Clayton Kershaw 7 yr 215 MM extension

gmsieb said:

The prive of average pitchers has gone up. We cant compare what pitchers made 10 years ago, when ok, pitchers are asking/getting 12/15 mil a season. And if the dodgers didnt offer him the money, someone would have and he would have left, when he cou;d. And them all the same people would have made fun of the dodgers for that. I'm an angels fan, so I don't have a whole lot of love for the dodgers, but they did what you have to do to keep a hof type pitcher, you can't let maddux walk, like the cubs did, unless, you don't plan on ever winning.

Tanaka is about to get 20 mil per, kershaw isn't worth more than a guy who is 1.5 years younger and never pitched here??

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Agreed. People have to accept that the market has changed. With the way TV deals have gone, baseball players are simply more valuable than they were even a few years ago. Combine that with the fact Kershaw is easily the best pitcher in baseball (and while there are no guarantees, to compare him to Lincecum is silly as he's a far superior pitcher than Lincecum ever was, and there were always some concerns about Lincecum's delivery), he still really young (assuming he stays healthy he'll still be in his prime when this contract ends) and he's been a true class act in the community etc. There's always a risk when signing anyone (and certainly a pitcher) but I don't think this is overpaying based on where the rest of the market is at. In fact I think if he was a free agent today there's a chance he would have gotten 10 years 300 million.

Kershaw said he and his wife are going to give a massive amount of his contract to charity. Talk about a class guy.

Sabathia
Lincecum
Zito

Immediately come to mind.

zach said:

Sabathia
Lincecum
Zito

Immediately come to mind.

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None compare with or have anything to do with kershaw.

longbomberz said:

You could apply that to any contract. You can't solely abide by the worst case scenario when making decisions.

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Why not? Cleveland Browns seem to make management decisions trying to find the worst case scenario.

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markakis8 said:

Agreed. He could win the next 7 Cy Youngs and not be undervalued. Here's how I look at it. Scott Feldman - freaking Scott Feldman - is being paid $10 million a year for 3 years by the Astros. In that comparison to Kershaw, yes, it makes sense to pay Kershaw $30 million a year b/c Kershaw is THAT much better than Feldman.

But how about we just take a step back and realize that Feldman is getting paid $10 million a year. Who here would pay Feldman $10 million a year for 3 years to pitch for your team?

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This is what I have issue with...not that Kershaw is getting rewarded for being one of the top 3 pitchers in baseball each of the last three seasons...but that average pitchers are getting absurdly large contracts. Feldman isn't the only one either. Kyle Lohse is getting 11MM per year, John Danks is getting 13MM per year, Jorge de la Rosa is getting over $10MM per year, the list goes on and on. Why are teams paying so much for average MLB arms?

All The Hype said:

This is what I have issue with...not that Kershaw is getting rewarded for being one of the top 3 pitchers in baseball each of the last three seasons...but that average pitchers are getting absurdly large contracts. Feldman isn't the only one either. Kyle Lohse is getting 11MM per year, John Danks is getting 13MM per year, Jorge de la Rosa is getting over $10MM per year, the list goes on and on. Why are teams paying so much for average MLB arms?

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Because they can. Would you rather that money stay in the pockets of the owners? There is enough money to go around in MLB to make everyone happy, including bad to mediocre players. I don't care what the owners are spending their money on. Spend your billions away.

sportscardtheory said:

Because they can. Would you rather that money stay in the pockets of the owners? There is enough money to go around in MLB to make everyone happy, including bad to mediocre players. I don't care what the owners are spending their money on. Spend your billions away.

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I don't disagree with your point, but given the existing market for Major League Baseball players, there's no way those guys should be getting paid that much. More power to them for getting the deals worked out.

Any team who signs a player as a free agent is overpaying. That's just the way it works. For a lot of small market teams the only way to get decent talent in their rotation they might have to pay a little more than they want to. Every year that a few FA pitchers gets overpaid (maybe from bidding against a couple of other teams) that jacks up the prices for the following year of FA pitchers. The never-ending circle of overpaid arms. Rays might be the only team that does it right, in the sense that they pay very little money for any of their starting pitchers because they all come from their farm system. For that to work you HAVE to not only draft well, but have a great development program too.

scotty216brs said:

Any team who signs a player as a free agent is overpaying. That's just the way it works. For a lot of small market teams the only way to get decent talent in their rotation they might have to pay a little more than they want to. Every year that a few FA pitchers gets overpaid (maybe from bidding against a couple of other teams) that jacks up the prices for the following year of FA pitchers. The never-ending circle of overpaid arms. Rays might be the only team that does it right, in the sense that they pay very little money for any of their starting pitchers because they all come from their farm system. For that to work you HAVE to not only draft well, but have a great development program too.

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Valid points. The Red Sox are far more willing to pay for Free Agents or go get guys via trade, but I feel they've been pretty strong at home-growing their talent lately as well. The Cubs are heading in that direction too now that Theo has taken over. Theo is going to go down as one of the best in baseball history if the Cubs' system fuels the big league club to a WS this decade.

gmsieb said:

None compare with or have anything to do with kershaw.

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It's the idea of a big dollar contract and then the pitcher doesn't live up to expectations.