Just statistics. :-)

This was part of an interview where the interviewer asked “Jeff Suppan, which finger did you use to tickle the sphincter of Doug Melvin when inducing him to hand out a ridiculously bloated contract to a pitcher whose skills are rapidly declining?”

Having to go into Free agency for pitching always sucks. Have a look at the 2007 class from which we signed the Soup and there were worse ideas.

Gil Meche 28 KCR 5 $55,000,000 (2,39) 172%
J. Marquis 28 CHC 3 $21,000,000 (2,15.2) 109%
Randy Wolf 30 LAD 1 $8,000,000 (1,6.9) 86
Jeff Suppan 32 MIL 4 $42,000,000 (2,10.5) 49%
M. Batista 36 SEA 3 $25,000,000 (2,3.5) 21%
Kip Wells 30 STL 1 $4,000,000 (1,3.2) 80%
Barry Zito 29 SFG 7 $126,000,000 (2,13.7) 38%
V. Padilla 29 TEX 3 $33,750,000 (2, 11.6) 52%
Jeff Weaver 30 SEA 1 $8,325,000 (1,3.9) 46%
J. Schmidt 34 LAD 3 $47,000,000 (2,0.2) 0%
Mark Mulder 29 STL 2 $13,000,000 (2,-1.8) 0%

The figures in the parentheses are the actual “value” dollar wise that these guys brought to the table over the life (or part thereof) of their contracts. After smoothing the contracts (i.e. assuming that Suppan earns 10.25 per year) gives the percentages (i.e. of what they have been paid, what have they been worth).

Realistically only the Marquis and particularly the Meche contract make any sense in hindsight. All this suggests is that it sucks to go into the FA market for starting pitching. But it had to be done at the time and fortunately we didn’t end up with Schmidt or Zito or Batista…

This kind of stuff is why I would be totally willing to trade a young position player for a young pitcher.

Also, this is a good reason to think that having spare cash to go after Garland, Wolf or Looper would constitute a mixed blessing.

he means pitching again boars and lions and stuff.

As long as you don’t count playoff starts.

He’s not the worst pitcher ever, just the worst good pitcher. :-)

Jeff Suppan is not average.