Kerry Wood was in Cleveland on Wednesday night to take the physical needed before he can finalize a two-year deal with the Indians worth about $20 million.

$10 million a year for Kerry Wood?! And I thought the K-Rod contract was excessive. Kerry Wood was a more valuable pitcher ($5.72 million) than Francisco Rodriguez ($4.62 million) in 2008, but he was limited by injuries during the four previous seasons. Assuming that Wood pitches exactly as he pitched in 2008, I estimate he will be worth approximately $6.5 million per season for the next two years. I reiterate: this assumes that one of the most injury-prone players in the league performs as he did last year. He made $4.2 million pitching for the Cubs last season, and the Cubs didn’t even offer him arbitration. Given his injury history, I think that was probably the right call.

I consider the Indians to be one of the smartest organizations in baseball—in my book I rate Cleveland to be the best-managed franchise in the American League—therefore, this move shocks me even more. What could be going on? I can think of only one explanation: Kerry Wood has been able to demonstrate such good health that teams think he can start. If Kerry Wood can get back to his 2002–2003 form he would be a $14 million/year pitcher over the next two seasons. Maybe his agent has been shopping his potential as a starter.

Apparently, CC Sabathia and the New York Yankees have agreed to a seven-year $160 million contract, which is just under $23 million per season. [Update: Tim Brown is reporting the deal is for $161 million (exactly $23 million per year) and has an opt-out clause after three years.] Previously, I had projected Sabathia to be worth $24 million in a six-year deal. (Since I made that initial estimate, I corrected a minor error in my model that resulted in a very slight undervaluing of Sabathia.)

For the next seven years, I have Sabathia valued at just under $26 million a season, so the Yankees are paying about what he is worth.

I continue to be amazed by the over-valuing of closers in the baseball labor market. Yesterday, the New York Mets and Francisco Rodriguez agreed to a 3-year, $37 million contract. The deal also includes an option for a fourth year for $13-$14 million based on easily-attainable criteria. What an absolute waste of money. I have K-Rod valued at $6 million per season over the next three years.

I’ve been saying for a while that closers are overpaid. Rodriguez has been a very good closer, but the problem is that closers don’t pitch much. Over the past three seasons, K-Rod has faced 4.7% of the team’s opposing batters; a decent starter will face three times as many batters. While we see K-Rod pitch at the end of games, often when games are on the line, he’s not pitching much. The Met’s would have been better off spending that kind of money on a good starter who would prevent run scoring over many more batters. A few more million a year could have brought in A.J. Burnett or Derek Lowe whose superior pitching would prevent situations that closers can rectify.

Addendum: I received a question about the role of leverage—the difference in the importance of when a pitcher typically appears within a game—in determining values. I’ve been asked it before, and my answers have been scattered over several different locations. So, here is my e-mail reply explaining why I value all innings pitched the same.

I have considered the impact of leverage, but I don’t think leverage can explain the vast differences in my estimates and what is happening in the market. Leverage is a product of outside factors when a pitcher faces the same rules during all times of the game. The quality of his pitching is the same in the 5th inning as it is in the 9th. (There is the argument about pressure, but I don’t buy this explanation at this level of competition.) Now, the fact that he is good enough to pitch in a high-leverage situation is worth something; however, I don’t believe the value is twice the average. And the fact that a pitcher has pitched in high or low leverage situations doesn’t mean he ought to get all the credit for it.

For example, take Scott Linebrink and Francisco Cordero. Last year, both pitchers signed four-year deals for $19 million and $46 million. I estimated that Cordero was worth about $2 million more than Linebrink, yet he was paid more than twice what Linebrink got. The only difference in their pitching histories is that one is considered to be a middle reliever and the other considered a closer. It’s the performance that matters and ought to determine their salaries, not when they pitch. If Cordero is worth $46 million because he pitches in high-leverage situations, then Linbrink should have received a similar salary to reflect his opportunity cost—he could have pitched in high-leverage situations, but he didn’t. I think the market is putting too much value on the “Closer” label.

Another factor is that better pitchers in earlier innings affect the leverage in later innings. So, a good starter preventing runs as an impact on reducing leverage later in the game by creating bigger leads. I’m not sure exactly how to value that. So, I believe that the proper method is to treat all pitcher innings the same, while acknowledging that some elite relievers have some extra value in that they could be used in more valuable spots. But this value doesn’t necessarily come from when they pitched in the past.

