Archie Griffin: Credit Where Credit Is Due
April 10, 2008Jake Westbrook, role model
April 10, 2008As reported by Paul Hoynes of the Plain Dealer, Fausto Carmona will sign a 4 year deal, with club options for 3 more seasons, keeping the young pitcher in Cleveland through 2014 possibly. The Indians didn’t wait long in seeing if Fausto was going to be the same pitcher he was last year. After only one start, and a dominant one at that, Tribe GM Mark Shapiro wanted to lock up this potential ace. This is becoming standard procedure for the Indians, who locked up Jake Westbrook and Travis Hafner at the beginning of the season last year.
Certainly the Indians have made a habit of signing young players to long-term deals. The trend started with GM John Hart and young stars in the making Sandy Alomar, Carlos Baerga, and Charlie Nagy. It continued with Jim Thome, Manny Ramirez and C.C. Sabathia. While Ramirez and Thome eventually left for bigger deals, they were locked up long enough to become the Indians 1st and 2nd all time home run hitters.
Carmona was brilliant last year for the Indians. His sinker was described by Tori Hunter last year as unfair. When asked who he would pay to watch, Fausto was the only pitcher mentioned-
“I could watch this guy pitch every day. His ball sinks like no other. He throws 93, 94 and can get it to 97. He’s right there with Francisco Liriano, talent wise. He’s going to be around for a while.”
You know the numbers for Carmona. You know that he came within a start of winning last year’s ERA title. We all know that he was in the top 5 last season at inducing the double play ball. What we wanted to see was Fausto do it again, and it appears that he is up to the task. The deal will likely replace the one he’s currently under, meaning a shopping trip is probably in store for the young man after the Indians press conference to announce the contract at 3pm today. You might want to check out the local car dealers early this evening. Wouldn’t surprise me to see Fausto rewarding himself with a purchase. Why not, he deserves it.
UPDATE: The financials have been disclosed-
The deal is worth a guaranteed $15 million over four years. If the Indians exercise all three options, it would be worth $43 million and could go as high as $48 million with escalators.
According to sources, the guaranteed portion of the contract matches the largest ever given to a starting pitcher before he was eligible for salary arbitration. The $15 million is the largest guaranteed contract ever given to a pitcher with just one full season as a starter in the big leagues.
That is a little more than I expected to see, but certainly not out of the realm of resonable. If the Indians are going to be the prime players in signing young guys to long term deals (as they have been), then they will probably continue to up the ante for what these young guys are worth. Better to pay Fausto $45 million over the next 7 years than see him become a free agent in three and earn $90-100 million.
3 Comments
Will Eduardo Perez go with him to talk to the salesman? Nice deal by the Tribe, I just hope this doesn’t mean that he’ll be going on innings-pitched watch…
And for some reason, I’m thinking this doesn’t mean good things for Sabathia’s stay in Cleveland…
Honestly, I don’t think this will have any effect on Sabathia at all. I say that because this is the way that the Indians operate. This is Fausto’s first decent money deal. He was on the league minimum before. Cc got the same treatment when he was young, so did Jake. Grady and Victor got the same type of deal.
If word comes out that this deal is for something more than what Jake got I’d be surprised. The Indians had all the leverage on this one. Fausto wasn’t owed anything for 2 years I think, and by giving him this new deal he gets a few million to play with this year and next, and in exchange they get him for 7 years.