Throwing Good Money After Bad

Texas rangers general manager Doug Melvin, munching on a sandwich, stepped out of the team's Port Charlotte, Fla., spring training office building last month, squinted against the glare of a bright midday sun and stared smack into the future. Walking toward him came Jovanny Cede�o, Texas's top pitching prospect, who has the same build (6 feet, 170 pounds), home country ( Dominican Republic) and even birth date (Oct. 25) as Pedro Martinez. Cede�o, a 21-year-old righthander, is 26-6 over four minor league seasons, none spent above Class A.

After they exchanged greetings and Cede�o continued into the clubhouse, Melvin remarked, "You know what I should do? I should put this sandwich down and go in there and offer him a five-year contract for a million dollars. He's a kid we signed to a $4,000 signing bonus. A million dollars—when you're making $20,000 in the minors? We give that away to [major league] journeymen all the time. It could be a lot cheaper for us to do something like that for Jovanny now. You look at him and wonder, Is he the next Pedro? Who knows? Who really knows?"

Chew on this: Despite the Rangers' best intentions, given the highly unpredictable, labrum-straining, payroll-draining, logic-defying business of pitching, Cede�o is more likely to familiarize himself with orthopedic medicine or another organization than to be at the top of the Texas rotation any time soon. Pitchers are harder to read than Sanskrit. The Los Angeles Dodgers, for instance, looked at a 22-year-old Martinez in 1993 and saw a skinny kid who couldn't withstand the rigors of starting. So they traded him to the Montreal Expos for second baseman Delino DeShields. No wonder there's a saying among general managers when it comes to developing pitchers: You will make five mistakes on pitchers for every one you make on position players.

"Everybody says the same thing—they want to rely on player development," says one National League assistant general manager. "Waiting on pitchers buys you time [with your owner]."

"Fact is," Melvin says, "we can't develop pitchers fast enough."

The trickle from the pipeline of young pitching—a classic case of supply failing to meet demand—is at the root of the pricing madness in the pitching market. Every winter general managers gamble millions of dollars in increasingly outrageous increments to fill out their staffs. This off-season they shelled out more than half a billion dollars ($544.9 million, to be more precise) on 42 free-agent pitchers, guaranteeing them an average of $5.86 million per year. In what has become a through-the-looking-glass world, among the curiouser developments were the Philadelphia Phillies' spending $15.55 million on two shopworn relievers, rewarding 34-year-old righthander Jose Mesa for his 5.36 ERA for the Seattle Mariners last year with a two-year, $6.8 million contract and 33-year-old lefthander Rheal Cormier for his 4.61 ERA for the Boston Red Sox with a three-year, $8.75 million deal. The Dodgers gave $55 million over five years to Darren Dreifort, a 28-year-old righthander with a losing career record (following story); the Colorado Rockies bet $121 million that lefty Mike Hampton, 28, can stay healthy for eight years; the New York Mets made a three-year commitment to pay 40-year-old lefty setup man John Franco nearly as much per batter ($14,000 plus change, based on hitters faced last year) as the crosstown Yankees will pay new ace Mike Mussina, 32. Finally, two veterans, righthander Kevin Appier, 33, and lefthander Denny Neagle, 32, will collect more than $10 million per year until 2004 from, respectively, the Mets and the Rockies despite their history of injuries and middle-of-the-rotation reputations.

"Maybe five percent of the pitchers are exceptional and deserve the big money," says Oakland A's general manager Billy Beane, who did not exercise a $5.6 million option to keep Appier in Oakland, "but 95 percent of the pitchers should fall into a range between $500,000 and $3 million because on a year-to-year basis their performances are almost interchangeable."

This season's Andy Ashby (three years, $22.5 million from the Dodgers) is last year's Darren Oliver (three years, $19 million from the Rangers) is 1999's Joey Hamilton (three years, $17 million from the Toronto Blue Jays) is 1998's Andy Ashby (three years, $15 million from the San Diego Padres)—only more expensive. "We need to do a better job studying the numbers and the risks," Melvin says. "Contracts for pitchers are getting more and more difficult. Maybe the best thing would be if you couldn't get insurance [against injury] anymore. That way you couldn't afford to offer long-term contracts."

Teams continue to throw escalating amounts of money at pitchers even as the return becomes less reliable. Documents obtained by SI from Major League Baseball and from individual clubs reveal how fragile these investments are.

?From 1995 through '99—the season for which the latest numbers in the category are available—pitchers collected 15% of their combined salaries while on the disabled list, for a total of $335 million paid to pitchers who couldn't pitch.