Owners should think twice before signing pitchers to long-term deals

Sunday, January 6th 2008, 4:00 AM

With the new year, the countdown has begun for pitchers and catchers, but who would've believed the countdown would still be going on for when Johan Santana is going to be traded by the Minnesota Twins?


According to Hank Steinbrenner, the Yankees have not closed the door on acquiring Santana, emphasizing the (unconfirmed) fact that they have the package the Twins deem most attractive. That would be super stud righty Phil Hughes, Melky Cabrera, righty prospect Jeffrey Marquez and singles-hitting third base prospect Mitch Hillegoss. It's the same package sources said the Twins asked for just prior to the winter meetings in Nashville - a package of four legitimate young players/prospects comparable to the haul Oakland GM Billy Beane got from the Diamondbacks for his ace, Dan Haren - which Yankee GM Brian Cashman walked away from.

Cashman is on record as not wanting to do this deal, as it would be going against everything he has been attempting to implement with the Yankees - developing pitching and reducing payroll. Those are laudable aims, but with the prospect of three rookies in the rotation next year, Hughes, Joba Chamberlain and Ian Kennedy, none of them likely to log more than 150 innings, Hank Steinbrenner justifiably wonders where all those missing innings are going to come from if the Yankees are to compete with the Red Sox. Especially when a horse like Santana is available. The problem is, at what price? More than anyone in the Yankee organization, it is Hal Steinbrenner who is more concerned at what the Yankees would have to pay Santana after giving up the four young players for him. Santana is said to be looking for a six-year deal at upwards of $20 million per, and no matter which team ultimately winds up with him, that ought to be a major concern. Over the last 30 years, just about every team that has given out contracts of five or more years to pitchers (see: chart) has been burned. Badly.

Beginning with the industry-rocking 10-year contract the Indians gave Wayne Garland in 1977, almost every pitcher bestowed with a contract of five or more years has broken down and disappointed. In Garland's case, he went 13-19 in the first year of his contract and tried to justify the money by logging 282 innings which, in turn, caused him to blow out his rotator cuff the following year. He won only 15 more games in four injury-plagued seasons and was out of baseball by 1982. Also in '77, George Steinbrenner lured Don Gullett from the Cincinnati Reds for a six-year deal - and paid a similar price. Gullett won 14 games for the Yankees in '77 before blowing out his arm and never pitching again after '78. Former Mets GM Frank Cashen always said one of his biggest regrets was giving Craig Swan a five-year deal after he'd won 14 games in '79. Swan, too, got hurt, missed most of '80 and '81 and won only 19 games over the length of the contract. And in Atlanta Braves lore, the trading of three top young players, including fan favorite Brett Butler, for Len Barker in 1983 and then signing Barker to a five-year extension has gone down as one of the worst blunders ever. Barker, too, subsequently blew out his elbow and was released three years later.

Of course, the most disastrous pitching contracts have come in recent years. In 1999, Scott (Avenging Agent) Boras succeeded in getting Dodger GM Kevin Malone fired by bamboozling him into giving Kevin Brown a record $105 million for seven years and Darren Dreifort $55 million for five. Both of them broke down - Dreifort pitched only three of the five years, winning all of eight games, while Brown missed much of 2001-02 and pitched in only one postseason (for the Yankees in '04 where he lasted just 11/3 innings in Game 7 of the ALCS) over the length of the contract.

So this is just another factor Hank Steinbrenner might want to consider as he continues to fan the Santana flame. Fred Wilpon, too. At least the Steinbrenners can point to Mike Mussina, whom the Yankees signed for $88.5 million over six years in 2000, as one of the very few who mostly lived up to it. Then again, do you think Son of Boss knows that Santana is 1-3 (his one win coming in relief) with a 6.89 ERA lifetime at Fenway Park? That might be as much a red flag as anything when you're talking $100 million contracts.

Congressional oversight

Just when it appeared these upcoming congressional hearings on steroids were shaping up as just another exercise in congressional hot air, thanks to Conn. Rep. Christopher Shays, his colleagues saw the light from George Mitchell's lament about not having the subpoena power to interview players, and have summoned Roger Clemens, Andy Pettitte, Brian McNamee, Chuck Knoblauch, Kirk Radomski & Co. to testify under oath about everything they know. Previously, the only take on this latest round of hearings was that of the grandstanding blowhard, Shays, renewing his tired and misinformed harangue about commissioner Bud Selig being the person mostly at fault "for tolerating it and not having the guts to step up and say we need changes." Has Shays been hermetically sealed in a jar of Skippy peanut butter these past two years since the last congressional hearings on steroids? Since then, Selig has been more proactive than any commissioner in history in terms of dealing with a crisis by forcing the union to twice re-open the basic agreement in order to strengthen the testing program and then, going against his own advisors, hiring Mitchell to conduct his independent probe. Shays says there's no point in summoning players to the hearings because "we would have to do research every morning, noon and night" - something he obviously hasn't done regarding Selig. Sounds to me like the real reason Shays didn't want players at the hearings was because it will take the attention away from him and his chance to grandstand.

News source：http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/baseball/yankees/2008/01/06/2008-01-06_owners_should_think_twice_before_signing.html?page=0