At first I agreed with you but now I think you are wrong about the money Ortiz makes. First of all, bonafide #1 starters (the RJ, Clemens, Pedro, Schilling, Prior once he hits free agency, etc.) are getting over $15M/yr. The DBacks signed him for 4yr/$32M contract ($8/yr). This was definitely a player's market and $8M/yr was the going rate for a #3 pitcher. Pavano (4yr/$40M), Wright (3yr/$21M), Clement (3yr/$25M), Milton (3yr/$25.5M) Millwood (1yr/$7M). The $/yr matches up perfectly. The only difference is the fourth year and a club coming off a 111 loss season has to offer that fourth year to lure the free agent.
All of those guys are between 29-30 yrs old and none of them have performed consistantly over the last 4 years. Ortiz's ERA has steadily increased over that time period whereas all the others are bouncing from low 3's to low 6's. Despite this, the Ortiz signing gets made fun of a lot more than any of these other signings (except maybe Milton's).
As far as him being outperformed by Guzman and Mitre, possibly, however Guzman
is the Cubs' top pitching prospect according to Baseball America.
And on AZ's #4 and #5 pitchers, we'll see. People make fun of Estes (I do too) but I looked at him game log from last year and it was not what I expected at all. Basically he threw 100 innings at a 2.15 ERA, 60 innings at a 6.39 ERA, and 40 innings at a 14.18 ERA. Considering that half his starts were in Coor's field, that really isn't that bad for your #4-#5 starter. If you are interested check out the second to last post on
this thread.
Brad Halsey will probably get the #5 spot. It's early in ST but he's only given up 1 hit in his first 6 innings this spring. He could surprise us with a solid 4.50 ERA.