Texas Lands the Highest-Upside Pitcher in Baseball
If you were hoping to see a long, drawn-out bidding war for the services of former Mets ace Jacob deGrom, you’re in for disappointment, as the Texas Rangers inked the right-hander to a five-year, $185 million contract Friday evening. The deal also includes a conditional option for a sixth year, which would bring up the total value of the deal to $222 million, and a full no-trade clause.
Are the Rangers ready to scare the Houston Astros? I frequently have differences of opinions with ZiPS, but I think the 80-82 projection the system gave the Rangers just before Thanksgiving presented a reasonable expectation of where they stood in the division. The Mariners acquired Kolten Wong and the Astros picked up José Abreu and re-signed Rafael Montero, but I don’t think it’s a stretch to think the Rangers have closed the distance from both by a couple of wins, with the potential for several more. That said, the Rangers are a flawed team with a few superstars, and they have a lot of holes that will need both more time and money to fill.
While I’m not generally a fan of rebuilding teams being super-aggressive in free agency, I make a big exception for superstars. I don’t think clubs in the Rangers’ position should beef up their roster with tertiary free agents, but when you’re talking about a special player, one who will likely always be useful, it’s a different matter entirely. It’s why I really loved the Padres signing Manny Machado and loathed their inking of Eric Hosmer back when those deals were closed. deGrom is a special pitcher, one of the very few who goes into every season as a favorite to be the best hurler in baseball. You have to grab players like that when the opportunity to make deals with them arises. So how does deGrom project over the course of the deal?
| Year | W | L | ERA | G | GS | IP | H | ER | HR | BB | SO | ERA+ | WAR |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2023 | 9 | 3 | 2.40 | 19 | 19 | 112.7 | 77 | 30 | 11 | 21 | 157 | 178 | 3.2 |
| 2024 | 8 | 4 | 2.56 | 19 | 19 | 112.7 | 79 | 32 | 11 | 21 | 152 | 167 | 3.0 |
| 2025 | 8 | 4 | 2.69 | 19 | 19 | 113.7 | 82 | 34 | 11 | 21 | 148 | 159 | 2.9 |
| 2026 | 8 | 4 | 2.85 | 19 | 19 | 110.7 | 83 | 35 | 11 | 21 | 139 | 150 | 2.7 |
| 2027 | 8 | 4 | 2.98 | 19 | 19 | 108.7 | 84 | 36 | 11 | 21 | 132 | 143 | 2.5 |
This is one of those cases where I recommend you focus not on the total dollar amount of the projection, but rather the qualitative value. deGrom is a pitcher with specific injury concerns, and the Rangers are choosing to absorb those; his situation is tricky enough that the generalized way ZiPS captures injuries probably isn’t applicable here. What does matter is that ZiPS projects deGrom as the ERA+ leader for starting pitchers (min. 75 innings) each year of the next five, even as he pushes toward 40. If he averages 120 innings a year, I think the Rangers will be quite happy with this contract.
If ZiPS is right and the Rangers are an 80-82 team right now, as long as they don’t fall behind the Astros and Mariners over the rest of the offseason, a reasonably healthy deGrom season leaves them somewhere in the 84-85 win range. In a league with three Wild Card teams, those wins are extremely valuable, and I doubt the Rangers are done.
We’ll have more on deGrom and this deal on the site soon.
Dan Szymborski is a senior writer for FanGraphs and the developer of the ZiPS projection system. He was a writer for ESPN.com from 2010-2018, a regular guest on a number of radio shows and podcasts, and a voting BBWAA member. He also maintains a terrible Twitter account at @DSzymborski.
Excellent piece as usual, Dan
You could probably sign both Justin Verlander and Chris Bassitt for that dollar total and I would absolutely rather have them than deGrom at that rate. I think I’d even rather have Rodon for the same money. I was already squeamish about the possibility that deGrom would get a Max Scherzer deal given his availability, but so another $50M or whatever on top of that…it’s a lot.
It will certainly age better than the Strasburg deal, but it’s about as crazy as the Strasburg deal seemed at the time.
I’m assuming the market for Rodon and Verlander are going to heat up now.
Verlander is 5 years older no? I can see signing 2-3 win guys in the rotation and OF though. The thing is DeGrom and Judge are the best players available.
