Health scare played large role in Carlos Carrasco’s contract
April 8, 2015Free agent TE Rob Housler to visit Browns
April 8, 2015The Cleveland Indians extended Carlos Carrasco for $22 million over four years with a couple of option years. Now the hand-wringing begins as we try to figure out if it’s a good deal or bad deal before the player even puts a dent in the playing time for which he’s to be compensated. That’s the way these things go, though. We’re supposed to predict the future and make a stand as to whether we want to give it our own personal thumbs-up or thumbs-down. It’s even more difficult considering some of the bad luck contracts the Indians have signed, which I’m not going to repeat. But even considering history and poor luck and the constrained spending policy, it’s difficult to look at what the Indians committed to Carlos Carrasco and say it’s a bad deal for the team.
I know it’s morbid to talk about, but I’m sure some fans are thinking off the bat that it’s a bad deal considering the recent revelations that Ken Rosenthal shared about Carrasco’s scares with heart palpitations. In a lot of ways, sports fans end up having more in common with the kinds of ghouls who underwrite life insurance and look at someone’s actual viability for survival. It’s an uncomfortable thing putting financial worth on humanity, but under the guise of professional sports we allow it as “just business.”
The Indians have rolled the dice on Carrasco and obviously his health as well, but that’s true of pretty much every contract extension ever. Every contract, in the end, is about allocating risk. It seems pretty clear that this might be one of those deals where both sides actually win. The Indians locked up Carrasco through his arbitration plus some time depending on the club options. If Carrasco flames out, he’ll have a nice retirement payment of $8 million in 2018. If Carrasco improves as he heads into his 30s, the Indians will have paid their No. 2 starter an average of $5.5 million per season to play one of the sport’s most expensive positions—or, roughly $2 million less than they paid Brett Myers to pitch in four games in 2013.
After years of erratic behavior and a couple suspensions, Carrasco has shown signs of what the team envisioned when dealing Cliff Lee for him several years back. He had a five-start stretch in June 2011 in which he posted a 0.98 ERA. Last season, he compiled a 2.30 ERA in 26 appearances out of the bullpen, and by the second half of the season, he was back in the rotation and continued his streak of being nearly unhittable, tallying a 1.30 ERA in 10 starts.
“We just looked at not only the way that Carlos pitched, but his continued maturation and development as a pitcher,” Indians GM Chris Antonetti recently said of the deal. “He’s always had very good quality stuff. … But we’ve seen the continued development and maturity and improvement in his routines, his consistency and his focus and we saw it translate to his success as a starting pitcher last year. We believe that now, not only does he have the physical attributes, but the other attributes to be a successful starter. He was the first guy in the weight room every morning [during spring training], preparing to be successful.
“We don’t believe it’s an accident, the success that he had last year.”
Erraticism and lack of résumé aside, you can’t compare Carrasco’s contract to guys who were paid with the ability to be actual free agents as the negotiating power for the club is far different when a player like Carrasco is under team control with arbitration. Still, it’s the same baseball league with the Indians, Los Angeles Dodgers, Boston Red Sox and New York Yankees. Even if the Tribe doesn’t play in the deep end of the free agency pool, those are still, technically, comparable replacements for Carrasco. The Indians gamble $8 million in 2018 on a guy with heart issues and an ugly historical period of weird bean-ball incidents. I’d love to have Max Scherzer in Cleveland, but you have to pay him $34 million in 2021 when he’s going to be considered in the same age of his career as we think of Bartolo Colon today.
As they say, you must pick your poison. The Indians get to bet on a starting pitcher staying at the top of the rotation for the next few years at an average annual value of $5.5 million. Those last few years may look gaudy in present day, but just wait and see what pitchers are being signed for come 2020. Given the comparable players signed in years past, you can’t blink when given an opportunity to bet on a guy like Carrasco. Regardless of how it works out, I’m glad they did.
