Taking a Risk on Carl Pavano
Teams in search of a mid-rotation starter will find that their options have dwindled, not that there were abundant options to begin with as most mid-tier starters have found homes. What remains is a recognizable list of players that all come with some sort of risk. It feels odd to type this, but the best bet among them might be Carl Pavano.
Pavano’s injury history is well documented and has been roundly mocked. This is a guy who turned a strained buttocks into a five-month absence and then, on the verge of a return, crashed his car and broke a couple of ribs. During the course of his four years with the Yankees he spent 630 days on the disabled list while facing just 642 batters. How, then, can he have changed the sentiment about his durability in the span of just two years?
By pitching 200 innings in each of those two years. Pavano spent the 2009 season polishing the rust that had accumulated from 2005 through 2008, and it showed. He wasn’t inducing many ground balls, and he was allowing a few too many homers. He impressed the Twins enough that they traded for him mid-season, and he showed marked improvement with them. After accepting their offer of arbitration he returned in 2010 and had a fine season, a 3.75 ERA and 4.02 FIP. But, most importantly, he did it in 221 innings.
This is apparently enough to land him a multi-year contract. The Twins again offered Pavano arbitration, but this time he turned it down. He’s a Type A — which is a bit of a head scratcher, considering his 5.10 ERA in 2009 — so he’ll cost any signing team a first or second round pick. Even with that burden, Pavano will still likely get a multi-year deal. The market for starting pitching is that thin. The only question that remains is of a team’s sanity in signing him.
When Dave crowdsourced Pavano’s next contract, the median deal would have been three years, $27 million, perhaps with the third year being an option — Dave thinks vesting, I think high-buyout if anything. Remember, Pavano turns 35 before spring training starts, so a three-year deal carries him through his age-37 season. It’s not so much his injury history that causes the biggest deterrent, though that certainly plays a part. Rather, it’s the type of pitcher Pavano has become.
In 2010 Pavano saw his strikeout rate dip quite a bit. He’d never been a strikeout pitcher, but 4.76 K/9 fell considerably below his career average. He did see a spike in his groundball rate, which suggests he adapted a bit, but that low strikeout rate is certainly concerning. There are only 86 player seasons since 1970 wherein a pitcher has struck out fewer than 5 per nine and has pitched more than 150 innings in his age 35 through 37 seasons. Only about half had a league average or better ERA.
Still, there’s a good chance Pavano turns in another quality season next year, as both his xFIP, 4.01, and his SIERA, 4.15, point to some sustainability. But once pitchers, especially ones with an injury history as deep as Pavano’s, hit that age-35 mark, the situation becomes a bit murkier. If it takes a two-year commitment to land Pavano, that seems reasonable. But to add that third year, effectively giving a team a low-strikeout 37-year-old, is a bit too much. There’s a good chance it will become a freebie year, in which the team receives little to no production, meaning they’re paying more for those first two years.
This is why it makes sense to have a high-buyout third year option, rather than a vesting one. Should Pavano become ineffective during his second year, a team can mitigate the risk by handing him a buyout rather than having him come back for the third year. A two-year, $21 million contract, with each of the two years paid at $9 million and a $3 million buyout of a $9 million option, might help a team save money and mitigate risk. The problem, of course, comes when a desperate team is ready to add that third guaranteed year. Given what we’ve seen so far this winter, I would think that likely.
Great post. My perception of Carl Pavano is that he’s a lot younger than he actually is, and I bet that’s what a general sense was. Since he missed so much time, he doesn’t have the same feeling of having been around forever. Probably why the guess was 3 years.
Actually, perhaps because of his injuries, I always seem to think of him as *older* than he is.
3 years is too much. I guessed 2 years $20MM when we did the crowdsourcing a while back. However I also agree with your assessment that a desperate team will probably guarantee a 3rd year or make it a vesting option that can be easily attained.. Detroit has alot of money still left to spend don’t they? I could definately see that happening. If not them then maybe Texas after they lose out on Cliff Lee? Or maybe a “bad” team who thinks they could make some noise next year with a little luck (Baltimore, KC, Pittsburgh?)
It’s not just injuries, though – Pavano has been wildly inconsistent even when healthy. How much do you want to pay a guy who within the last 18 months was traded even-up for Yohan Pino?
That was just a dumb trade. That doesn’t say anything about Pavano. His 2009 and 2010, his only two healthy years in the last six, were pretty much the definition of consistent, and actually pretty well in line with his 2003 and 2004, too.
“There are only 86 player seasons since 1970 wherein a pitcher has struck out fewer than 5 per nine and has pitched more than 150 innings in his age 35 through 37 seasons. Only about half had a league average or better ERA.”
Half had average or better than average ERA? So as a group they were consistent with the league. This is either a pointless stat or would be optimistic as I would generally assume 35-37 yr old starter to be worse than league average.
As a Twins fan I was very impressed with Pavano. He was definitely the innings eating veteran that the staff needed. The Twins had many rough stretches where the 3/4/5 pitchers would go 4 or 5 innings in back-to-back games and Pavano would go deep into the next game to save the bullpen. I think he went 7+ in 21 out of 32 starts.
I think whomever signs Pavano for 3 years will get 2 good years and 1 average year with around 200 IP each year. That 3rd year will be tough to shallow the 10mil salary, but overall, I think he’s comparable to a Ted Lilly. Plus you get that sweet stache – which is invaluable.
I think you’re confusing average (mean) with median. I would imagine the statement would probably hold true (generally the median and mean is similar in an even distribution), but it’s not guaranteed to be the case.
