The_Hater wrote:Skin Blues wrote:Santoki wrote:
I don't think coming to the conclusion that David Price has pitched anywhere near his $30 million value is deluding oneself but to each his own. I suppose I just expect the 2nd highest paid pitcher in baseball to not have a league average ERA and WHIP near 1.3 (regardless of luck).
You don't expect him to have a league average ERA (albeit in a far above league average innings total), but just because he does, doesn't mean he isn't extremely valuable. He was worth $57M last year, not even including the playoffs. He had quite a bit of ground to give up to still be worth $30M.
And by all accounts, he's still every bit as good as he was last year. I don't think people realize how valuable the top pitchers are. Clayton Kershaw has been worth $44M this season, and played less than half of a season.
By all accounts? Even the values you're using in your posts don't agree with that conclusion.
I'm talking about actual pitching skill, which is repeatable, not looking at ERA in tiny samples. His K% & BB% are virtually identical, his GB% is actually higher. He's not a worse pitcher just because of a spike in HR/FB rate which is for all intents and purposes random, as is BABIP and LOB%. In actual repeatable pitching skills, he is the same pitcher as last year. His SIERA is 0.20 points higher, xFIP is 0.05 points higher, and ERA is 1.89 points higher. Guess which 2 of those 3 are far and away the best predictors of true talent in a sample this small, and which 1 of those 3 indicates that Kyle Hendricks is the best healthy pitcher in baseball. I know this place loves to overreact to small samples, but please, this is one of the elite pitchers in the game.