Clearly Hoffman got overpaid, however, your conclusion stinks.

“Hoffman got, essentially, twice as much money for the same skills because he comes with the proven closer label. Even in a depressed economic market, the closer markup is still ridiculous.”

Here you imply Howry was paid market value for his services, and in your article on the Howry signing you suggest that he was underpaid. The “closer markup” should be measured as a markup from fair market value, not from howry’s undermarket contract, right?

(Also, if you look closer at Howry, and the disappearance of his fastball, and his z-contact% you may conclude that it’s not that he was unlucky last year- as you assumed in your earlier analysis- but that his skills may have deteriorated, and he carries a much greater risk going forward.)

Finally, in addition to the closer markup, don’t ignore the hall-of-fame markup. Assign those markups about a half million dollars each and the whole one year deal does not look as absurd as you suggest. Really the only absurd thing is to assign the difference between the howry and hoffman contracts ONLY to the “proven closer” label.

And you are often quite emotional whether you refuse to discuss it or not. That emotion doesn’t have to be attached to a team either – that’s just being evasive.