This is a guy who turned a strained buttocks into a five-month absence and then, on the verge of a return, crashed his car and broke a couple of ribs.
I am far from a Pavano fan, but did he really miss 5 months with a sore ass? He hurt his butt in ST and then had some sort of other injury that kept him out for the duration, right? My memory is foggy, but this seems to stretch even the already incredible details of the Pavano in NY saga.
That year, he had a back problem, a strained buttock, soreness in his tricep, then he had a bone chip removed from his elbow.
The fact that Pavano’s K/9 and your stat on pitcher with low K/9 indicates that the stat is not very useful for predicting outcomes. In the ALDS he was the #2 pitcher for the Twins, I’d be surprised to see him as a #3 for another team next year. He lead the league in complete games (7, tied with some Lee dude) and lead the league in shutouts (2, teid with Braden). If Felix had been lit up at the end of last year and Pavano had pitched another shut out, I wouldn’t have been surprised to see him in serious Cy Young contention.
That’s going a little far don’t you think? Pavano wasn’t even the best pitcher on his team.
“If Felix had been lit up at the end of last year and Pavano had pitched another shut out, I wouldn’t have been surprised to see him in serious Cy Young contention”
loolllllll, joe morgan is that you?
cy young?
not sure if you’re serious…
He was mentioned several times, in say late August, as a candidate, as he got his fifteenth “win” pretty early on (and then only got two more in the last six weeks). I don’t read the commenter as necessarily saying that “serious Cy Young contention” means he would actually have been *worthy* of the award (or even the consideration), but at one point he wasn’t all that far from jumping onto the list of contenders, at least among the wins-and-leadership crowd.
Bill is right. On August 13th he had a low 3 ERA, 5 complete games 15 wins and both of those shutouts under his belt… after that things got a lot worse. Felix was a contender largely because he had the IP and the ERA. If he had an ERA in the high 2s, then I think CC would have ben the “wins” contender, Buchholz would have been the ERA (but only okay IP) contender, and Price and Pavano would have been the “interesting mix” guys. He probably would have ended up 4th or 5th in balloting.
I realize lots of guys are “looking good” in August and then fall off, and this is what separates a Cy Young year from a good year.
btw, from ,
http://www.cbc.ca/sports/baseball/story/2010/07/27/spf-fantasy-baseball.html
“Carl Pavano is an excellent example of a pitcher who likely won’t win the Cy Young”
7 complete games… only 4 of which he managed to pitch 9 innings. (the rest being 8 inning losses)
And he got lit up in the ALDS… he was fortunate to only have given up 4ER in 6 innings given the number of line drives and flyballs he was giving up in that game.
Let’s not go overboard on Pavano…. decent pitcher, but at this point a #3 at best on a decent team (maybe a #2 on a lesser team)
I don’t understand, the Twins won their division and he was their #1 pitcher for the season and #2 for the playoffs. Are you saying that a team that went 94-68 is “lesser?”
I also don’t understand the idea of judging a pitcher by a few games. Should I conclude Lee is a terrible pitcher because of his WS performance?
HI GUYS!! REMEMBER ME?
Doesn’t his status as a #2 or a #3 depend entirely on which team picks him up this winter? Isn’t it a bit of a non-issue?
I disagree with the closing point. I dont think that the contracts that have been handed out so far imply that Pavano will get his extra year. Garland certainly didnt get extra years guaranteed. It is unclear to me which players you are refering to as having received extra years. If Crawford gets 8 years, Dunn 4, Soriano 4, Beltre 5, and Lee 7 then I would say that players are getting guaranteed extra years. That said, I think that at this point we are seeing players get pretty standard contracts and I would say that I think the signing so far have been relatively prudent from the teams perspective (not including Benoit).
At the end of the day, I do think that it is likely many players (as is usual) will be guaranteesd too many years, but I dont think that anyone can make that case so far.
Pavano is a really tough case. It is hard for me to imagine a teams giving up their 1st round pick for the “privelege” of paying him $25M – $30M for 3 years. I imagine he goes to a team that has already signed a bigger Type A or a team that has a protected 1st rounder. Doent rule out Oakland, the Angels, and the Nationals. And at this point, nothing that Detroit does can suprise me.
By the way, the big question here is how do the Twins compete next year. They are losing 3 strong relievers (Guerrier, Crain, and Rauch), Pavano, and Hudson. They are adding… Joe Nathan (assuming he is healthy) and the Japanesse 2B (he is clearly going to disappoint with the stick and his defense is already considered subpar). I am not sure how that translates into another AL Central Championship. Detroit (dispite not spending their money perfectly) is definately getting better and still in the market to spend more (talking about an OF or SP). The White Sox are taking their time so far, but they are likely to be players for a couple of big free agents and they have a deep rotation and a strong bullpen (even without Jenks). The lineup is weaker without Konerko, but he seems more likely to resign than leave and if he does leave, they will surely spend that money on one of the other strong 1Bs on the market. They might lose Pierzynski, but how good is Pierzynski? I thought with the signing of Mauer and they new stadium we were going to see a more agressive posture on free agents.
Sorry to change the subject.
They might not lose all of those relievers. Also, the Twins churn out pitchers like Pavano every year. Nondescript strike throwers with mediocre stuff and low BB rates. They’ll just replace him with another Kevin Bakerburn
http://ducksonthepondkid.wordpress.com/2011/01/09/poll-carl-pavano/
I hate having carl pavano on my team
but he is a fine major league pitcher. He’s a classic case of more value in real baseball than the fantasy world
-w