“Available” has multiple definitions here, though. Available in free agency? Absolutely. Available to play for you? deGrom’s availability is a really big question mark.
your first sentence makes no sense. you use total and rate
Nah, take the velocity and strikes from one of the handful freakiest talents on the planet rn. Somehow I think both DeGrom *and* Rodon are underrated rn in this FA class despite their already very high status
Rangers need volume. They don’t need someone who can start Game 1 of the WS, this is a silly deal
Considering that Verlander’s salary is likely to be in the $40M /year range I think you’re a bit out of touch with reality.
Crowd source numbers:
Verlander 2 at $35M
Bassitt 3 at $16M
Total: $118M versus 5/185 for DeGrom, looks to me like SadT is very grounded in reality. Add another year to each and it would still be lower the DeGrom’s total.
Those numbers will need revising over supply and demand.
Verlander will get his three years, Rodon will get 5+ and Taillon 3+.
I’m not sure anybody will give out 7 but teams entering or trying to sustain competitive windows look like they’ll add years rather than boost AAV.
Latest rumor has Judge looking for nine.
Crowd source predictions have actually been pretty close to actual numbers over the previous years. Of course this year could be an outlier.
Which it is, so far.
Clevinger, anybody?
Judge getting nine years?
DeGrom…
Teams seem to be adding years to lower the AAV, maybe counting on inflation devaluing the out years.
Degrom in 2023 = 30mm
Verlander in 2023 = 43.333mm
Degrom in 2024 = 40mm
Verlander in 2024 = 43.333mm
Degrom in 2025 = 40mm
Verlander in 2025 = 35mm
<italics = sarcastic = lol>Yeah what a huge bargain Justin Veralander is</lol = sarcastic = italics>
But wait, monkey, Degrom got 185? Sure, he’s also 5 years younger. And so, got a longer term deal. Are you the one who will show up in 4 years wondering why Degrom is getting paid 35m when Verlander is getting paid 0?
You were saying? This free agency period is ludicrous to the point where Degrom looks like a bargain. Semien absolutely is a bargain at this point.
120 IP/yr plus 5 postseason starts in any of the five seasons easily makes it worthwhile.
I still feel like that’s a fairly big ‘if’ though
Sure, if deGrom pitches, it’s a win for the Rangers. But he’s got a partial UCL tear, and he had a stress fracture that kept him off the mound for much of last year. Over that 5 year time frame, what would you set the over/under on # of innings pitched? It’s probably what, 400? 350?
way lower
we’re basically guaranteed a year long absence over the deal, he hasn’t topped 100 since 2019
Harvey, Wheeler, Syndergaard, Matz and now deGrom the dream rotation is gone. This one hurts but I wouldn’t given him five years.
I’m guessing he might have been asking for a contract that carried him through age 40, a pretty reasonable form of insurance to look for if you’re in his position.
Yeah, this one hurts… I’ll miss all the deGromination that regularly happened at Citi Field…
Philly and Atlanta are very happy.
Thanks for pushing this out on a Friday night!
Can’t be overstated!
Why would the Rangers be happy to pay $185 million for 14 wins? It’s not like they’re paying a little extra per win for an elite player who puts up 5+ WAR per year. They’re paying almost double for him to put up ~3 WAR per year.
Why does ZIPS project deGrom to be equally durable for the length of the contract?
It doesn’t really, but pitchers regress toward “sort of healthy” and in this case, the regression toward sort of healthy happens to counter the long-term risk and aging.
I have to assume it’s that and the playoffs. How much is a win worth in the playoffs? More than the regular season I’d imagine.
Which gives me a chance again to ask why isn’t WAR (even just using regular season replacement) shown for the playoffs?
I believe somebody mentioned years ago that UZR and DRS aren’t calculated for the postseason, a major component of WAR. Not sure if OAA is tracked for the playoffs now though.
Excluding the 2021 offseason, the cost of a win in Free Agency for a 2+ WAR player was between $7.8-$9.5 million/WAR in the 2018-2022 offseasons.
$185 million for 14 wins comes out to $13 million per win.
During the past three years, deGrom was worth 9.7 WAR over 224.1 IP. That’s an average of 3.23 WAR per year. His injury shortened 2021 season was worth 4.9 WAR by itself. During his career so far, deGrom has been worth an average of 4.56 WAR/year. If deGrom is a 4 WAR/year player during the contract, that puts the cost at about $9.25 million/WAR.
