Astros close to extending Wagner to...

i think this is right in line with the other premier closers in the league, band geek...he could easily get this and more elsewhere.

 

I wish he had gotten this elsewhere. I like Wagner, but $9MM for a guy who pitches 1 inning in less than half your games is just ridiculous. That kind of contract is fine if you're the NYY, but with a limited budget, $9MM could be much better used elsewhere.

 

that's not comparable, band geek...that's not the way agents in baseball negotiate...you can't look at the worth of a pitcher and extrpolate out the worth of an outfielder. berkman will be compared to other OF's around the league who have similar skills.

 

Dotel could have done the same job at half the cost. Move Redding into Dotel's role. Personally, the fact that Wags K's have gone down worry me.

 

the fact he converted on 41 of 43 save attempts last year reassures me.

 

This from the story on Yahoo!:


"One of the game's hardest throwers despite his <b>lanky</b>
5-11 frame, Wagner had 39 saves in 1999 while going 4-1 with a 1.57 ERA in 66 games. Wagner was Houston's 1993 first-round pick and was a starter in the minor leagues until 1996."


What the hell? This is the second time I've seen Wagner referred to as "lanky" in a news story. I just looked it up on Websters.com and the word means "ungracefully tall and thin". First off, 5'11" is not exactly tall in the world of professional sports and secondly those huge thighs that he uses to power that fastball would disqualify him from being thin.

 

<B>the fact he converted on 41 of 43 save attempts last year reassures me.</B>

The saves might have been there, but he's allowing more baserunners, higher slugging, fewer strikeouts, higher ERA, more walks, etc, etc. All the peripheral numbers were mediocre this year. This is Simms all over again -- eventually, those things will come back to bite him. Something like 6 consecutive postseason blown-saves doesn't say much either.

That said, hopefully 2001 was a result of not being 100% a year after injury. If he can gain his 1999 form, this won't be a terrible -- although still not good, in my opinion -- signing. If he keeps doing what he did last year, I would have much rather spent the money on 3 high quality $3MM relievers (1 or 2 yr contracts). That leaves us more flexibility & a deeper & stronger bullpen.

 

Major -- to me that's like putting as asterisk next to the rockets championships..."yeah...sure he converted every time we handed them ball except two times....but it just didn't look good!" that's a ridiculous standard in my opinion. the guy gets the job done as well or better than anyone in the league. I love Dotel, but I love the combination of he and Wagner more than Dotel by himself.


The other thing that's funny to me is how people complain if Drayton doesn't spend money...then they come on here and b**** when he keeps one of the best relievers in the game and pays him market value to do so. He's damned if he does and damned if he doesn't.

 

Ugh... when Drayton spends money he doesn't spend it very wisely does he? Bagwell signed his deal a few years ago at $16 mil/year and Giambi (who is younger and better right now) signs for $17mil a year this year. Anyone think Bagwell could have gotten $16 mil this year on the open market? Hellllll no.

The problem I have with giving Wagner that much money is that he's inflexible while Dotel is Mr Flexible. Wagner rarely pitches more than one inning a la Robb Nen/Mariano Rivera, and seemingly always comes in with nobody on base. I think the numbers Wagner puts up are a little overrated compared to how other closers are used.

 

I don't believe it's as simple as saying a guy doesn't play everyday, so he shouldn't make as much money. the guy fills a roll which, by definition, means he won't play everyday...but it does not diminish the importance of the role to a team. teams with good closers win more games than teams without good closers.

what if dotel was a flash in the pan last season??? are you really ready to write off one of the top 5 closers in the game on a whim like that?? if you are, please tell me you're not one of the guys who wanted to keep Alou!!!

 

How can you guys be so down on this signing? It's really not a question of spending money on Wagner, or spending it on a different player. It's a matter of spending it on Wagner or leaving the cash in Drayton's pocketbook. Look at the free agents the Stros have let leave - did they invest the savings elsewhere?

Yes, I think Dotel could hold down the closer's role in the pen. I also think that the bullpen is a very important part of the team, and having two solid closers helps alot, especially since the rest of the pen looks suspect. I worry some about Wagner's postseason performances and his good-but-not-great ERA, but keeping him unquestionably makes this team better.

My only complaint is that no deal was reached with Berkman yet. The Astros under no circumstances can afford to lose him.

Timing: As far as the Giambi comparisons, Bagwell is right there in the same class. He is without question one of the three or four elite hitters in the game today.

