By Conan the Barbarian
In the offseason, the Yankees decided that carrying old injury prone pitchers wasn't the way to build a team. So they decided to go young and… injury prone. I won't really bore people with the details regarding Jaret Wright's signing. What I will do though is give everyone a running account of just how much money the Yankees wasted in signing Mr. "never pitched 200 innings ever in a season" Wright.
The next few paragraphs will be a little backgrounder and comparison with Wright and the man who replaced him. Towards the end, I’ll go into the financial aspect and my running account of the foolishness of this signing.
We all knew Jaret Wright’s history. We knew that he was an oft-injured pitcher that suspiciously had a career year under the great Leo Mazzone and backed by Atlanta’s defense. That he would be moving to the marginal at best Yankee defense and to Mel “destroyer of pitchers” Stottlemyre we also knew.
We also knew that the Yankees’ highest level pitching prospect, Chien-Ming Wang was ready. He of the 2.01 ERA 4 K/BB and 0.97 WHIP in AAA in 2004. Add to that the fact that he dominated a very strong Japanese team in the Olympics and most everyone agreed that he at least deserved a shot.
But the Yankees signed Wright over other pitchers that were still available and over promoting Wang. As I said, I won’t discuss what happened back then but the repercussions of it. Wright started 4 games for the Yankees in 2005 so far and produced a sparkling 9.15 ERA not even 5 IP per start and an OPS against of 1.150. Yes, against Wright, everybody on average became Barry Bonds.
When he inevitably went down with a shoulder injury, the Yankees were left with no recourse but to promote from within, and up came Wang. In 5 starts, Wang has gone 33 innings, basically a little over 6 IP per start, and an OPS against of .667. Basically everyone on average became Tony Womack against Wang. Wang has not given up a HR in his 33 innings. In Wright’s 19.2 innings, he gave up 6.
For a little perspective (a quality start is a start where a pitcher goes at least 6 innings and gives up less than 3 runs)
Wang: 4 quality starts. Only one start with more than 3 ER, worst start 5 ER. At least 6 IP in every start.
Wright: No quality starts. Only one start with less than 6 ER, worst start 8ER. Season high: 5.1 IP
Jaret Wright will have a salary of $5.67 million this year (of a 3 yr $21 million contract). Assuming that the Yankees expect 30 starts from Wright this year, he gets paid $188,889 per start. So, of the scheduled 9 starts of Wright’s spot in the rotation, he has only made 4 of those starts, getting paid $1.7 million in the process. That $1.7 million would have paid for 5 Chien Ming Wangs.
For the 59 outs (19.2 innings) that Jaret Wright has given the Yankees, he has been paid $1.7 million. Or basically, $28,813.56 per out.
For more perspective, During Wright’s horrible 4 inning first Yankee start when he went against Baltimore, the 12 outs that he got in that game paid him $345,000 which would have been enough to pay for Chien Ming Wang’s entire 2005 salary of $316,000 with some change to spare.
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[JOJO] 向潮流致敬
