This news comes as a relief to me too.

That is what the AP/Yahoo has too. link

He finished 56 of 65 appearances last season. I don’t think it’s a given this option will vest if this is how it’s structured

this was a smart play.

As I’ve said many times, it is foolish and pointless to evaluate free agent salaries as a percentage of total payroll. Players are split into three distinct salary classifications representing three completely different scales of payment. Wood’s contract is about half of what a borderline #3 starter like Kyle Lohse gets. It is very much in proportion with the market, which values each marginal win at nearly $5 million. Wood contributed 2.2 leveraged wins to the Cubs last season, which puts his salary in line. Moreover, because Wood is an addition to our bullpen depth and does not replace another player on the 2009 roster, his real contribution is relative to our 8th, 9th or even 10th best reliever.

The onus is on the critic of a signing to explain how the team might better use those funds. You haven’t, and my bet is that you can’t.

The alternative is for us to continue signing guys like Dellucci, Nixon, Oldberto, Fultz, Borowski for more money than we gave Wood. I think instead of signing 3 sub-mediocre players, it makes sense to sign a guy that is going to be very valuable for the team

I echo Jay’s sentiment, what else are we going to spend that money on? And by your point, we wouldn’t be able to sign any free agent because compared to the cost of pre-FA players they are being overpaid for their return, this is simply faulty logic due to the ignorance of structure of the system within which a ML baseball team operates (as Jay points out, there are three salary classifications).

Money like prospects (or simply players) is a tradable asset. But they are two distinct forms of asset. Money can be spent on extending contracts of players already under control or can be spent on free agent players. I don’t see a need to extend current contracts or buy out any current years, so its available for free agents, explain to me how we should spend the money better. The real losers in the FA market are the teams that do not pay for for the top talent or do not take the chance on the low cost/high risk/high reward players. Allocating the free agent money towards league avg. talent is a poor use of those funds. Wood represents the epitome of a dominant closer and top talent available. If you want to argue injury risk than that is fine, but to lump Wood in as “a reliever” as if all relievers are the same, is incorrect.

Often its not the money, but the years that make the kind of contracts that debilitate teams’ roster flexibility. Going back to the % of payroll argument is simply missing the point. We’re talking about volatility with all of these players, flexibility and minimal commitment is key to managing the volatility and maintaining a successful team. Its the years not the money.

I just checked out his site and it looks quite interesting. But guess who recently posted a FanPost there? Our old buddy E5.

You won’t continue a debate or a discussion if you don’t have backup? That’s pretty weak sauce.

It would also help if you addressed the points of the people with whom you disagree instead of repeating the same things over and over.

You cherry-picked Betancourt to show how variable relief performance can be. Are you interested in knowing how rare it is to see such an extreme swing in performance? Probably not. By your logic it would be folly to sign any talented reliever based on the fear that they might pull a Betancourt. Right?

And you haven’t even touched APV’s point regarding what differentiates Wood.

I admire someone for sticking to their POV when most of the herd is heading in another direction, but only if they make intellectually honest arguments.

Thanks for the kind words. I have one question. Is he a hard worker?

Forgot to include the link:
http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/blog/index?entryID=3768650&name=law_keith

prove it.

The shame of it is, I liked the biomechanical stuff Kyle did. Maybe he’ll come back eventually once his temper calms.

Overall, agree strongly. I just always feel obliged to point out that the 2007 bullpen was not really close to being excellent. Iron and Steel Rafaels were great, and Lewis had a fine couple of months, but that was it. Our closer had an ERA that was worse than league average and blew more than one lead of 3+ runs. The other four spots were a rotating cast of flimsy shoestrings. It actually was one of the most impressive things Wedge has ever done as manager, the way he got a really great overall result out when he had very limited options.

That season, 2007, thus becomes an interesting test case, in that it was neither an aberrant “epic fail” nor an aberrant season where everyone dominates and nobody knows why. The 2007 bullpen shows the power of having “one more guy” who can dominate the competition or at least get the job done. If we don’t have Perez, we could have had a cascade of bullpen failures that put the division out of reach, and if we don’t have Lewis, that race to the postseason would have been a lot tighter, as well as the ALDS.

It seems like we hardly ever get a “typical” bullpen season, but in a typical one, one extra guy can make a big difference.

I needed to rec this

i think this raises a good point, and is sort of lost in all the empirical analysis on what free agents are worth, and that is, the contextual value of the player to the specific team signing them. if a team is killed by a sub-par offense it makes sense that they’re willing to stick their necks out a little bit to get a bat – the key seems to be knowing how much above is simply too much above the added benefit.

Pretty good points. I know it’s easy to rest back on the intellectual comfort that spending money on relief pitching is a fool’s errand because constructing good bullpens is supposed to be easy to do. Or perhaps the corollary is that good relief pitchers are easy to find, but consistently good relievers aren’t. Hence the boom or bust of the past couple years. So when an elite reliever comes along in a season when it’s a buyers’ market for relievers, Shapiro finally figures that after years of try to bet on old guys or guys with questionable stuff it’s time to break down and sign an honest to goodness flamethrower.

Did the Indians overspend? Of course they did, that’s the nature of free agency. They minimized their risk by making it a two-year deal – in fact, I don’t know if Wood would be an Indian if Cleveland had to go to 3/$30M.

I recall the 2006 disaster being largely attributable to the starters not getting deep into the game and the middle relief being atrocious. Wickman was almost a non-factor in the meltdown, certainly not the trigger. In fact, his stats for 2006 are remarkably similar to his effective 2004 numbers

2004 (2006, Indians only)

IP 29.2 (28)
ERA 4.25 (4.18)
*ERA+ 103 (108)
WHIP 1.449 (1.429)

You’re right, and there’s been some very interesting research on exactly this subject. While we haven’t discussed it, I think everyone here assumes that the Indians are in that position where signing quality free agents is an especially good investment, and that’s basically what you’re saying.

Yeah, I think that contracts are an entire universe of variables (multiple needs, reliever glut, cost of inaction as it applies to us and opponents, distance from playoff spot, the fact that Wood isn’t a “failed starter” in terms of his stuff, ya da ya da). Trying to narrow a contract down to some linear regression is so simplistic – basically, it highlights the danger of extrapolation. This isn’t evaluating player performance – it’s evaluating, basically, lawyer performance. Obviously, there are some contracts out there that are terrible for the club that tendered them, and anyone can see that. But the resolution for judging contracts is just not anywhere close to what KB argued it was. You simply can’t zoom in on a 1-2 million difference. Too many variables.

Right. This is part of why really bad teams don’t sign FA’s — except for a ‘veteran leader’ type of guy like Mike Sweeney or some crap.

The Indians guaranteed only 55% of the money that the Mets did, so that’s a whole lot less risk. Two years guaranteed is inherently better than three, especially for a pitcher. There is a decent chance that Wood is already a better pitcher than K-Rod. K-Rod racked up great save stats, but his peripherals have been declining for years, and he’s far from a lock to be an elite pitcher. Wood has the better raw stuff and far better K rates.