The Kansas City Royals signed left-hander Jason Vargas to an unexpectedly long four-year contract Thursday, solidifying their rotation for 2014 and beyond.
Terms: Four years, $32 million (via Yahoo’s Jeff Passan and FOX Sports’ Ken Rosenthal)
2013 stats: 4.02 ERA, 150 innings, 109 strikeouts, 46 walks, 162 hits, 17 home runs, 1.8 wins above replacement
Draft implications: Not linked to draft pick compensation
Analysis: On the one hand a four-year deal seems excessive for a pitcher whose ERA has been better than league average just once (he posted a 3.78 ERA as a member of the Seattle Mariners in 2010). But teams don’t evaluate players based solely on ERA these days, so neither will we.
Make no mistake, Vargas is not a front-of-the-rotation starter. Yet he’s capable of pitching 200 league average innings on an annual basis. He’s durable and could have logged 200 innings for the third consecutive time were it not for a blood clot in his arm that required surgery and forced him to the sidelines for two months.
That kind of contribution is worth paying for, and middle-of-the-rotation starters often earn $13-15 million these days. By way of comparison, Kyle Lohse, Ted Lilly and Jorge de la Rosa obtained three-year, $33 contracts in recent years. Vargas gets one more year than those starters but he’ll earn just $8 million per season — not an exorbitant amount in today’s game. In terms of average annual value, back-of-the-rotation starters Joe Saunders and Joe Blanton signed for comparable $8 million salaries last winter.
This contract could be viewed as good news for Matt Garza and Phil Hughes. Not only does this deal reflect healthy demand for free agent starters, Garza and Hughes have the same agent as Vargas (Nez Balelo of CAA Sports).
Roster impact: James Shields leads a Royals rotation that recently lost Ervin Santana to free agency. Vargas joins Shields, Jeremy Guthrie and a number of question marks on Kansas City’s starting staff. Danny Duffy, Wade Davis and Yordano Ventura are among the candidates to round out the rotation, but it’s too early to rule out further reinforcements.
GM Dayton Moore has now started addressing one of his biggest off-season needs. The Royals will improve their chances of matching 2013’s 86-76 record if they manage to add a second baseman and a corner outfielder before opening day.
Meanwhile, the Los Angeles Angels must turn elsewhere for rotation help and the chances of Santana returning to K.C. appear to have gotten a little slimmer.
All things considered: The Royals spent more than expected to bolster their rotation with a pitcher who’s solid but not dominant. Vargas does well to obtain four years, setting the stage for other free agent pitchers in the process.
General manager: Dayton Moore
Agency: CAA Sports (Nez Balelo)
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