Loading ...Rosecrans reports that Bronson has also agreed to a contract extension through 2010, with a club option for 2011. Basically, the deal adds $25M for the extra 2+ years.
I’m happy they locked him up, but I’m not as sold on Arroyo as I am on Harang. I see him as a lot less likely to be a $12M pitcher three years down the road. I’m very surprised he agreed to stick around Cincinnati for so long.
UPDATE (by Chad): From the Reds.com story:
The Reds on Thursday completed a two-step commitment to their top starting pitchers by signing All-Star right-hander Bronson Arroyo to a two-year contract extension through 2010 with a club option for 2011.
Coupled with the signing of Aaron Harang, who agreed to a four-year, $36.5 million deal on Tuesday, the Reds assured themselves of having the right-handed duo in their rotation for at least the next four seasons and possibly five.Arroyo’s deal is worth at least $25 million. The club option would bring the total to $33.07 million, including the possible buyout.
Kudos to Krivsky on this one, as far as I’m concerned. I agree that Arroyo is not as likely as Harang to be worth the money in the long run, but you have to have pitching, and the Reds now have two above-average pitchers locked up. That goes a long way toward getting the Reds near respectability, at least.
Another update (by Bill) from the AP:
His extension calls for a $2.5 million signing bonus, payable in 2008, and salaries of $9.5 million in 2009 and $11 million in 2010.
Cincinnati has an $11 million option for 2011 with a $2 million buyout. The price of the option can escalate to $13 million, based on innings.
As part of the extension, Arroyo agreed to eliminate a clause that could have increased his 2008 salary by $325,000 if he pitched 210 innings this year, and $325,000 in possible performance bonuses in 2008.
Shock of the world. Wow-wee. Cousin’ Phil musta had a great year with watermelons and mixed veggies.
I agree that this is surprising. A friend of mine drums for Bronson in his band and I’ve heard every indication that he would like more than anything to get back to his hometown of Boston.
This could be a wonderful deal, this could be a HUGE setback…as Chris says, I’m not as sold on Arroyo as I am on Harang. Arroyo’s had one great year, let’s hope it wasn’t a career year.
I like this deal. You gotta figure the going rate for horses will be far in excess of $12 mil by 2011. Certainly it’s risky, injuries happen, but that’s the risk you run as a small market team attempting to lock in your costs. BTW, I want to say thanks to Redleg Nation for helping to make this offseason fly by. It’s a credit to all the hard work you guys do. While I may not be a frequent commenter, not a workday goes by that I don’t check in to see what’s what. Keep it up.
I’m very surprised. He was already locked down at less than $4 mil per year for the next two years…which seems like plenty of time to see if his 2006 performance (an outlier in his career to this point) will be repeatable. To me it seems risky and unnecessary to extend the deal two years even farther, but on the other hand, who knows what the behind-the-scenes dynamics are with a guy who had often made it clear that his heart belonged to Boston.
I’m not opposed to extending Arroyo’s deal but I feel the Reds overpaid. In my opinion Arroyo had a career year due to the switch from the AL to the NL. I find it hard to believe NL hitters won’t figure him out. I also find it hard to believe he will be worth that much money in 2010 and 2011.
I really like this signing.
I think his pitching smarts help to hedge any downside (I’ve heard comments from Narron and other baseball people about how he impresses them with how he “knows how to pitch”). I also like that he has had a lot of experience pitching under pressure with the Red Sox and is pretty resilient.
I don’t think $12 million is that risky, either. $12 million doesn’t buy much even in today’s market – Ted Lilly and Gil Meche both received contracts in that range this offseason.
With Harang and Homer Bailey, they should have a solid 1-3 for the rest of the decade. Now they can focus on the closer position and adding a some offense.
here’s my take: as soon as arroyo got traded he was pissed he signed a deal for half off, and made it clear to the reds that he’d like to restructure it or he’d be walking at his earliest convenience.
After a season of good pitching, the reds started working on it, and basically signed him to a 4 year 33 million deal, just below what harang got.
Is he worth that? Certainly on the open market he would have gotten more than that, and it does seem to be more in line with his value than 4 mil per.
Thing is, i don’t know that i want him for 4 more years, and since he really had no leverage in the situation except to say that he wanted out, i think i would have let him pitch below market value for 2 more years with the understanding that it was probably all i was going to get from him.
That siad, the prospect of having him harang and bailey all for the next 4+ years isn’t really a bad thing. the new big 3?
Reds fans probably shouldn’t be comparing this deal to Harang’s deal. Harang did the Reds a huge favor by signing his deal at a rate far below the current market. We should all be thankful for that.
I also am not sold on Arroyo repeating anything near what he did last season. We will see how it plays out.
I updated the post above with the Reds.com story, but I wanted to repeat my comments here:
Kudos to Krivsky on this one, as far as I\’m concerned. I agree that Arroyo is not as likely as Harang to be worth the money in the long run, but you have to have pitching, and the Reds now have two above-average pitchers locked up. That goes a long way toward getting the Reds near respectability, at least.
I think it\’s a perfectly defensible move.
Everybody is looking fer pitching and I can’t think of a team in baseball that would have turned down the chance to acquire Arroyo. If not for the bullpen and defense he would have won 20 games last year. And his three-year track shows he’s getting better the more he’s in the rotation instead of swinging back and forth to the bullpen.
