The Mets would end up looking for a new nearer or senior assist if they lost Edwin Díaz to an free hand. He was baseball’s top reliever last year, 3 WAR by methods from both major sites, and his .90 FIP was the fourth lowest this century for a pitcher with at least 50 IP. He is great. The Mets’ decision to give him five years and $100 million is anything but.
Díaz’s season was incredible, but aides who do it just don’t replicate it. The three players who had lower FIPs than Díaz all saw their FIPs go up a full run over the next year. Eric Gagné never matched that level of dominance again. Aroldis Chapman was still elite over the next two years, just not as much as in his peak season, and then dropped to just above average. The third, Craig Kimbrel, did it again five years later and then fell over the cliff.
The list of this century’s best relief seasons is full of good pitchers who had their prime and never got there, as well as some mayfly types. Almost nobody has held something similar to this type of performance for more than three consecutive years. Even those who achieved three years in a row did so before the free hand.
Only five pitchers this millennium have pitched at least 50 innings with a FIP below 2.5 for four or five straight years: Kimbrel 2011-14, Greg Holland 2011-14, Kenley Jansen 2013-17, Chapman 2012-16 and Andrew Miller 2014-17. (Pedro Martínez did, too, if you needed more reasons to worship at that altar.) Miller is the only one of those acolytes to have done any of these during the years covered by a free-agent contract. All were significantly worse in the five years following these excellence runs.
In this century, by my count, 20 four- or five-year contracts have been handed over to free-agent reliefs, not counting the new deal for Díaz. Jansen, Chapman and BJ Ryan were given five-year contracts, with the rest all four years. One of the deals, Raisel Iglesias’, is still ongoing at 1.6 WAR in his first year – although most of that came after the team that signed him, the Angels, dropped him and the Atlanta contract midway through the first year had left. Jansens and Chapmans followed immediately after the end of those five-year periods I mentioned above.
Of the other 19, nine resulted in 4 WAR or less from the pitcher over the course of the deal, regardless of teams. They include Brett Cecil (down-0.5), Justin Speier (0.8), Drew Pomeranz (1.8 and out through injury for the entire third year) and Scott Linebrink (1.8). Only three of the deals resulted in an average WAR of at least 2: the Kimbrel deal originally signed with the Padres, the Miller deal with the Yankees, and Mariano Rivera’s 2001-2004 contract. This Rivera deal is the only four or five year contract given to a helper who has produced at least 10 WARs over the course of the business. One of 19, and he’s among the greatest short-release players the game has ever seen. do you feel happy Certainly not me.
I’m thrilled for Díaz, whose path to riches hasn’t been straight forward: he failed as a starter in the minors, switched to pen, exploded in the majors, went to the Mets in a deal that many people scoffed at (for reasons unrelated him) and then had a miserable first season in Queens. He was baseball’s best assist this year and should be easily the best assist available in the free hand. We can certainly view this as back pay for the years he was severely underpaid by baseball’s regressive salary structure. It’s great for him.
But for the Mets, this is the kind of lavish spending they should avoid. All of modern baseball history says this deal won’t work for them. There’s a likely 25 percent chance the deal will be a disaster, which to Díaz’s credit, he’s been better in his platform year than most backup pitchers who have previously received four- or five-year free agency deals, though the contracts for Jansen (five years, 6.4 WAR), Billy Wagner (four years, 5.3 WAR, just 0.1 last year) and Chapman (five years, 6 WAR) did not fare as well for the contract clubs with Jansen and Chapman both come from five years of peak performance and constant workload. Wagner’s deal was with the same franchise.
I suppose everyone wants to believe that this time will be different. I just don’t think turning your nose up at history is good business. The base rate for relievers is that they don’t last – if you look at them over a four-year period, they’ll either get hurt, lose effectiveness, or both. As much as I enjoy watching Díaz on the pitch, I see no reason to believe he’s the exception to one of the clearest baseline odds we have in our sport. Emergency workers should be paid better at peak times, but four-year free agent contracts are the riskiest investment we have.
(Photo: Frank Franklin II / Associated Press)