Good afternoon to all my fellow Triple W fans. There is a lot to talk about in the sports world, however, the two biggest things I want to talk about are two starting pitchers in Major League Baseball. Can you guess who those two are: the richest in baseball; Gerritt Cole and Stephen Strasburg. So in today's Wacky Wednesday Wisdom I want to take a look at both of their lucrative contracts and look how this might affect the atmosphere of MLB for years to come.
Let's look at these in the order that they were signed. First, we want to look at Stephen Strasburg and his deal with the Washington Nationals. This was the first BIG deal to get done at this weeks Major League Baseball Winter Meetings and boy was it BIG to the tune of 7 years and 245 million dollars. This comes out to be an AAV(average annual value) of 35 million a year. He opted out of his four year 100 million dollar deal at the end of the season and that would have been an AAV of 25 million left the rest of those years. There is a caveat to this deal though as is any deal that the Washington Nationals do and the caveat is more than 80 million dollars of that will be deferred. With that kind of money how does that leave the rest of the landscape in Washington though? The owner has stated early on that he could only afford one of the two players either Strasburg or Rendon but is that just the organization spitballing? Here is the truth to all of this: this time of year every team is spitballing because it helps drive of the cost of free agents. Do I honestly believe Rendon will re-sign with the Nationals? Honestly, in my heart of hearts, I don't believe they will get Rendon and instead have to settle for Josh Donaldson. The landscape somewhat changed with this HUGE deal here. However, there's more.
Next, let's look at the MOST LUCRATIVE deal in MLB history. You guessed it the deal for Gerritt Cole signed a huge 9 year 324 million dollar deal that sends major league baseball into a tailspin and some teams looking to scramble for pitching help. With this type of deal this leaves Cole at a higher AAV of 36 million dollars a year. However, it is unknown at this point if any of the money is deferred. What does this mean for the New York Yankees? This means that they have signaled to everyone in major league baseball that they are in it to win it and they are in a win now mode. Will this affect other deals that they might be considering? NO NO NO! I am going to be honest with you the Yankees and some other teams out there could care less about the "luxury tax" that teams will get nailed with for going over certain money.
Lastly, let's take a look at how this might affect the rest of the landscape in Major League Baseball not only this year but for years to come. Pitchers will expect to get paid! Since David Price signed his deal with Boston for 217 million dollars this has been on the up trend for pitchers. However, with the Strasburg and Cole deals now in hand this sets a new tone that if you are considered "elite" you need to be paid an AAV of 35 to 40 million dollars a year. The landscape for hitters has continually been on the uptick while the pitching side has been lagging behind but now pitchers will get paid. Hitters this offseason and for seasons to come now will expect too to get paid based on their performance not only during the whole year but also for their performance against these "elite" pitchers. The scenery in baseball amongst hitters changed years ago now it's time pitchers caught up.
That's this weeks installment of Wacky Wednesday Wisdom. As you can see major league baseball has a landscape that has changed over the years but has finally caught up to the pitchers this offseason. You can expect more of this for years to come you can mark my words on that.
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