Other People's Money

Sportswriters are forever spending other people’s money.  Yesterday, it was Chicago Sun-Times’ columnist Rick Morrissey, hard at work trying to convince the Cubs to sign Yu Darvish or Jake Arrieta.  The back-page teaser headline for Morrissey’s column read, “MONEY STALL—Less than a week before camp opens, Cubs still haven’t splurged on the big-ticket pitcher they need.  What’s taking so long?”

Baseball free agents and their agents are all aghast that the big contracts this offseason have been far and few between.  Apparently, they—along with Morrissey—think that overpaying for a player is the (good) norm while holding back constitutes collusion on the part of owners.  Take Darvish and Arrieta, please.

“The argument in some corers of Chicago [exactly where goes unsaid] is that it’s too risky to give any pitcher a five-year plus deal, arms being as unreliable as they are,” writes Morrissey.  “I’d argue that it’s riskier to go into the heart of [Theo]  Epstein’s window [of opportunity for winning another World Series] with a big hole in the rotation.”  You see, the Cubs have to do something because “The time to act is now.”  There’s even a moral imperative for Morrissey, who asks, “Don’t the Cubs owe it to their fan base to do whatever it takes to try to win every year, especially after trying not to win during the rebuilding years?”

To which I would answer, the Cubs’ front office owes it to their fan base not to be dumb, as in signing the pitching equivalent of a Milton Bradley or Alfonso Soriano.  What’s so impressive about Darvish, who’ll be 32 in August?  He’s won all of 56 games since 2012, and never more in a season than the sixteen he recorded as a rookie.  And how about that 0-2 record in last year’s World Series, along with the 21.6 ERA?  Only a fool—or a sportswriter—splurges for a player with those numbers.

The same pretty much goes for Arrieta, who turns 32 next month.  Arrieta has managed 88 wins over his career, with 22 of them coming in 2015.  The win totals have gone down (and the ERA up) in each of the past two seasons.  Arrieta has Scott Boras for an agent, and the last time I checked Boras tries to get his pitchers six-to-seven year deals.  If Arrieta went 14-10 with a 3.53 ERA in 2017, what will he do in 2022?

The Cubs are top-heavy with talented young position players.  The smart move is to trade some of them for talented young pitchers, not overpay for middle-of-the-rotation starters.  But, hey, I’m not a sportswriter.