21 Comments
I’m amazed at both the Kluber and Carrasco deals. To think that Justin Masterson is getting $9.5M in 2015 after coming off a horrible injury plagued season. We’ll be paying Carlos $9.5M in 2020 and Kluber $13.5M. Or maybe not. Because the club holds the option.
Signing these guys a year early and risking far less guaranteed money is the smart way for this org to go. What do we think Brantley and Gomes would have fetched this past off-season as opposed to one year earlier when they were signed? The risk on pitchers is surely greater – position players rarely suffer the career-threatening equivalent of blowing out an arm – but Carrasco’s market value in just another year might easily be twice what they’ll pay him and, as you point out, the guaranteed money is small.
Like Kluber, clearly Carrasco wants to be here, with Francona and Callaway and players he knows. Hard not to contrast this with the current Browns, where they’re attractive mainly to players in search of the most money. Culture matters.
Completely agree. Obviously a pitcher has to worry about his health, but the amount of potential savings on both of these guys is tremendous. Example: Bud Norris went through three years of arbitration from 2013 to this season. He got $3M/$5.3M/$8.8M. That’s for basically a league average pitcher throwing about 165 innings a year. Both Kluber and Carrasco have shown themselves to be much better than league average pitchers. Carrasco will get $4.5M/$6M/$8M through his arbitration years (with a few million more guaranteed for one pre-arb year and buyouts on the option years). So CC is looking at like $20M over four years while Bud Norris got about $18M.
I understand that these guys want to be here and have concerns over their health (CC more so), but I’m still flabbergasted at how team friendly both these deals are. At worst, you’re looking at losing out on money that would buy you a free agent year of a David Murphy type. At best, you’ve tied up two Cy Young caliber pitchers for pennies on the dollars.
Yet again, Shapiro and company knock it out of the park and nobody really notices.
and if the new scouting/drafting protocol actually produces good major league players, if Kipnis was not an outlier, then waiting out Antonetti’s extended learning curve must be a gold star for the Dolans. I’m crediting Antonetti here because, from what I can see, Shapiro is now more Big Picture oversight, season tix and stadium renovations while Antonetti is fitting the contracts into his payroll and holding Bud Grant’s feet to the fire.
True. Antonetti deserves the praise. I get lazy and occasionally use Shapiro as shorthand for “whichever upper level Indians personnel”.
And Kluber and Carrasco really deserve some love too. Fans always hope for the “we want to play here” discount. And these guys actually gave it to us.
Service time but Masterson never should have gotten that much the bright side is as soon as the BoSox trade for an ace Masterson might end up back in the bullpen where he rightfully belongs.
We’ll see on Carrasco I’m interested to see him pitch. Mickey Calloway should receive a % of these new deals.
Service time? Masterson was a free agent. Service time had nothing to do with it. That’s what he got on the free market.
Yea.
Rick Porcello is a $20M pitcher in today’s MLB.
I’m honestly not sure there’s much of a difference. This organization has been run the same way for 20+ years, without any real turnover at the top.
Or Masterson could put up a solid season given his trend of alternating good seasons and bad seasons throughout his major league career. But I wouldn’t put money on it 🙂
I was going to uptick this for you bringing up the comparison… but then couldn’t find it in my to uptick the fact that Porcello is making $20 MILLION DOLLARS PER YEAR.
Uh…. well he kinda does, doesn’t he?
Uh wouldn’t think so.
Bullpen bullpen bullpen!!!
Micky is the pitching coach, right?
If his staff is signing for longer term deals with the organization that can be seen as a positive for his coaching of that staff, right?
Therefore his staff’s output has a bearing on his next contract with the organization, right?
Trickle down son. Trickle down.
At the same time, the entire Cleveland Indians rotation clocks in under $8M.
Carlos and Corey should also be taking him out for a real nice seafood dinner when they sign these deals and they better call him again too.
$5 million goes a long way at Swenson’s.
Mickey Callaway IS a saint. I learned from an in-shape Val Kilmer that one needs to perform three miracles in order to become a saint. (Ubaldo had to count for at least two)