It’s a gamble for Texas, but I think 20 WAR over the next five seasons for deGrom wouldn’t be higher than the 80th ZiPS projection percentiles (but maybe Dan could correct me if I’m wrong).
I think it’s 50/50 that DeGrom pitches 300 IP over those five years.
I think airforce21one is more or less correct. I’d set the over/under on number of innings pitched is something 350, and I’d set it at 400 if I’m feeling generous.
I think that’s too pessimistic. What have deGrom’s injuries been? He had Tommy John surgery in 2010, and in 2021 had a partial UCL tear that shut him down for the second half of the year. In 2022, he had a stress reaction in his right scapula in spring training that delayed the start to his year. Once he started pitching again, he didn’t miss a start.
The injury risk is real. But that means he might pitch 500 innings rather than 1000 innings, not that he won’t be able to pitch at all.
I don’t get this take either. $35 million a year for a pitcher that hasn’t broken 100 IP in three years.
Well you can’t exactly blame him for 2020, but as far as I know he still has that partial UCL tear in his elbow, and stress fractures aren’t exactly freak injuries like an impact fracture.
yea, there’s not a morality to it, but he’s got a bad history and frequently isn’t available. also velocity = more risk.
who are the injury-prone guys that got healthier in their late 30s?
this deal is somewhere between dumb and an extremely big upside bet
“who are the injury-prone guys that got healthier in their late 30s“
Strangely enough, Adam Wainwright
I don’t know that the Mets medical staff is so bad that they would clear a pitcher to throw with a partial UCL tear. And they didn’t. deGrom’s elbow healed on its own with rest and not throwing. Dr. ElAttrache signed off on it. Sandy Alderson told reporters in September 2021 that deGrom’s ligament is fully intact and the issue seems to have resolved itself.
As for the scapula stress fracture, it was probably a combination of a rushed spring training and his mechanics putting too much load on his shoulder. That’s something he can avoid in the future.
the weird new thing in saber writing is all contracts are good and smart now. all the fun is gone.
this deal would make sense for a 90 win team that needs depth, marginal wins, playoff starts they can build towards etc.
the rangers aren’t that. they need reliable volume.
This deal doesn’t surprise me at all. These teams will always pay more attention to the best case scenario and the best case scenario with deGrom is almost unreal. I thought he’d go for 3-4 years and a new AAV record, and this deal suggests he could have likely gotten it at 3 years and close at 4 years. But deGrom ended up being like most free agents. He took the most money guaranteed that was reasonable, which stretched it to five years.
Even with his injury history, this still isn’t close to as risky as giving Cole 9 years at a similar AAV.
He doesn’t have as many innings on the arm and he hasn’t been linked to sticky stuff. (yet) Just sayin’. 😇
the best case scenario is 15 starts
This is a bold move by the Rangers and there’s no denying the upside is sky-high, and it’s understandable that the upside has a high price tag. To say he has rare ability is putting it mildly. But players have to actually play, to achieve value.
I may be in the minority, but I think deGrom is incredibly overvalued given the very clear and consistent injury risk suggests a low likelihood of him ever reaching the upside. I don’t see him reaching 120 innings per season. Time will tell, but his injury history is rather alarming.
I wish I had said that first! Well stated. His recent forearm, elbow and shoulder issues do not bode well. He is so good when he is pitching that I want to be wrong with the previous statement.
They’re not really comparable pitchers but this contract has the faintest whiff of Arrieta signing with the Phillies about it.
I don’t think anyone can look at his track record and think he’s going to average even 100 innings per year. This is the kind of guy you can count on leading your rotation in the playoffs if he is healthy, and the kind who can take you to the playoffs simply because he won’t be healthy enough.
The Rangers have looked at his medicals, which we have not. Maybe it was a dumb call, but it’s also useful to acknowledge they have access to much more information than we do.
THIS. The odds are also quite good that by 2025 he’s basically out of baseball and people forget this contract is still paying out.
Velocity kills arms at the extremes.
I have always felt no chance deGrom goes to the Rangers because he seems to me like the perfect contending piece. You coddle him in the regular season, and in the postseason he is the biggest pitching mismatch possible. Fully health going into any playoff match up and you have a huge leg up.
