Should you’re a Milwaukee Brewers fan, you most likely know the amount and high quality of Colin Rea’s work the previous two seasons. Final season, solely 58 pitchers certified for the ERA title, and Rea was amongst them. Over the previous two seasons, Rea is second amongst Brewers pitchers in begins, innings, wins, and strikeouts, trailing solely Freddy Peralta in these classes.
Should you’re not a Brewers fan, you may need seen the information that Rea signed with the Cubs and thought, “Oh, is that this man the Padres tried to commerce with a torn UCL? Is he again from Japan?”
In an offseason outlined by the shortage of beginning pitching, it’s a bit jarring to see a starter signal for one yr and $5 million. Particularly one who simply threw 167 2/3 innings in 2024. There aren’t sufficient of these guys in the whole league for each group to have two. Roughly 15 instances as many individuals summited Mt. Everest in 2024 as certified for the most important league ERA title. And Rea obtained simply $5 million? What offers?
Let’s say you wish to signal a beginning pitcher to a one-year contract. Which is all of the Cubs actually need, if we’re being trustworthy. They let Kyle Hendricks stroll, however in addition they introduced over Cody Poteet within the Cody Bellinger commerce; after I wrote about that deal again in December, I discussed that the Cubs didn’t actually appear to wish Poteet all that a lot.
With the caveat that you may by no means have an excessive amount of beginning pitching, Chicago’s rotation does appear fairly deep. The Cubs are returning 4 pitchers who threw 130 or extra innings final yr; a few of them — Justin Steele, Shota Imanaga, possibly Jameson Taillon — are fairly good. I don’t assume there’s a bona fide ace in there, however you can begin these guys in a playoff recreation.
Talking of beginning playoff video games, the Cubs additionally added lefty Matthew Boyd. The veteran made solely eight regular-season begins in 2024, however he took the rubber in three postseason video games for the Guardians. By the way, the Cubs’ rotation collectively has the identical playoff file as 2024 Boyd — three begins, zero wins — throughout the previous seven seasons.
Add in Javier Assad — whom I really like, at the same time as I enter 12 months Three of ready for the opposite shoe to drop — and there’s your five-man rotation. And if any of these guys get harm or overlook methods to throw strikes, Chicago has one other rotation’s value of depth, starting from guys who personal a glove and have presumably seen a jar of giardiniera in individual (Poteet, Jordan Wicks) to precise prospects like Cade Horton.
Would signing somebody like Jack Flaherty make the Cubs higher? Actually. Sufficient to justify the expense for a group that’s apparently keen to battle Kyle Tucker for the final couple million {dollars} in arbitration? In all probability not.
I speculated that Poteet might be as little as tenth on the group’s beginning pitcher depth chart. Rea is healthier, and can possible be larger. However I doubt that Chicago’s Plan A entails Rea matching his 2024 innings complete. As an alternative, he’s an old-school no. 5 starter. Somebody to go five-and-dive as soon as every week, or fill in when damage or fatigue calls for it.
A confirmed front-end starter like Corbin Burnes, Blake Snell, or Max Fried prices within the $200 million vary on this market, and even then all of these guys have query marks. Second-tier starters with playoff expertise price in extra of $20 million a yr, typically on multi-year contracts. To get a beginning pitcher with any form of upside, the worth is a multi-year contract, $15 million a yr, or each. And that appears to contain taking over enormous threat when it comes to damage, age, and/or efficiency. Trevor Williams and Patrick Sandoval obtained multi-year contracts.
If Rea possesses such upside, it’s not instantly apparent to me. He threw six pitches in 2024, and whereas he managed to place all kinds of motion on his varied choices, none of them stood out; PitchingBot rated all of them between 37 and 44 on the 20-80 scouting scale. Baseball Savant had all six pitches inside two runs of common. He managed an opponent wOBA below .250 solely on his sweeper, and a whiff price over 25% solely on his splitter, although hitters slugged .492 general towards that pitch.
The one place Rea excelled was in command and management: He walked simply 6.0% of opponents. Which you can’ve guessed, as a result of guys who throw 92 and don’t miss bats solely get signed to main league contracts in the event that they throw strikes. (Guys who throw 92, don’t miss bats, and stroll a bunch of men are often called actual property brokers.) That 4.29 ERA and 4.75 FIP Rea posted in 2024 are in step with his numbers from 2023, and if he repeats the trick in 2025 I think about everybody can be glad.
That isn’t all that attention-grabbing in a vacuum, but it surely’s yet one more illustration of how costly competent beginning pitching has grow to be.
A group that wishes a no. 5 starter — or a no. 6 starter, given the form of recent pitcher utilization — will discover itself in a little bit of a bind. Mainly anybody with the capability to be greater than a no. 5 starter, if not homegrown, could have the leverage to demand an even bigger position and the wage that comes with it. You’ll be able to nonetheless discover a replacement-level pitcher fairly simply, however the starter who’s just a bit bit higher than that? To paraphrase the nice English poet Yusuf Islam: The primary win above substitute is the most costly.
Thus far this offseason, 15 beginning pitchers who appeared within the majors final yr have signed one-year free agent contracts. Right here they’re, together with chosen 2024 stats and their projected 2025 WAR.
Innings Are Costly, Even in Bulk
So except you wish to stand vigil on the lighthouse ready for Adrian Houser to place all of it collectively, that is the market. And hey, a method to take a look at it’s that Rea was higher than Justin Verlander final season, in a a lot larger quantity, and the Cubs obtained him for a 3rd of what the Giants paid Verlander. You recognize what? Let’s take a look at it that approach. That looks like enjoyable.
