No Peavy please!
Some thoughts after a totally acceptable 1-2 home series against the Cardinals…
The Brewers have been linked to trading for Jake Peavy to compliment the starting rotation and become this year’s C.C. Sabathia. Actually these articles don’t explicitly mention the Brewers having any interest in Peavy, but simply that people assume the Brewers are frontrunners for the pitcher since he prefers the NL Central out of all other divisions, the Brewers could use another elite pitcher, and the earlier trade the Padres made with the White Sox fell through due to Peavy’s no-trade clause. There’s been no word from anyone in the Brewer front office confirming or denying interest in trading for Peavy although it has been hinted at that Mark Attanasio has the payroll flexibility to add a few extra dollars mid-season to try and push Milwaukee to the playoffs for a second straight year.
Peavy is a soon-to-be 28 year old pitcher with outstanding stuff and fantastic statistics, boasting over his career more than a strikeout an inning and only 430 walks in over 1300 innings pitched. The only season where he had an FIP higher than 3.6 was his 2003 campaign — his first full year in the bigs. So far this year he’s continued his dominating ways as He would be a fantastic addition and result in an addition of approximately 2 wins if Suppan was the odd man out — two wins can mean a whole bunch in whether or not a team makes the playoffs, look at last year — but it would end up handicapping the entire team for years to come.
Peavy’s current contract is not like Sabathia’s was in which we can let him go to free agency at the end of the year. Peavy has a backloaded contract that would pay him on average $16 million/year for the next three years with an absurd $22 million club option in 2013. The Brewers would be on the hook for $15 million in Peavy next year as well as $12.5 million locked into Jeff Suppan. With players like Corey Hard, J.J. Hardy, and Rickie Weeks eligible for arbitration next year, one can assume their salaries are going up and with the only significant salary drop next year being Mike Cameron, spending $27.5 million on a terrible pitcher and a good one when there are better options available will wrap the boa around the franchise’s wallet.
Next year isn’t the only time he would set the franchise back. A $16 million salary in 11 and $17 million in 12 would only further cause too big of a dent in years to come when players’ arbitration cases get them more money and other non-arbitration players are able to increase their salaries. Not to mention free agents that will get more money in an ever-expanding market. Unless we could in turn trade Peavy to someone with the extra money to spend, it’s too big of a hit to our wallets. His contract is too fat.
It’s not even guaranteed Peavy would be pitching then, considering his awful pitching mechanics putting awful stress on his elbow. He’s a giant injury risk and for the costly price he’s paid right now the investment is nowhere near worth it.
I really hope management is able to resist temptation here, it’s really not worth it.