But that’s not the Rangers. The Rangers need regular season wins and they have holes. If they can upgrade 3 wins from deGrom thats not as good as upgrading 2 wins each at two other positions for less money. And unlike Seager or Simean, being an injury prone pitcher means deGrom risk increase each subsequent year, so this feels really like a high risk medium reward kind of a deal. This is the contract that would make much more sense for the Dodgers for instance
It should be considered the Rangers have multiple power SP otw…Leiter, Rocker, and Porter are pretty serious business and that’s just domestic arms from the past two drafts
Exactly.
For ’23, Texas’ road in the playoffs (if they make it) will be through the wild card and a 3 game series. If DeGrom delivers the first they have two shots for the ALDS out of the rest of the staff.
Also there is the fact that with DeGrom as a headliner the team has added leverage for other FAs and, most importantly, season ticket sales.
Never underestimate the importance of business side.
The risk isn’t in what they get over 5 years but what they get in ’23, when they most need credibility. It’s high stakes but defensible. They do need one of the young arms to arrive, though.
Finally, there only three number ones in the FA class. Texas got one. If Houston doesn’t get one, the ALW might be a three team race. 4 if LAA gets one.
Things are getting fun.
Season ticket sales? Maybe a slight bump. Texas still isn’t in the class of Houston, probably let alone Seattle.
And how will tickets start looking to fans when Degrom is hurt for 60% of the contract?
70 lodges.
Lodges go via long term leases to deep pocket corporations.
Oil money.
That is what I was thinking. They would be better off with JV or Rodon, I.E., a guy that should be able to throw 175+ innings a year. They really need quality innings & I just don’t think DeGrom will provide enough.
& JV’s shorter contract my work better with all the young arms in the system.
This is a contract that makes me curious if the team is taking out a robust insurance policy on the player, and, if so, what that policy looks like.
It might be cheaper to self insure.
It would be trading dollars
I always repeat this whenever it comes up, I don’t really know if it’s true. But I think Bill James or someone has said that the insurance companies had no idea what they were doing when they first started insuring athlete contracts, took a bath, and now set premiums so high that it just doesn’t make any sense to bother.
It makes enough sense to be true, even if it isn’t.
I doubt, though, that it was insurance companies not knowing what they were doing. It’s much more plausible that they just didn’t have enough data on injury frequency or surgical/rehab needs to create accurate actuarial tables.
Right, they didn’t know the actual risks, so they priced too low and have now corrected to the point where it’s a bad deal for teams. That’s all I meant.
Gotcha; thanks. When I initially read your comment my brain put it more like “Let’s get into this insurance thing we keep hearing about!” than “Let’s expand our offerings into this other industry we don’t yet understand” and it had me chuckling a little.
You can probably assume that every single contract is insured, whether DeGrom or the guy on the major league minimum.
It would more or less be malfeasance (not literally, but you get my drift) to not have a multiple-hundred-thousand dollar asset insured.
Nah, most MLB owners are rich enough that self-insuring makes more sense. Insurance is a net negative expected rate of return investment, you want to only have insurance for things where if it happens you will need insurance.
True enough. I forget that self-insuring is a thing because I don’t circulate in that stratosphere.
Reportable losses are tax mitigation line items.
Not sure if teams still depreciate player contracts on their tax returns but most teams employ high end accountants.
Pitchers are basically uninsurable. Position players are insurable.
Man, I can’t get over Disney’s Jeff Passan’s tweet informing us that this deal is “enormous” without prompt. The industry’s premier Young Insider and Journalist, folks
Reading this makes Passan’s tweet seem less egregious and boring and unnecessary than it is. Hope it’s not lost how lazy, common, and uninformative that is especially given such a unique position within the sport’s media for the next 5 decades if he wants it…Just gross
I’m struggling to understand the criticism here. Why do you find the tweet “egregious”?
