinction not even the "Ho" can claim.
McMark
Wichita Falls, TX
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Russ Ortiz is an excellent example. He's making Carl Pavano look like Christy Mathewson. How's Eric Milton or Darren Dreifort?
A good barometer to see how far the market has moved in just one year is to compare Meche with AJ Burnett, who received about the same contract and who everyone was howling about a year ago -- great stuff, injury history, middling results. But a closer look reveals that they were not all that comparable. Burnett entered free agency with a career ERA of about 3.70 (nearly a run better), including a 3.44 ERA the previous season, plus, far better lifetime WHIPs and K/BB ratios than Meche, and two 200 IP seasons, including the one he had just finished. Moreover, every healthy year he had since '02 was a good one, including a couple of very good ones. Burnett was a much, much more solid investment than Meche. That's a lot of market drift in one year.
Howard Camerik
Weston, FL
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Through all the howling of the Meche contract, no one has defended him saying that he might pitch well there. The only positive thing that I've heard of the signing is that it gives the Royals credibility. Now that's something that they shouldn't worry about getting. How about some wins?
McMark
Wichita Falls, TX
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Russ Ortiz is a pretty good one.
Arthur Pincus
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Wayne Garland and his 10 year contract, with big money for the times, stands out. I'm not sure its number one, but its worth recalling.
andy spark
Sarasota, FL
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Glenn Hubbard belongs on anybody's list.
andy spark
Sarasota, FL
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I dug out some other free agent busts.
The one that stood out is Mike Hamption (ouch!), whose contract had to be spread around to three or four teams before it was done (is it, yet?). Others included Derek Bell, Kevin Brown, Sidney Ponson (who also busted a chair in the clubhouse by sitting on it), and at a lower but still significant price, Christian Guzman.
Now, here's one who took a different path to bust-dom: Kaz Matsui.
Howard Camerik
Weston, FL
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Mentioning Mike Hampton also reminded me of Denny Naegle.
After considered deliberation, I submit that it's a bad idea to sign starting pitchers to big free-agent contracts. I exclude the brilliant signing of Dice-K, of course, for completely biased reasons.
Howard Camerik
Weston, FL
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Don Gullett wasn't too swift of a signing by the Yankees, given his history of arm injuries. Ditto Wilson Alvarez by the Devil Rays, if signings by the Devil Rays even count as real free agent signings.
It it is indeed a bad idea to sign starters, perhaps its because many of them can throw their arms out in their free agency year in order to put up big numbers to score a big contract.
andy spark
Sarasota, FL
Total Comments (12)
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