I’m also a believer in patchwork bullpens. Take a bunch of bad castoff starters, platoon them, and tell them to pitch as hard as they can.

Here is a list of the top-25 most valuable pitchers in baseball over the past three seasons. Estimated values are the sum from 2006–2008 in 2007 dollars.

Rank	Player		Estimated Value
1	Brandon Webb	$49.65
2	C.C. Sabathia	$48.62
3	Roy Halladay	$46.33
4	Johan Santana	$42.32
5	Danny Haren	$41.50
6	Roy Oswalt	$40.15
7	Javier Vazquez	$38.81
8	Aaron Harang	$38.27
9	Derek Lowe	$37.95
10	John Lackey	$37.85
11	Josh Beckett	$37.40
12	Andy Pettitte	$36.68
13	Jake Peavy	$36.05
14	Mike Mussina	$34.87
15	Bronson Arroyo	$34.70
16	Joe Blanton	$34.60
17	Aaron Cook	$34.06
18	Greg Maddux	$33.76
19	Matt Cain	$33.70
20	Mark Buehrle	$33.43
21	Gil Meche	$33.36
22	Ervin Santana	$33.04
23	Jon Garland	$33.02
24	Tim Hudson	$32.64
25	Felix Hernandez	$32.45

On Saturday, Tim Hudson had a poor three-inning performance against the Mets. It was his second bad start of the season, and its similarity to the first bad start may be cause for concern. Hudson’s velocity was down in that game, which might indicate an injury.

The initial problem occurred in Hudson’s April 16 start against the Marlins, when he lasted only three innnings. According to the AJC, Hudson could get nothing on his pitches.

Hudson’s fastball velocity was down about 5 mph all night. He said he threw a pitch as hard as he could to Mike Jacobs in the third, and Jacobs scorched the mere 85-mph fastball to the right-field seats.

Hudson allowed six hits and four runs while looking nothing like the pitcher who entered with a .167 opponents’ average and National League-leading .181 opponents’ slugging percentage.

“I felt fine physically,” Hudson said. “Just one of those nights I went out there and just couldn’t get anything behind the ball. It was kind of a weird feeling. My heater [fastball] is normally a lot better than that. Just wasn’t coming out of my hand good, for whatever reason.”

Hudson (2-1) was weakened by flu symptoms last week in Colorado. That game was snowed out, and he rebounded to pitch eight scoreless innings of three-hit ball Friday in a win at Washington. Which made his Wednesday performance only more surprising.

“It wasn’t coming out [of his hand] really good tonight,” manager Bobby Cox said pulling Hudson after three innings. “I thought it might be a good time to give him a break. … His arm was kind of dead.”

The NL East-leading Marlins (9-5) took a rare opportunity to feast on Hudson, who was 4-0 with a 2.27 ERA in six previous starts at Dolphin Stadium.

“It could be some residual effects from the flu that’s just catching up to me, but I don’t know,” Hudson said. “I’m not one to make excuses like that. Just one of those things where consistently my heater was 84, 85, 86. That’s not gonna get it done, for me.”

But there was good news in his April 21 start against the Nationals, as he appeared to have regained his form. The AJC reported the following.

Tim Hudson’s velocity issues were fleeting, as was, apparently, the bad karma from the Braves’ recent road trip.

The Braves won their fifth game in a row Monday night, beating the Washington Nationals 7-3 behind 6 2/3 solid innings from Hudson, who bounced back from an oddly ineffective start.

Five days earlier, Hudson had topped out in the mid-80s from lingering effects of the flu. He was back throwing in his usual low 90s throughout the game Monday and working the Nationals into a familiar trance. He scattered 10 hits but allowed only two runs, to move to 7-1 with a 1.13 ERA in 11 career starts against them.

“Little more normal this time out,” said Hudson, now 3-1 with a 2.93 ERA. “It’s hard to put your finger on what the cause was last time. It must have been the effects of the flu bug finally catching up. It was nice to go up there today and look up there and see [velocity readings] with a 9 in front of it, instead of an 8.”

Hudson only recently realized he’d lost about five pounds while he was sick. That helped explain why he threw as hard as he could in Florida and came up with only 84 mph.

And this brings us to Saturday’s game against the Mets. The general impression was that Hudson’s poor showing was not a product of diminished velocity.

