Toronto Blue Jays fans were disappointed this week to hear that the team’s 2015 “Rent-an-Ace”, David Price, has signed a new contract with the Boston Red Sox. The contract is reputedly for 7 years and 217 million dollars. It occurred to me that here was some statistical data worth drilling down into now that I don’t have box scores to look at each day.
First, some assumptions. Major league teams typically have 5 starting pitchers and the schedule is 160 games. So barring injury, a starter will have a chance to pitch 32 times in a regular season. Pitch counts vary by pitcher type and by their success rate, so let’s go with an easy-to-use 100 pitches per game.
Price has started 212 games over the past 7 years so averages 30 starts per year (I’m going to ignore 2008 as he only pitched 14 innings in the majors that season). In those 212 starts he has 104 wins, 56 losses and 52 no decisions. He has pitched 1427 innings, allowed 1252 hits, 547 runs (492 of them earned), for a 3.09 Earned Run Average. He has pitched to 5811 batters and struck out 1360 of them. (For the record, all my stats come from www.baseball-reference.com)
Using these assumptions and historic stats, Price will make 210 starts over the 7 years of this contract. That works out to $1,033,333 per game started and a bit more than $10,000 per pitch. This contract is worth $37,000 per batter faced and $159,000 per strikeout.
So then I looked online. With $37,000, you could buy a 5 bedroom home in Guysborough County, NS. You can buy a vintage 1968 390 HP Safari yellow Corvette coupe for sale in Mississauga, or a 2009 BMW M3, brand new Ram 1500 truck. That money would cover the purchase of a 100 year old vintage Italian violin and a Pernambuco bow to play it with. You can buy a Quiznos franchise in SW Ontario, or a Florida timeshare or a double wide in Mesa Arizona. You can buy 100 sheep from a guy in Kitchener You can buy a 1922 Steinway concert grand piano. Or you could give that much money to UNICEF and they could provide 600 baby blankets, school supplies for 4000 children and 11,600 tetanus, polio and measles vaccines.
If he starts the season well, David Price can buy every one of those items with the money that he will earn by the 3rd inning of his first start of the season.
I’m not saying he’s being paid too much. He has the right to go and negotiate a contract for his services and sell to the highest bidder. And I’m not saying that the Jays should have offered that much (although I think they should have made some kind of an offer).
I’m just saying I do think that this is a lot of money and it’s just possible that professional sports salaries are getting a bit out of hand.
And mostly I’m just saying that I’m glad he didn’t sign with the Yankees.