Put Arroyo on the open market today and he gets $12 mil – $15 mil a year.
I think al’s insight is dead on – Arroyo was annoyed (and rightfully so) that he signed below-market with Boston and then was immediately traded. Krivsky has likely been mulling this over since last May, as a way to keep Arroyo satisfied with playing for the team that traded for him (as opposed to a team he could choose).
I like Arroyo and watching him pitch is marvelous when he’s working it with varying speeds and arm slots. And he was one of the most valuable pitchers in the league last year (Cy Young voting notwithstanding). Still a risky move to extend his contract past what he was already signed for, after one very good year that followed several more middling seasons in Boston. We’ll see – I love the best-case scenario for Harang, Bailey, and Arroyo starting 60% of the Reds’ games every year through 2010.
John R.- why shouldn’t we be comparing this to harang, it’s a very similar deal. And harang didn’t do us much of a favor. Did you see the number he put in for arbitration? 5.5 mil i believe.
He wasn’t going to get anything close to what you think his market value was, since he wasn’t on the market. We gave him security, he gave us a couple years of free agency at slightly less than he may have gotten. it’s a gamble on both sides.
and to support my guess, here’s this from espn:
His extension calls for a $2.5 million signing bonus, payable in 2008, and salaries of $9.5 million in 2009 and $11 million in 2010.
Cincinnati has an $11 million option for 2011 with a $2 million buyout. The price of the option can escalate to $13 million, based on innings.
so now arroyo will get 4mil, 6mil, 9.5mil, 11mil, 11/2mil
harang will get 4.25 mil, 6.75mil, 11mil, 12.5mil, 12.75/2 mil.
Interesting with the direct head-to-head salary comparison there, year by year – thanks.
I don’t see what there is to complain about this. Even if Arroyo comes back to earth a little bit, he will end up being worth it, when you consider how insanely expensive pitching is.
With Bailey coming up, we will actually have a stable rotation for the next few years — when was the last time we had that?
Al- I agree that the deals are very similar. However, I don’t think Arroyo is comparable to Harang (hopefully he continues to play at last year’s level and I am wrong).
On Harang’s deal: I just feel that if you look at the ridiculous deals starting pitchers are getting, this is a steal. I would take Harang over Lilly, Suppan, and Meche (all over $10m/year) any day of the week. I would even go so far as to say I would rather have Harang than Zito who is making something like $18m/year for the next 7 years. This is why I am saying the Harang signing was a steal.
Overall, I LOVE the Harang signing and I am skeptical of the Arroyo extension. Although Arroyo is making far below his market value now, I don’t see him being worth over 10million in 2010 and 2011.
Actually with Harang and Arroyo, I don’t think that Krivsky had much of a choice here with the deals that Meche, Lilly, and Suppan signed in the offseason. Both Harang and Arroyo are better than those three and are now signed for less. Great move by Krivsky, although I do agree that the Arroyo move is move risky than the Harang one.
Why are some of you predicting a significant decline in Arroyo, especially in 2010, 2011? He’s only 30 – he should have at least 6 or 7 good years left.
Maybe Big K recognized the fact that he wanted a happy #2 pitcher instead of someone longing for home and poisoning the atmosphere. Even if Bronson isn’t worth the money with his arm, it might interest some free agents in the next couple of years that the starting rotation is pretty set and solid. A big bat might consider coming if he can consider himself the last remaining piece to a perinnial champion. Maybe we didn’t have to pay it, at least right now, but I don’t think it’s such a bad thing. It may pay dividends in other ways. If Homer winds up on the mound this season and Saarloos can show anything at all, I think we will have one of the best rotations in baseball, even if Bronson has a slightly better than mediocre year.
Michael asks: “Why are some of you predicting a significant decline in Arroyo, especially in 2010, 2011? He’s only 30 – he should have at least 6 or 7 good years left.”
I don’t know that anyone actually predicted anything of the sort, but speaking only for myself, my concern about Arroyo comes from the fact that he’s only had one really good season in his entire career. I love his competitive approach, his demeanor, and his delivery – and his stuff’s okay. It’s just a little harder to assume “at least 6 or 7 good years left,” when the guy’s only had two good years under his belt by the age of 30. I like the guy a lot in the short term, but don’t see him as as easy a bet as Harang. Hope that makes sense.
For reasons I can’t see, PECOTA is pretty pessimistic about Arroyo over the next few years. Numbers-wise, I think he looks fine.
I think the structure of the deals was pretty nice, too. Milton’s $9M contract is done this year. Griffey and Dunn (if they prefer) come off the books after next year – the same time Arroyo and Harang start making real money. (Did they really sign Hatteberg through 2008?? That seems excessive.)
Oh, that’s just a team option.
The Reds needed this. I too am still a little shakey on Arroyo, but this sends a message that Mr C wasn’t just shooting a line of bull when he said he’s pull out the wallet if he needed to.
I’m also a little suprised that Arroyo has agreed to stay in Cincy. I was of the opinion that he planned to get out of the small market as quickly as he could. I guess 25mil will tend to change your outlook.
Hatteberg would’ve hit the open market after last season if they only offered him another one year deal. We need him this year, not so much next. He and Votto can be like Benzinger and Morris, then he’ll ride off into the sunset and play for someone like Tampa Bay.