“I was missing with my location and they were hitting it,” said Hudson, who allowed four runs and seven hits in three innings, including three extra-base hits and two singles in the fateful third to give New York a 4-2 lead.

“I don’t know what to say. It was a tough inning. I gave up some hits.”

Hudson (3-2) gave up four runs and six hits in three innings April 16 at Florida, and afterward conceded that weight loss from a recent bout with flu symptoms might have contributed to that performance.

This time, he wouldn’t make any excuses and said he felt “great” physically. Unlike in the Florida game, the radar-gun readings on his fastball didn’t seem out of kilter Saturday, consistently in the 90-92 mph rage.

“He just couldn’t locate,” said manager Bobby Cox, who replaced Hudson after three innings. “He just could not hit his spots. I thought it was best to give him a breather. [The season] is a long haul.”

Asked again about Hudson’s health and whether he was sure the pitcher was not injured, Cox became perturbed and said, “He missed his spots. He’s fine.”

I happened to have followed most of the Braves games on MLB Gameday this year, which makes it easy to monitor pitch speeds. I was surprised to see this response, because I thought I had remembered Hudson’s pitch speeds on Saturday to be similar to the speeds in his April 16 outing in Florida. So, I opened up the Gameday archives and had a look.

Here are some summary statistics of Tim Hudson’s fastball speeds as recorded by MLB’s Gameday for the first three innings of his last three starts.

Start	4/16		4/21		4/26
Mean	88.81		90.58		88.53
Median	89		91		89
Mode	89		90		89
Min	85		85		84
Max	91		92		91

The April 16 and 26 pitch speeds are almost identical, while April 21 speeds were 1–2 MPH faster than the other two starts. Now, this doesn’t mean Hudson is injured—if he was, I would suspect that April 21 would have looked worse—but it does show that the starts on the 16th and 26th have more in common than has been reported.

For the Braves’ sake, I hope these are just normal blips that a pitcher has over the course of the season. According to Fangraphs, Hudson’s fastball velocity is down slightly (90.4) from last season (90.), but it is similar to his average from the previous three seasons (90.3). It’s too early to worry, but I will keep my eye on Hudson’s pitch speeds for the next few starts.

Yesterday, Joe Nathan agreed to a four-year, $47 million extension with the Minnesota Twins. I’ll get right to the point, I have him valued at $27.31 million over the life of the contract—$20 million less than what he is actually getting.

What is going on in the reliever market? I think high-end relievers/closers are getting way more than they are worth in the free agent market, as I have stated before (also see here and here). When I see one of my projections differ from the market outcome, I normally err on the side of thinking my projection is incorrect. But, in this case, I cannot fathom why teams are paying such a premium for closers, when there are decent set-up men out there making a lot less who could pitch in the same role.

I don’t get it. A guy who pitches a third of the innings of starters is getting decent starter money. And it’s not like the Twins are one piece of way from being something special. If he is so valuable, why not trade him and his $6 million salary to get some prospects with the surplus value?

Note: Please don’t bring up leverage in the comments unless it relates to a new take on the issue that I haven’t previously discussed. I’ve addressed this possible explanation in my previous posts, and why I don’t think it is sufficient to justify these contracts.

Yesterday, the Seattle Mariners released former Brave Horacio Ramirez. I was never a big HoRam fan, largely because the Braves always issued favorable HoRam talking points to reporters who repeated them to the public. He was a quietly polarizing player: you could divide Braves fans according to their opinion of him. (I know it seems hard to be “quietly polarizing” but if you were around when HoRam pitched for the Braves, I think you would agree with the term.) It was obvious from early on that he wasn’t ever going to be all that good. Still, there are plenty of players in the major leagues are aren’t all that good. You have to have some below-average players.

Here is what I had to say about him just after the Braves traded him.

With a market that’s paying Tanyon Sturtze $1.1 million, pitchers like Horacio Ramirez have value. Like Kevin Gryboski, I didn’t like seeing HoRam on the mound; I had no confidence in him. But at the end of the year, when I’d look back on his performance I could definitely see he’s not good, but there were many worse options out there….He’s not close to sniffing Triple-A ball, but just don’t expect anything more than a fifth starter. My guess is that Seattle isn’t anywhere near his last stop. He’s the type of guy who will go from team to team to fill out rotations.

