How have last winter’s high-priced arms worked out?
This was triggered by a discussion with Dano in Sunday’s Gameday Thread, while the Diamondbacks were blowing another late lead. He suggested telling Mike Hazen, “Spend some money to build a competitive bullpen with some actual depth and proven track records. That’s just about the one thing you haven’t tried yet.” To be fair, I mentioned that in 2022 Hazen paid $10.5 million to Mark Melancon and Ian Kennedy. Who combined for seventeen losses, -1.9 bWAR and an ERA of 4.99. But it is true that those weren’t genuine top-end signings. “He kind of half-assed it,” said Dano. “Don’t do it on the cheap. Try spending some actual competitive money.”
But is it worth it? Relievers are infamous for their volatility, and we’ve all seen closers who go from elite to dumpster fire from one season to the next. The only thing consistent about bullpen arms is their inconsistency. Of the dozen pitchers who notched 30 saves in 2023, just three – Emmanuel Clase, Josh Hader and Raisel Iglesias – repeated the feat in 2024. Injury and/or ineffectiveness claimed three-quarters of the best closers. So I understand Hazen’s reluctance to commit. Even mid-tier signings can backfire. Melancon was signed coming off an All-Star season in 2021. But he then sucked in 2022 and missed the entirety of 2023 with a shoulder strain. Arizona ended up paying him $14 million for 56 innings of below-average work.
To try and get past the anecdotal, I decided to try and crunch the numbers for the big-ticket relievers signed last winter. How have they done, now we are into the second half of the season? I used the list of signed relief pitchers off Spotrac. Though I discarded Clay Holmes, since he has been converted to a starter (with great success, I must say) by the Mets. I drew a cut-off point to include only those whose contracts had an Average Annual Value (AAV) of ! than Melancon’s $6 million in 2022. That gave me fourteen freshly-signed relievers, all eager to impress fans of their teams on Opening Day in March. How have they done?
Here’s a table, showing the AAV of their new contract, along with their ERA and bWAR, first for this year, and then for 2024. Stats are through June 29.
My first reaction is, who thought some of those contracts were a good idea to begin with? I get that Jose Leclerc was a good reliever in 2022-23, but his FIP over those two seasons was close to a run above his actual ERA. He regressed to replacement level in 2024, but still got the Athletics to fork over $10 million [and it’s far from the worst contract Sacramento they gave a pitcher…] Jordan Romano might be worst still. Initially ineffective, he was shut down in July in had elbow surgery. Toronto non-tendered him. But he ended up getting more than the projected arbitration salary from the Phillies. And he has been worst still. And it’s time for Paul Seawald to… go on the IL, not having pitched since April.
On the other hand, some almost look like bargains. Tommy Kahnle had a very good 2024, and $7.75 million seemed cheap. He has managed to be even better in 2025, though with a FIP over twice his ERA, it may not be sustainable. 37-year-old Aroldis Chapman has, remarkably, returned to the form of a decade ago, holding batters to a .144 average, with 50 strikeouts in 34 innings. Carlos Estevez is another who is living up to his contract. But it’s worth noting that the pitching injury epidemic is no respecter of AAV. More than one-third of these pitchers (five of fourteen) have pitched sixteen or fewer innings, indicating time spent on the Injured List.
If you add it all up, here’s what we find. The average salary in 2025 for this set of pitchers is a hair north of $10 million. They have pitched a total of 337 innings, with a collective ERA of 3.66. That’s perfectly respectable – the relief ERA across baseball this year is 4.07, so they are clearly better than that. It’s also better than anyone bar Shelby Miller, with 10+ innings in the Arizona bullpen this season. However, there are eleven teams whose bullpen ERA is currently lower. It’s also considerably worse than the production of the same relievers last year. Those fourteen pitchers threw 724.2 innings with a glowing 2.82 ERA. It increased 30% from that figure this year.
And that’s the problem: you’re paying for past performance, which is no guarantee of future success – especially for relievers. Paying $10 million for a reliever with a 2.82 ERA would be okay. But doing so for an ERA of 3.66 is certainly less impressive. You can see this by looking at bWAR. In 2024, those pitchers wee worth 18.4 bWAR. At the standard rate of $8 million per win, that comes out at a value of $147.2 million – remarkably close to their 2025 AAV of $146.6 million. But if we double their production so far to get a value for all of 2025, they will be worth less than half as much – they project to be worth 8.8 bWAR, valued at only about $70 million.
So I entirely get why Hazen hasn’t spent big on relief help during his time here. It’s very much a roll of the die with regard to the outcome. Spending $10 million on a hitter, or even a starting pitcher, is a more predictable result. Outside of injury (we know how much we are paying for arms on the injured list), the end result is likely – though it’s absolutely not certain – to be around production from the previous year. Bigger teams, which can afford to take the hit of potentially flushing $10 million down the drain, can risk it. The D-backs, especially in the NL West, have to be more risk averse, and spend smarter, not harder. Unfortunately, Hazen hasn’t had much success with that route either…