Marlins Keep Adding With Mark Buehrle
First it was Heath Bell, at $27 million. Then it was Jose Reyes, at $111 million. Jeffrey Loria’s team isn’t done spending. Wednesday, the newly-branded Miami Marlins pulled the trigger on a third big-name free agent signing, reeling in Mark Buehrle from the White Sox on a four-year, $58 million contract.
Buehrle is coming off a four-year, $56 million deal with the White Sox and will effectively continue to bring in the same paycheck in South Beach as he did on the South Side. This consistency in earnings is right in line with the consistency he’s shown in his career:
Click the link to embiggen. “Year” on this graph means years prior to signing the contract in question; the black line above -3 refers to three years before he signed with the White Sox, so the 2005 season; the blue line above -1 refers to the year before signing with the Marlins, so the 2011 season.
Buehrle has been right around an 85 ERA-/90 FIP- for his entire career, which is to say he allows about 10-15% less offense than the average pitcher. By no means is this an ace level of production — most of the best pitchers finish with ERA- totals in the 70s or even the 60s. Still, the sheer number of batters Buehrle has been able to face — at least 200 innings pitched each of the last 11 seasons — puts him at or close to an all-star level on a consistent basis.
Even the trends for Buehrle heading into each contract are similar. Buehrle remains the same type of pitcher he was back in 2004, relying on his ability to control the strike zone to keep batters off the basepaths and runs off the board. His career high walk rate as a starter is 2.38 per nine innings, and he hasn’t posted a mark above 2.20 since 2003. He doesn’t rely on exceptionally low BABIPs or home run rates, either — he simply strikes out enough batters to keep big innings to a minimum and works around hits by forcing hitters to make contact to reach base.
The White Sox did not receive a huge bargain on Buehrle’s services over the life of his last contract. Buehrle was paid like a lower-tier ace or higher-tier number-two starter and performed as such. The Marlins, similarly, don’t look to get much surplus value with Buehrle’s next four years — the effects of inflation are cancelled out by the risk of attrition over Buehrle’s age 33 through 36 seasons.
The Marlins were extremely weak in the pitching staff last season, especially when Josh Johnson was sidelined due to injury. Buehrle won’t give the Marlins two aces by any means, but he should continue to consistently get them outs at an above-average rate. As the Marlins move into a new era, Buehrle should move them close to a competitive role in the National League East and do so at a very fair wage.
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Pitching seem consistent until they’re not. Buehrle is fairly old. Reyes will probably decilne and/or get injured a lot. They can’t depend on guys in their 30s getting paid tons to keep this team going. The “fair wage” only really applies if it’s cheap to the Marlins. Don’t use league standards. Once the new stadium appeal wears off, they have to contend. If they aren’t contending (aging) then the revenue won’t be there and payroll shrinks.
Check over the last decade. Even when the Marlins are winning they haven’t drawn a significant crowd. I doubt the new stadium will change that long-term.
So, I agree with you. The revenue that the Marlins seem to be expecting just won’t be there.
Extra revenue? I assumed this was them actually finally spending some of that revenue sharing they kept pocketing for years now…
BN, i completely agee. I had no doubt that Loria had the money all along, he was just being a prick and using it as leverage to get a new stadium built. Sort of like how a lot of corporations are hoarding money now and not expanding, trying to gain more political pull.
Same here. Not a great signing.
“The Marlins were extremely weak in the pitching staff last season”
I’ve seen that a few times, but do not understand why. Vasquez, Sanchez, and Nolasco all had pretty solid seasons, and the Marlins’ starters, and pitching staff as a whole, were solidly middle of the pack., ranking 16th and 15th in the MLB in WAR last year, respectively. Not elite by any means, but neither were they “extremely weak.”
Better than the Rays and Cards it should be noted.
Why don’t they just buy a championship?
You mean a lottery ticket? That’s how I see it. You can’t buy a championship anymore with the playoff system’s randomness (a 90 win team vs a 100 win team is a pretty close match up win%-wise, it’s why there is so much randomness).
In the long run though, if you make the playoffs every year, eventually you should win.
For all of you questioning the Marlins ability to draw a crowd I completely understand where you are coming from, but you guys had obviously never been to Sun Life Stadium. If you had that would answer your question fairly quickly. The angles were terrible & it was in a bad neighborhood. Their was no “ballpark experience” was so ever. Fans will show up as long as they win and their struggles last season can be attributed to a lack of maturity among the young players and lack of vocal team leaders. One of the main things these free agent signing’s achieve is bring spotlight to the time but also infuse the club with a respected veteran core Reyes, Bell, & Buehrle are nothing but pro’s in anybodies book. Even though how they acquired the financing for the new stadium is questionable at least they are trying to a quality product on the field. I would understand the complaints it the acquired the stadium without ponying up much money and then did not re-invest but common guys! They will also for the first time keep ALL revenues something they did not do before. They previously only saw a minority of advertising dollar and luxury box income. Its a new Day in Miami. oh and for those complaining about uniforms… its Miami for god’s sake come down here and realize its tropical they are perfectly appropriate for the locale.