Excellent. Given the fact that the market was basically bereft of good starting pitching, I thought Carl Pavano would either get overpaid by the Twins, or he would get signed to a big deal by some team and net the Twins a draft pick.
Neither happened.
Instead, Pavano will end up being dramatically underpaid. Thankfully for all of us Twins fans, Pavano’s numbers that he will be evaluated on (14-12 record, 5.10 ERA) don’t tell the story of how good he was last year. His 2nd highest k/9 of his career, 3.77 k/BB and 4.00 FIP point to him being a very effective pitcher.
Fangraphs estimates that Pavano will earn somewhere between 6 and 8 million next year. Honestly I would tend to lean a bit lower than that, but even if it is 8 million, Pavano’s performance in 2009 justified a salary twice that, and I see him justifying at least that salary in 2010.
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Pavano is okay, but we got a new stadium in order to make a splash. Why weren’t we involved in the Cliff Lee sweepstakes? We have the players to make it happen and we better be able to afford it now. Why didn’t we go after Matsui, as well??? He would be perfeft for us. With Cliff Lee and Matsui we would be a real World Series player. Come on Pohlad’s. We got you a stadium, its time to put up. Don’t think that just securing Joe is enough. It’s not enough for us or for him. Put up just another 10 to 20 million more and we can be a real contender. You had a chance to get Matsui and Cameron at a discount and you balked. Don’t do it again. We will support you if you produce a great product. Not a “good” product but a “great” product. We bought that. Make it happen.