Tier 2 of the starting pitching parking garage has officially closed.
More parking is available on Tier 4. Maybe.
Hyun-Jin Ryu became the last of the not-great-but-plenty-good free agent pitchers to find a home, reportedly landing with the Toronto Blue Jays on Sunday night for four years and $80 million, with a full no-trade clause and no opt-outs.
Ryu's reported deal, coming on the heels of Dallas Keuchel's pending-physical agreement with the White Sox, means that the top 15 free agent pitchers on FanGraphs' Top 50 list have found a home.
Let's update the big board:
| Rank | Pitcher | Team | Contract |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Gerrit Cole | Yankees | 9/$324M |
| 3 | Stephen Strasburg | Nationals | 7/$245M |
| 8 | Madison Bumgarner | Diamondbacks | 5/$85M |
| 9 | Zack Wheeler | Phillies | 5/$118M |
| 12 | Dallas Keuchel | WHITE SOX | 3/$55.5M |
| 13 | Hyun-Jin Ryu | Blue Jays | 4/$80M |
| 15 | Kyle Gibson | Rangers | 3/$30M |
| 17 | Jake Odorizzi | Twins | 1/$17.8M |
| 19 | Cole Hamels | Braves | 1/$18M |
| 20 | Michael Pineda | Twins | 2/$20M |
| 28 | Tanner Roark | Blue Jays | 2/$24M |
| 29 | Adam Wainwright | Cardinals | 1/$5M |
| 31 | Rick Porcello | Mets | 1/$10M |
| 32 | Wade Miley | Reds | 2/$15M |
| 36 | Josh Lindblom | Brewers | 3/$9.125M |
| 37 | Rich Hill | ||
| 40 | Gio Gonzalez | WHITE SOX | 1/$5M |
| 41 | Kwang Hyun Kim | Cardinals | 2/$8M |
| 45 | Jordan Lyles | Rangers | 2/$16M |
| 50 | Homer Bailey |
In between the first iteration of this table last week and the update today, Bumgarner, Keuchel, Ryu, Miley, Gonzalez and Kim all found homes, and three things jump out.
- The White Sox landed two in Keuchel and Gonzalez.
- They guaranteed less money compared to neighboring pitchers.
- Starting-pitching starved teams like the Twins and Angels failed to land any of them.
The first item is big, especially given the context of the third item. The Twins might have retained Odorizzi and Pineda, but they lost Gibson and are still seeking a difference-maker to pair with Jose Berríos. They were supposedly in on a number of pitching targets, but the White Sox-Phillies bidding war made Wheeler too rich for their blood, they wouldn't go five years on Bumgarner, and now here's Ryu picking a different cold-weather city.
As for the second point, it's worth tracking over the course of the season whether the White Sox spent smartly on Keuchel, or if they'll get what they paid for. History tilts the needle's initial starting position slightly in favor of the cynical side, but pitchers can be weird, and all the second-tier starters had drawbacks that kept them from being completely comfortable commitments. It's possible Keuchel will be better at managing his vulnerabilities than the others, because he's had a nice career doing just that.
What's important is that the White Sox improved their major-league depth, and without drawing from the precious promising minor-league depth they possess. Jon Heyman sized up the recourse for the teams that missed out on this game of musical chairs:
A lot of those teams have prospects to trade. For instance, in the same Athletic piece where Eno Sarris connected Keuchel and Gonzalez to the White Sox, he paired Minnesota with Colorado in a trade that made Jon Gray a Twin, and they have a fair amount of promising arms to send to the Rockies in return.
In contrast, after trading Steele Walker for Nomar Mazara, the White Sox are down to Jonathan Stiever and guys who haven't reached A-ball before any fat-cutting turns into bone-sawing. Their available payroll space was really their only edge on the competition, and while it might not have been enough to secure their first targets, it was enough to drive up the price for the competition while eventually landing a couple of pitchers who offer considerable help in their own right.
