Time to Modify Rules for Free Agent Salaries, Part 1

At some point, Major League Baseball should consider modifying some of the rules regarding free agency. How would you feel if you worked for a company or organization and there were some employees whose work ethic, professionalism or productivity was way less than yours? And those employees were paid more than you; considerably more. Even if you were paid a huge salary, there’s something about that circumstance that seems a little unfair. Yes, I know life isn’t always fair but, we usually reserve that statement for circumstances we cannot control.

After reading this, I’m sure many of you may disagree. But, this is only regarding professional baseball; specifically pitching; although this could be applied to all players. And I’m not comparing this to any other sport or any other profession.  And before you start to compare this to the movie industry; remember, actors don’t typically “play” for any team.

The idea for this blog came about as I was reading about Kyle Lose and the fact that, as a free agent, he hasn’t been signed yet. I for one, think the Cards should have tried to re-sign their best starting pitcher last year. They could have used the money to at least try and re-sign him and let Jake Westbrook become a free agent. I like Westbrook but, if it came down to a choice between the two players, I would choose Lohse, based on statistical performance. I think a starting rotation of Kyle Lohse, Adam Wainwright, Chris Carpenter, Jaime Garcia and Shelby Miller or Lance Lynn would have been one of the best.

Here are the facts as I see them. There were at least ten pitchers in Major League Baseball that had a higher per season salary than Lohse. Of those ten, only one ranked higher than Lohse in many statistical categories, including earned run average. That pitcher was Justin Verlander of the Detroit Tigers; and he was the fourth highest paid pitcher last year. Of the other nine pitchers who were the top ten highest paid pitchers, only five of them were among the top thirty pitchers in Major League Baseball. That includes the highest paid pitcher last season, Johann Santana. Yes, he threw a no-hitter and was hurt some of last year but, his ERA was a fat 4.85 and he had a losing record.

I realize there are intangibles but, when a player is traded or waived, those intangibles don’t seem to be as important. So, next week, in part two of this blog,  I’m going to give you my proposal to modify the rules as they apply to free agent  salaries. Salaries that are based in large part on statistical performance and other factors. So stay tuned and be sure to come back next Saturday.

I don’t see the Cards trying to get Lohse back at this point but, I hope he is given a salary on par with some of his contemporaries.

Thanks for reading.