Maybe it’s the 2 AMness of this post but I feel like its something us citizens can freely and bravely choose to see or not see. Really the entities who benefit most from the hot shot young national writer with the largest built in audience emphasizing $185 million is an especially large amount of money don’t actually care how it’s read
I think you’re reading into it a little too much, chief
OTOH prbly not, literally there’s zero other reason for that tweet to exist
idk, seems like some pretty innocuous editorializing to describe a deal that was larger than expected
Expected by who? Him and other Disney employees? The fans? None of these people are relevant for what actually happens, just to make sure expectations are *always* low and manageable
Should add that, as a Cubs fan with no Data (all hail) or Facts, I say with rare confidence that expectations are artificially low…Coming from a baseball fanlandia where Wait ‘Til Next Year became Wait 5 Years and whoooa they’re so wild and unexpected for spending 8 figures apiece for prime players as decorated and talented as Stroman and Suzuki
jesse what the hell are you talking about
Maybe my favorite thing about being a 21st century sports fan is how The Man/They have molded massive amounts of minds in such a way that the blind eye already turned also wears an eyepatch
Or maybe people really needed to be told the deal was enormous from a reliable source of News
Either one both terrifies and fascinates me!
Why are you parsing a tweet like it’s the last line of an award-winning novel? It just seems like a very big reaction to something that is completely ephemeral and not intended to be a profound statement.
Given the cultural attention span and standards of 2022 it might as well be an award winning novel…A novel written by Disney receiving an award from Disney or something
You know, I wasn’t quite picking up what you were putting down at first. But one wake and bake later, and I totally see you, gato.
Whatever you’re on, bud…get off it.
Wow, Texas came in like a wrecking ball. Aimed square at mr.met’s nuts
Best fangraphs post of the year
is curt schillings ketchup bottle actually dril?
All due respect, it’s generally the case that age doesn’t equate to greater durability.
Jacob has averaged 75 IP over the last three seasons, so it seems to me the optimistic projections offered here are difficult to justify.
Yes, he’s a Ferrari among lesser models, so to speak. But a Ferrari that has a history of being off the road with mechanical trouble might not be the wisest investment, especially at top dollar.
Can we please stop with this bullshit? DeGrom’s past health is bad enough without resorting to the idiocy of including 2020, when he pitched 12 starts in a 60 game season. These types of posts make you look like you were born in 2021 and don’t remember something pretty important that happened in 2020. I’m not trying to single you out, but you see this all the time and it is so stupid.
I’ve been stunned for two years at how much “post” pandemic player evaluation is built around pretending 2020 was normal
So, the key to projecting his likely durability is to eliminate the 2020 season, is that your stance? That done, you’re more encouraged by his most recent season of 64.1 IP and a FIP that doubled from the first month to the second of his 2-month season, is that it?
That’s what you want to see: a pitcher whose effectiveness wanes with more innings in an already truncated season?
Eliminating the 2020 season then, he’s averaged 78 IP since 2021. That works better for you — inspires more confidence?
….The only possible ways you can imagine to look at 2020 is to either ignore completely (to his detriment) or play pretend it was normal (to his detriment)?
Differing monthly FIPs?
I mean we’re all free and brave, the freest and bravest in the history of history even so do you, but surely you see these aren’t things
You and TKDC would do well to dial back on the attitude since you’re both missing the point.
Whether the paucity of innings pitched in 2020 was due to injury or simply lack of opportunity on account of a shortened season doesn’t alter the fact that Jacob hasn’t pitched more than 92 innings in a season since 2019.
Nestor Cortes was a revelation for most of the most recent season, but between the majors, the minors and winter ball, he hadn’t pitched more than 126 innings in a season in the past several years. He wasn’t injured — he simply hadn’t pitched more than that. Therefore, the Yankees had to be concerned about his durability entering the 2022 season. And what happened? Fatigue caught up with him at the end of the season.
We’re not talking about anything here except the possible limits on deGrom’s durability. His ability when healthy isn’t in dispute: we all know about that. What we don’t know is how well he’ll hold up going forward, and the lack of innings pitched since 2019 is as germane in his case as Nestor’s lack of innings pitched proved to be in his case. It’s been three full years since Jacob has demonstrated the ability to pitch more than 92 innings, and, yes, that’s relevant. The fact that he’s suffered multiple injuries recently only makes it more so.
Verlander averaged 0.0 innings from 2020-21 and just won a Cy young in 2022. There is only dubious evidence of any need to build up pitchers like you say, and even less for pitchers that have already pitched deep into seasons in the past.
I just want people to use facts that make sense to support their arguments. When talking about deGrom’s “durability” by references past seasons, using 2020 as a negative point makes no sense.
