During my four days in Orlando, it was hard to spend more than five minutes in the media room, lobby, or any of the hotel-based eateries without hearing the name Cliff Lee, often coupled with “Rangers,”, “Yankees,” or my favorite phrase of the winter rumors, “mystery team.” Now 48 hours removed and under the threat of a winter storm warning, Lee still hasn't signed, and the offers continue to ascend towards the heavens, with five years becoming six, six becoming seven, and dollars remaining at well over $20 million per annum.
Meanwhile, we continue to wait, with Rangers fans hoping to keep the hero that led their team to their first World Series, and Yankee fans wishing to prove that their team's financial might can bring them the biggest free agent name once again. At this point, I'd recommend that both fans start rooting for the other side, as the 'winning' the Cliff Lee sweepstakes has all the makings of a classic Pyrrhic victory.
The age aspect of any deal is easy to see, as no matter the length, Lee will be well into the downside of his career during the latter part of the contract. The bigger risk is simply Lee himself. It's easy to forget that this is a pitcher just three years removed from pitching his way back to the minor leagues, with the Indians trading him away as much of over the risk of him declining as to his potential price tag.
And there is simply Lee the pitcher. Even the great version of Lee is succeeding mostly on nearly super-natural command. While his pure stuff is far too good to be classified solely as a finesse arm, it's hardly the arsenal of a power pitcher, and to be the Cy Young-level pitcher, he can afford no degradation in his ability to not only throw strikes, but to place his pitches nearly perfectly in the zone. When that's not happening, Lee falls from elite to very hittable, with game one of last year's World Series serving as our most recent exhibit. The chances of Lee being the pitcher he's been over the last few seasons two years from now are slim, four years from now, tiny, and six years from now? Unfathomable.
It's turned into an ugly game of chicken, with Lee's agent Darek Braunecker watching with delight as both teams accelerate towards each other with little care for self-damage. The Yankees can certainly afford the mistake more than Texas, but at this point, either team swerving, even if in a simple act of self-preservation, is making the smarter move.
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1) the player you're comparing him to, in this case A.J. Burnett, has suffered a significant injury during the course of his current contract, or
2) the player you're comparing him to, in this case A.J. Burnett, had more than one bad year on his ledger before declaring him irrelevant.
It might also help if the two players were remotely similar in pitching style or track record.
He walked 16 guys all year and struck out about one per inning. Repeat that a few timesin your head. A case can be made for him being the league's best pitcher last year if you wanna bust out Voros McCracken for Xmas!
Aggregate: Halladay 21.4, Lee 21.1
If you can even be mentioned in the same breath as Halladay without looking foolish, you're a helluva pitcher.
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Lee is certainly a longevity risk, and a big one, but I don't see any reason to doubt he can continue to pitch like this in the short-term (2 or 3 years).
The fact is that the Yankees are the one team that can get away with signing him for $23-$25 million a year even if the last 3 or 4 years of his contract are a sunk cost. You know that if this is the case, they'll go out and sign the biggest free agent pitcher of the 2014 class in order to attempt to replace the value lost with Lee.
Go out and get Lee now, solidify your rotation for the next few years, and worry about getting a new pitcher if Lee does indeed fall off a cliff (no pun intended).
Now, Lee isn't likely to provide good value over either of those contracts, but for the same total amount of money the longer amount of team control is always preferable. You can always cut him if he's generating negative WAR.
Assuming Lee gets 7-8 years at $21-23M per, which is the worse signing--Lee or Werth?
That depends on who the party of the second part is. If it's the Yankees, it doesn't matter whether it's a good contract or a bad one, because they can afford it and they really need the player. Lee can make the difference between play-offs or not, World Series or not, and even a bad contract doesn't prevent them from doing what they need to do in the future. Werth's unlikely to be part of a good Nationals team.
I don't see why Lee should be particularly hard to project. How long do incredible control pitchers stay great? Maddux and Wells lasted forever, but how many similar guys are there that are now forgotten because they didn't?
And glancing at Goltz's career ... man, it sure don't look all that comparable.
All of this is most likely complete BS. I really have no idea if even doing such a thing would actually look good for the franchise.
-a very disgruntled mets fan who hopes that a squadron of 32 year old pitchers is about as bad as it would otherwise sound. (oh god, they have 4 pitcher from the top ten in siera. Matt Swartz its like you invented that damn stat to taunt us!)