Regardless of how you feel about whether or not these Jays can do the near impossible and salvage a playoff run out of what’s left of the season, here’s reason for a rare sort of optimism: not only have the Jays overcome JP’s botched Ohka/Zambrano/Thomson experiment, but they’ve cobbled together what is one of the best pitching staffs in the AL.  Not only that, but they’ve done so at considerably less cost than their free-spending divisional rivals, New York and Boston.

Let’s see how each of the AL East Big Three stacks up against one another (as of July 26, 2007, numbers from www.baseball-reference.com) in an assortment of key team categories:

                        ERA    SHO    BB       K         BAA    HR       OPS

Toronto           4.21     8          310      663      .252     106      .714

Boston             3.70     9          299      703      .247     81        .698

New York       4.29     3          356      569      .265     93        .746

 
The Bosox staff, first overall in the AL in team ERA, has clearly been the best of the three largely due to its ability to limit extra-base hits and a produce a superior K-BB ratio.  The Jays staff, 4^th overall, has given up far too many homeruns for comfort, but is doing a reasonably good job of holding opponents batting average and OPS.  The Yankees staff, 7^th overall, has an alarming K-BB ratio and a high opposing OPS that reflects the revolving door of AAA starters they threw out on the mound in the first half.

We get a very different story indeed in terms of dollars spent.  Here are the respective cost breakdowns for each pitching staff (salary info from www.espn.com):

TORONTO:

A.J. Burnett DL $13,200,000
Roy Halladay $12,750,000
B.J. Ryan DL $7,000,000
Josh Towers $2,900,000
Scott Downs $1,025,000
Jason Frasor $825,000
Gustavo Chacin DL $395,300
Jeremy Accardo: $392,200
Shaun Marcum $386,100
Casey Janssen $385,200
Davis Romero DL $381,500
Brandon League N/A
Jesse Litsch N/A
Dustin McGowan N/A
Brian Tallet N/A
Brian Wolfe N/A

In addition, there was Ohka’s $1.5 million, some of which has been assumed by St. Louis, and Victor Zambrano’s $500, 000.  Small beer, yes, but spent money.  This breaks down to $39,640,300 in known salary, a maximum of $2,000,000 for the departed Ohka and Zambrano and $1,900,000 (roughly) for rookies and near rookies for a TOTAL of: $43,540,300.

NEW YORK:

Roger Clemens N/A (roughly $18,000,000 in his pro-rated deal)
Andy Pettitte $16,000,000
Mike Mussina $11,070,423
Mariano Rivera $10,500,000
Carl Pavano DL $10,000,000
Kyle Farnsworth $5,666,667
Kei Igawa $4,000,000
Luis Vizcaino $3,000,000
Mike Myers $1,250,000
Chien-Ming Wang $489,500
Scott Proctor $445,923
Brian Bruney $395,545
Jeff Karstens DL $389,495
Darrell Rasner DL $384,523
Jose Veras DL $382,475
Sean Henn $382,048
Humberto Sanchez DL $380,000
Ron Villone N/A
Phil Hughes DL N/A

That breaks down to known salary of $72,736,599, with rookie and near rookie salaries of 760,000, making for a TOTAL of $73,496,599.  That whopping figure comes without even factoring in payouts to Baltimore and Arizona for Jaret Wright and Randy Johnson respectively.

BOSTON:

Curt Schilling DL $13,000,000
Matt Clement DL $9,500,000
Josh Beckett $6,666,667
Daisuke Matsuzaka $6,333,333
Tim Wakefield $4,000,000
Julian Tavarez $3,350,000
Mike Timlin $2,800,000
Brendan Donnelly DL $1,400,000
Hideki Okajima $1,225,000
Kyle Snyder $535,000
Jonathan Papelbon $425,500
Javier Lopez $402,500
Jon Lester $384,000
Manny Delcarmen N/A
Kason Gabbard N/A

That makes for a known salary of $43,688,667, rookie and near rookie salary of $760,000, for a TOTAL of $44,448,667.  This seems to indicate considerable value for money at first glance.  Not so much, however, when the exorbitant Dice-K posting fee of just over $51,000,000 is factoring into the equation.  Add $8,500,000 to the above total if you want to divide his posting fee out over the six years of his contract and add it to this year’s salary, or add the entire amount it in as lump sum.  Depending on your perspective, the Bosox have paid either $52,948,667 or a Yankee-like $94,688,667 on pitching this year. Either way, they’ve paid at least $10 million more than the Jays have.

I think at this point we’ll take this small victory for what it is: a vindication of sorts for JP, who has constructed a staff that has delivered competitive results on a relatively modest budget.  Assuming that Carlos Zambrano resigns with the Cubs and Curt Schilling stays in Boston, this coming free agent season will be one of the thinnest markets for starting pitching in recent memory (for a complete list, see http://www.mlb4u.com/freeagency.php?field=position).  Seriously, 42-year-old Kenny Rogers may well prove to be the marquee name out there… 

So, take solace in the fact that all of the key members of the Jays pitching staff are under team control for several years to come and current success should be repeated again next season.  And then take some guilty pleasure knowing that the Yankees, currently carrying unproductive veterans Mike Mussina and Andy Pettitte, are likely going to have to cut their teeth next year on unproven rookie starters like Phil Hughes, Tyler Clippard, and Joba Chamberlain and/or whatever flotsam and jetsam they can pick up via the free agent market.  It may well turn out that we got the growing pains of our key young starters out of the way in a season that was lost due to extensive injuries and in the process have positioned ourselves quite nice nicely to reap the rewards in 2008. 

Only registered users can write comments.
Please login or register.

Powered by AkoComment 2.0!