Re-read my post above.
Your pet peeve about 2020 notwithstanding, it’s been three years since deGrom pitched more than 92 innings, and that additional year increases his time away from reaching that total. It is relevant. Verlander, on the other hand, never failed to exceed 200 innings in the four seasons preceding his TJ surgery.
What’s more, apart from two weeks with a calf strain this year, from which he returned to pitch, since 2015 Verlander’s injuries have been limited to his elbow, now repaired. His injury way back in 2015 was a triceps strain, from which he returned to pitch from June to October, ranking second in fWAR on the Tigers’ staff. Jacob has suffered from injuries to his elbow, back, forearm and shoulder, and the back, forearm and shoulder injuries have all occurred since 2021.
As for the need to build up pitchers, every team in baseball works with innings limits for pitchers, especially rookies and veterans returning from injury. Innings limits for the starters in the Yankees rotation were a common topic. Cole was the only one to reach 200 innings, just barely, and no one but Taillon reached 160 innings.
Verlander himself topped out at 175 innings, the fewest he’d thrown since 2015.
Let’s revisit this in, say, August 2023. We’ll see then which of the two, Verlander or deGrom, is still pitching effectively at that point. I hope both — but I have more confidence in Verlander.
You’re wrong. The Atlanta Braves, for example, are on record saying they do not use innings limits at all.
deGrom’s durability can be questioned without resorting to the obvious distortion of using 2020. Even if that does matter, and I firmly disagree with that, it would not be “durability” but rather stamina (or something similar) that would be the appropriate term. deGrom was as durable as any pitcher in baseball in 2020. He was actually generally pretty durable and healthy before 2020, too. His health has been bad the past two years and there might be reason to believe his outlook is slightly worse than the average pitcher his age, but it is overblown (and he is also leaving the team where pitchers seemingly can’t stay healthy, for whatever reason).
Finally, I’m not sure which deal I’d rather have. Is “neither” an option? But we won’t know how deGrom’s deal plays out in August. Charitably, you could look at deGrom’s deal and say that if you actually got vintage deGrom for 3/5 years, the contract would be worth it.
No, I’m not wrong, and you should be more careful about declarative statements like that, which you appear to be prone to making.
PORT ST. LUCIE — Jacob deGrom wants to extend his relationship with the Mets long term, but is still waiting for the team to step up with an offer.
And if an agreement can’t be reached by his imposed Opening Day deadline, the reigning National League Cy Young Award winner hasn’t ruled out the idea he will look to reduce his workload in 2019 to protect future interests.
“You play this game because you love it and then you have an opportunity to look out for your family and your future, so you have to see what’s right for you to do and I think that’s a discussion that’s going to have to be had with my agents,” deGrom said Thursday at First Data Field, following the first official workout of spring training for Mets pitchers and catchers.
A potential workload reduction is a tactic deGrom’s agent at CAA, Jeff Berry, outlined in a recent memo to players that sought to address the historically slow free-agent markets the past two winters. Among the arguments that have been made against long-term deals for pitchers over 30 is the amount of wear and tear on their arms.
It’s unclear what a workload reduction would entail, but possibilities might include an innings cap for the season, limiting how deep deGrom works into his starts or reducing the number of games in which he appears.
– from The New York Post, February 14, 2019
Speaking of the Braves:
Banuelos facing an innings limit
Despite rookie’s strong debut vs. Scherzer, Braves proceeding cautiously post-Tommy John surgery
By Mark Bowman
July 3, 2015
ATLANTA — Manny Banuelos will be restricted by an innings limit because of the significant caution the Yankees took as he returned from Tommy John surgery last year. But Braves manager Fredi Gonzalez said no definite plans have been set for the rookie left-hander, who produced a stellar Major League debut while matching up against Max Scherzer in Thursday night’s 2-1 win over the Nationals.
“I know there is a number out there, but I think if you follow it every individual is different,” Gonzalez said. “I think with every case you have to be willing to do something different. But nobody has set a shutdown date or anything like that.”
How about we do it this way, while including 2020?
Since 2020, 105 starters pitched more innings than Jacob deGrom.
Happier now — or still angry?
My feelings are really more pity than anger, but thanks for checking.
