Los Angeles Angels pitcher, John Lackey stands to make a lot of money this winter.
Lackey, who won one game and posted an ERA just a shade above 2.30 in L.A.'s playoff run, will enter the free agent market as the top starting pitcher available.
Lackey took a no-decision in Game Five of the ALCS against the New York Yankees, after being lifted with the bases loaded and two out in the seventh inning, only to watch reliever Darren Oliver surrender three runs of his 4-0 lead on the first pitch. The Yankees would score six in the frame, although Los Angeles eventually won the game by a score of 7-6.
Television cameras caught Lackey screaming to manager Mike Scioscia as the skipper came to the mound to remove him, calling out, "This is mine, Sciosch!" After such an inauspicious final outing, it seems unlikely Lackey will return to the team for whom he won Game Seven of the 2002 World Series.
That will set off a bidding war among a handful or more of baseball's prospective contenders, and drive Lackey's price up the five-year, $80 million range. Among the projected front-runners are usual suspects, like the Boston Red Sox and the Yankees, as well as National League have-nots like San Francisco and Washington.
It seems clear that the big Texan will wind up with an American League club.
But should he?
The answer is both resounding, and highly significant: yes.
In fact, forget Lackey. The truth of the assertion is not softened by plurality. All high-profile free-agent hurlers, especially big-money relief or starting aces, should sign with American League teams.
The reason is simple: if a team sits down and carefully evaluates a given pitcher, almost regardless of the pitcher's ability or tendencies, an American League club will almost always come up with a higher figure for total monetary value.
In the National League, two things work against the value of pitchers: first, that they must come to bat, thereby hurting their team offensively, or be removed from the game and second, that run prevention, because it is easier in the National League, is also less valuable, relative to an AL team that is otherwise identical.
These assertions may appear obvious, but general managers across the league fail to make them a part of their decision-making processes, year in and year out.
In 2009, NL clubs spent an average of 46.1 percent of their total payrolls on pitchers; in the AL, that figure narrowly exceeded 40 percent. This is about the degree of difference I contend is optimal, except that it is backward: the AL should spend between 12 and 15 percent more on pitching than the NL.
Note: The AL is also probably somewhat closer to an objectively optimal level anyway, which doesn't help the senior circuit's case.
Obviously, pitching is fully one-third of the game, and so National League teams can likely not afford to devalue pitching completely.
It's also important to note that, although an American League GM should be willing to spend a greater portion of his budget on arms, an NL exec with twice as much money available might still be well-advised to make a higher bid.
In the larger scheme, though, the NL will have to start taking more advantage of the different player markets in the two leagues if they hope to break the AL's lock-stock-and-barrel superiority.
These extend beyond the simple difference in the value of pitchers. AL rules encourage top-heaviness: pinch-hitters account for 3.5 times fewer plate appearances in the junior circuit. Substitutes overall bat more than twice as often in the NL. This means that the National League must strive for more depth.
Because ace starters can go more innings in the AL without hurting their team by taking away offensive opportunities, AL teams can also pay more for these elite guys, and can feasibly carry one more pitcher than can National League teams, thereby allowing them to spread innings at the shallow end of the bullpen across a number of minimum-salary youngsters, and leverage potential platoon advantages.
To fully leverage these realities, A National League organization could start drafting collegiate pitchers almost exclusively, to avoid big spending on free-agent arms. AL teams, meanwhile, have to find a way to obtain nine Major-League hitters, while retaining enough budgetary flexibility to sign the pitchers they need to win.
To do so, they would be wise to draft heavily from the pool of available hitters. Of course, no one should narrow their focus to one type of player in the first two or three rounds, where elite talent makes it only smart to draft whomever the team feels is the best player available. Only in later rounds does this consideration become an important one.
If teams follow this strategy, stocking their Minor League systems with only the types of players they want to groom, they could begin a radical, but not entirely unimaginable, reform: consolidating Minor Leagues, by sharing affiliates with teams from the opposite league who would load up on players of the opposite breed.
Of course, it wouldn't be absolute—AL teams would keep some Minor League hurlers, NL clubs some hitters—but it could save organizations money (all GMs love doing that) and make Minor Leagues higher-quality, better indicators of future success, by reversing the watering-down of Minor League talent.
Whichever league embraces the market imbalance and inefficiency first will have a leg up on becoming the dominant league of the next decade.
As an avid opponent of the DH, and a long-time National League fan, I'll be rooting for the senior circuit. To that end, I sincerely hope the Giants and Nats (and, by some reports, my beloved Cubs) can keep their hands clean of John Lackey this off-season.
Read more MLB news on BleacherReport.com
- Login to post comments