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Originally Posted by AVoiceOfReason
That said, Gagne was at least as valuable as any other closer at the time the contract was signed, and that's the only fair way to judge if the contract was good--at the time it was signed, not after he gets hurt.
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Yes and if you base it off of what other closers got paid and their effectiveness it makes the deal look much, much worse. Look at the top closers from 2004:
Code:
Player Team SV SVO BS % ERA 2004 2005
Gagne LA 45 47 2 95.7% 2.19 $5,000,000 $8,000,000
Takatsu CWS 19 20 1 95.0% 2.31 $750,000 $2,525,000
Nathan Min 44 47 3 93.6% 1.62 $440,000 $2,100,000
Rivera NYY 53 57 4 93.0% 1.94 $10,890,000 $10,500,000
Benitez Fla 47 51 4 92.2% 1.29 $3,500,000 $4,771,206
Hoffman SD 41 45 4 91.1% 2.30 $2,500,000 $5,000,000
Baez TB 30 33 3 90.9% 3.57 $1,750,000 $3,750,000
Cordero Tex 49 54 5 90.7% 2.13 $2,000,000 $3,875,000
Smoltz Atl 44 49 5 89.8% 2.76 $11,666,667 $9,000,000
Mesa Pit 43 48 5 89.6% 3.25 $800,000 $2,000,000
Frasor Tor 17 19 2 89.5% 4.08 $300,000 $332,500
Kolb Mil 39 44 5 88.6% 2.98 $1,500,000 $3,400,000
Lidge Hou 29 33 4 87.9% 1.90 $360,000 $500,000
Urbina Det 21 24 3 87.5% 4.50 $4,000,000 $4,000,000
Isrin StL 47 54 7 87.0% 2.87 $7,750,000 $8,250,000
The going rate was about $4.5M this offseason. They gave him twice the market value for a marginal improvement over the other top closers.
dylanmarsh:
The 2001 and 2003 Yankees would disagree. Distasters like Matt Mantei, Robb Nen, and Troy Percival also show that you shouldn't devote 10% of the team's budget to a guy that throws only when the team is winning by a small margin.