It’s an absurd deal, particularly for a team needing to lock down marginal wins and the butt end of whose starting pitching staff needs, desperately, to be kept off the mound.
That’s another cost to this deal—it all but guarantees, versus two moderately healthy starters, giving an extra 25-30 starts to pitchers you’d prefer to see nowhere near your rotation.
It’s an odd projection system that projects an injured old pitcher to pitch an almost identical number of innings across each of five years—particularly one who will be 18 years removed from Tommy John surgery in his final October in Texas.
DeGrom had 11 regular season starts in 2022. 5 were excellent, 1 was okay, 5 were poor. He might not pitch a lot in 2023, and he might not be very good when he does. 2022 adds more of that possibility to the mix. When he didn’t have it he was throwing balls that didn’t move much, over the heart of the plate. It was painful to watch after the brilliance of previous seasons.
Going into the offseason, there were three number one FA starters available. All with varying degrees of risk since pitchers always get hurt, especially in their 30’s.
Texas got the highest risk one but also the one with the highest ceiling.
The fun now is to see the trickle down effects for Verlander, Rodon, and the second tier pitchers (Taillon, Bassit, etc). And on the teams that were waiting on Judge to make their moves. Might losing DeGrom break the NYC Detente (I don’t mess with Judge, you don’t mess with DeGrom? One less union problem for Manfred).
Will Houston feel more pressure to keep Verlander or get Rodon?
Will LAD or LAA? Philly? Mets are more vulnerable now with Scherzer alone at the top and other holes all over.
Not much in the way of tradeable arms so Miami’s price for Lopez likely went up. Torres alone won’t do it now.
For that matter, might Texas now be able to sweet talk Kershaw? (He hasn’t actually signed yet, has he?)
Seattle extending Castillo has to have DiPoto feeling smug.
Milwaukee has to be considering their options as well as every team with movable young backenders. ‘Cause once the FA starters are gone there still will be holes in the contenders and pretenders.
And the Winter meetings are starting.
DeGrom has been hurt more than Taylor Swift.
OTOH both are voices of a generation
Huge Mets fan. Huge DeGrom fan. Really wanted him to be a career Met.
And so glad we didn’t sign him to this contract.
Will miss him for sure, but I would have been alarmed had the Mets given deGrom that. More years = higher risk. They’ll find a way to move forward, probably Verlander and a mid-tier starter.
A healthy deGrom is certainly worth this contract but I think it’s wishcasting on the part of the Rangers that deGrom will remain healthy enough to justify this contract. deGrom has a partially torn UCL. What degree hasn’t been said but UCL tears rarely if ever heal on their own due to the lack of blood supply to the ligament. The UCL can be stabilized via rehab to strengthen the muscles around the UCL and/or scar tissue can aid in support. But how often have we seen pitchers go this route only to end up needing surgery? They’d have been better off signing Verlander.
I would have liked the Rangers to buy in bulk. Senga, Walker and Rogers would have cost less and improved the team more.
This contract will be insured, heavily. Inflation is running high as well, so looking forward at the back two-three years of the contract, that $37 million is more like $30 million in today’s money. Increased attendance, concessions, merch, parking, plus maybe a ratings clause in their TV contract? Rangers are laughing all the way to the bank.
Can you provide the details of how this contract will be insured?
Projecting 112.7IP for 35 year old deGrom could be justified.
Projecting 108.7IP for 39 year old deGrom could also be justified.
But I don’t think doing both at the same time makes a lot of sense.
Total of 9 starting pitchers accumulated 90~120 IP in their age 39 season.
(Mean 108.4IP, Median 110IP)
Their innings pitched in their age 35 season ranged from 179.7IP to 302.3IP for mean 237.2IP and median 245.7IP.
On the flip side, 18 starting pitchers accumulated 107.7IP~117.7IP in their age 35 season.
Only 2 of them threw any major league inning in their age 39 season.
Have you considered the last two years exist to lower the AAV?
Texas should only need prime DeGrom for 2-3 years and they can eat or renegotiate the last two if needed? Personal services contracts still exist and if he really is a timebomb and explodes he can be gracefully eased out.
This focus on his “health issues” is overblown. Texas is trying to open a competitive window to sell season tickets and lodges. Spending money to make money. This is *not* a value signing nor is it meant to be, but rather a marketing move.