 

Tell me, Max. If we lose Berkman, Miller, or Oswalt when their contracts come up, will you still think that this was a good signing? This is 8-9 million that could be used on players who are inarguably more valuable.

Sure, closers have important roles, but we know Dotel is a good pitcher. I am quite confident that Dotel's last season was not a flash in the pan. In fact, I am just as confident in that as I am that Wagner will be pretty good, but not as good as his contract warrants. If Wagner truly IS making 9 million a year, then he is representing about 15% of what Drayton will spend this next year.

Does that sound correct? Others have brought up the excellent point. Closers have the added pressure of winning the game and getting the final outs, but Billy often pitches only 1 inning a game and comes in with no runners on base. His situation is an enviable one, and one that I have no doubt that Dotel could have filled easily, for much less.

But, like BGM said, if we somehow manage to keep all of our young players, either by them taking less than market value or McClane spending more, then I have no problem with this signing.

But I have a BAD feeling that one of the 3 that I mentioned above (Berkman, Oswalt, Miller, and maybe others) will be gone as a direct result of this money being spent in an ill-advised manner.

 

<B>I don't believe it's as simple as saying a guy doesn't play everyday, so he shouldn't make as much money. the guy fills a roll which, by definition, means he won't play everyday...but it does not diminish the importance of the role to a team. teams with good closers win more games than teams without good closers. </B>

A team pitches, in total, about 1400-1500 innings a year. Wagner will pitch about 50 of them (or about 3%). This isn't about whether its better to have a good closer than not to. It's about spending about 15% of your total allowed payroll on one player whose total contribution is 3% of the pitching half of the game. Yes, they are certainly important innings, but any pitcher who has an ERA in the 2-3 range is going convert a high % of their save opportunities.

<B>Major -- to me that's like putting as asterisk next to the rockets championships..."yeah...sure he converted every time we handed them ball except two times....but it just didn't look good!" that's a ridiculous standard in my opinion. the guy gets the job done as well or better than anyone in the league. </B>

No, it's about projecting future success. Saves is one measure of performance. ERA, strikeouts, avg against, slugging against, walks, etc are all supplementary measures. ALL of those are much worse for Wagner post-injury, and worse than most other elite closers. Bottom line, he's not pitching as well as he did pre-injury, and eventually, Wagner will get hurt by it (unless this is part of the recovery process).

To simplify, if you had two closers, one who pitched 50 innings and gave up no baserunners (ERA of 0.00) and one who pitched 50 innings and gave up lots of baserunners but managed to get out of jams quite often (also ERA of 0.00), who's the better pitcher? I say it's clearly the first one, and projecting future success, the latter is more likely to get burned by playing with fire. That's Wagner right now, in my opinion.

Bottom line is that I think $24-$27MM is a bad investment if you have limited resources.

 

Raven -- I don't think the signing of those young guys will be affected at all by this signing. this is a 2 year deal (at 8 mill per year) with a club option for a third year. berkman will be next year's priority, and i have no doubt that he will be an astro for many years to come.

Major -- I don't believe you can look at a percentage of innings pitched and get the worth of a closer. generally your closer is pitching in close and late situations....those innings should be more greatly weighed in importance...and they are!! that's why wagner is in there in the 9th and ron villone isn't.

I'm just not as convinced as everyone else that Wagner is about to explode and Dotel is Cy Young. Wagner, to me, has been stable for many years...Dotel has had one good season.

Again...I think it's hilarious when people b**** that Drayton never opens the purse strings and then find a way to b**** when he does. Sam is right...Wagner was priority one for this team during the offseason this year...we are not jeopardizing the team by doing so...most of you wanted to pay Alou around this much, anyway.

 

Wagner may be a great closer and important to the Astros, but I don't think any RP or closer is worth more than maybe $5 million a year. <b> A team does not need an all-star closer to get to the World Series. </b> The Astros have a lot of young budding stars like Berkman, Oswalt, Miller, Redding, and Hernandez that are evenually going to want to get paid the big bucks. There is no way we will be good if we lose these guys, or maybe even just 2-3 of them.

The Astros are not the Yankees, and Drayton Mcclain isn't a big spender, so we need to save as much money as we can to re-sign these young stars. I like Wagner as much as any other Astros fan, but we could easily slide Dotel into the closers role, and go out and find another solid set-up man for at least half the price of what we would be paying Wagner.