Free Agency Starting Pitching: The Death Rattle

12/24/19 - Jay Sheehy - Founder and Editor-In-Chief 10:58 AM PST

The signings of Dallas Keuchel (Chicago White Sox) and Hyun-Jin Ryu (Toronto Blue Jays) signals the end of top notch pitching on the free agent market. Keuchel’s three year, $55.5 million deal (with a vesting fourth year for $18.5 million) signals the White Sox are shooting for the playoffs in 2020. Ryu fared even better than his left-handed counterpart, when he signed his four year, $80 million deal with the Blue Jays. While Toronto is most likely another year away from competing in the gauntlet that is the AL East, signing Ryu shores up what looks to be a very young and inexperienced pitching staff.

As I wrote a few days ago, I wouldn’t have went four years for Ryu. I just don’t see it paying off due to the innings he’ll end up pitching, though hopefully it does because he’s an amazing pitcher and I always like seeing the AL East beat up on itself. $20 million per season makes sense given what Ryu does when he is healthy. Ditto for Keuchel in that he was bound to get $15-20 million per season given his ability to give you six plus innings per start with a sub-four ERA. While it would have been nice for the Los Angeles Angels to acquire either one of these pitchers, it was probably best to sit out at those contract lengths and price points.

Thus, the signing of Ryu and Keuchel effectively ends the Angels ability to improve their pitching staff through the free agent market. No, Homer Bailey will not improve their staff (He has a 5.56 ERA over 77 starts since the beginning of the 2015 season). Ditto Ivan Nova, and the recently arrested Rich Hill (who is also currently injured). There are some interesting gambles left in free agency, but that is not a route the Angels need to take as they have enough in-house gambles to focus on.

There are still quite a few pitchers available who have produced value in years past, but nothing that betters the Angels 2020 chances. So while the Homer Bailey/Ivan Nova/Rich Hill/Collin McHugh/Andrew Cashner (is he still a starter?)/Jason Vargas (same question)/Aaron Sanchez/Matt Moore/Tommy Milone/Jeremy Hellickson types of the world are still available, the top end market has finally closed this off-season. (I didn’t do the math on this because it’s far too close to Christmas to become overly depressed, but if I had to wager I would bet that any five of those pitchers would combine for a better WAR than the Angels starters had in 2019…[deep sigh] I’m going to go spike the eggnog now).