I think the Mariners gave up on him too quickly. He was owed $2.75 million this year. I have his 2007—the worst season of his career—valued at $2.85 million. Soriano was barely more valuable at $3.36 million. HoRam is 28, left-handed, and has shown the ability to eat innings in the past. In a world where Jason Marquis can get a three-year $21 million contract, Horacio Ramirez has value. Why not at least try converting him to a LOOGY? It’s the WHIL principle, as Alex Remington calls it: Well, He IS a Lefty.

For another take, USS Mariner likes the deal. I can sympathize, because I do recall how good it felt to seem him finally gone.

Robert Downey, Jr. could asks this guy on advice for how to ask for second chance. The Braves have really gone out of there way to portray him as something special. Let me just say that Braves fans are tired of it; more so than seeing Jeff Francoeur hit pop flys to a kid in The Netherlands for Delta during the commercial break he just created. He doesn’t strike out hitters. He’s not particularly skilled at preventing walks or home runs. On top of this, he keeps getting injured, which has probably done more to prolong the team’s patience with him. Now, the team is finally moving on.

Someone will definitely pick him up, and I won’t be surprised or disappointed if it is the Braves.

The most ridiculous contract given out by the Yankees this offseason isn’t going to Alex Rodriguez. Reports indicate that the team has agreed to a three-year, $45 million contract with their long-time closer Mariano Rivera. He will not come close to contributing $15 million/year to his team.

Don’t get me wrong, Rivera is a very good pitcher, the only problem is that he doesn’t pitch much. The 75 innings he has averaged the past three years, represent just over five percent of his team’s innings. I have him valued at around $6 million/year for the past three years. Even if we weight the importance of the innings he pitches there is no way he’s worth two-and-half times that amount.

As expected, the Braves and Tom Glavine agreed to a contract yesterday. This is a one-year, $8 million deal. Supposedly, Glavine was willing to pitch for the Braves for less than what he could have received on the open market. Though Glavine bolsters the Braves rotation, I’m not seeing much generosity on Glavine’s part. Below, I list Glavine’s performances for the past three seasons as I valued them in 2007.

Season	Value
2005	$12.50
2006	$8.81
2007	$7.67
---	---
Avg.	$9.66
WA	$8.86

The numbers indicate that Glavine is getting a salary around his projected worth. His average value over the past three seasons was about $1.5 million more than his contract; however, he’s going to be 42 next year and his performance has been declining. The 3-2-1 weighted average (3*2007 + 2*2006 + 2005) is $8.86 million.

This doesn’t mean that he isn’t giving up something to leave the Mets. He declined a $13 million option with the Mets, which triggered a $3 million buyout; thus, he’s pitching for $2 million less than the Mets would have paid him. I don’t think this is a horrible deal for the Braves, even when you include the first-round draft pick that the Braves must give to the Mets. But, I don’t think this contract is much different from what he would have received in the open market.

Yesterday, Todd Jones signed a one-year $7 million deal with the Detroit Tigers. This is nearly double what I have him valued at for 2007, $3.59 million. This follows J.C. Romero’s deal, which I also think was a bit high. I’m open to the possibility that I am undervaluing relievers—I discuss this briefly in my book—but I don’t think I’m off by this much.

I don’t like giving big contracts to relievers. They pitch very few innings and there is always the possibility of injury. I prefer the shotgun approach: bring in a bunch of relievers for cheap and find a few that are at the top of their games. Use free agents and farmhands who might not be ready to start. Sometimes this doesn’t work, but you diversify your risk and the payoff of having someone blossom who hasn’t become a free agent yet is significant.

Addendum: Tom Verducci at SI.com explains Kevin Tower’s philosophy for finding relievers, and I like it.

The risk of sinking $4 million a year over multiple years for a pitcher in his mid-30s (Romero turns 32, 33 and 34 over the contract) who doesn’t start, win or close games, and has high mileage on his odometer is one you won’t find Kevin Towers taking. The San Diego general manager is the industry expert at building a bullpen on the cheap.

Towers’ philosophy is that relief performance tends to be fungible, and buying free agent relievers — who tend to be older and overworked by the time they get to the market — is the definition of buying a stock too high before the regression hits. Think Danys Baez, Arthur Rhodes, Kyle Farnsworth, Tom Gordon and Hector Carrasco.

“Free agent relief shopping is dangerous,” Towers says.