Cardinals sign Lohse - 4 yrs/$41 million

[JohnBriggs12]

Lohse parlayed his best season into a Suppan like deal.

 

Of the remaining FA pitchers, I'd classify Garland as pretty similar to Lohse, though he's not coming off as good a year.

[fondybrewfan]

Man I hope Lohse returns to his non-contract year performance. I think he was pitching a little bit above his head this year.

 

I will be very interested to see what happens with Ludwick next year. Can he realistically duplicate this year?

[dadofandrew]

I like Garland a ton more than Lohse. That said, Lohse's money is about right, but the length is my issue. He's not good enough to be written in ink onto your 2012 payroll.

[TuesdaysWithRillo]

1 good year and you strike gold. I guess that's all it takes in Major League Baseball. I hope the Cards get burned for this just like we did with Suppan.

[dadofandrew]

Well, he's been a bottom of the rotation guy for several years. You can argue that's all he's expected to provide. It does make young pitching extremely valuable though. that's why the idea of the Giants giving up Cain seems ridiculous.

[joepepsi]

Dave Bush is going to be filthy rich in two years.

[fondybrewfan]

Dave Bush is going to be filthy rich in two years.

Just imagine if he pulls a Suppan 2006 in the playoffs. If he did the Brewers could trade him for a pretty nice package if they wanted to. It seems odd to think the Bush will get a deal pretty close to what Sheets got 4 years ago.

[Diskono]

Twins fans everywhere must really be laughing.

 

Interestingly, baseball-reference has Suppan first in his "Similar Pitchers through Age 28" list.

[Brian the Automator]

1 good year and you strike gold. I guess that's all it takes in Major League Baseball. I hope the Cards get burned for this just like we did with Suppan.

Actually, it only took Lohse a good HALF-year.

[CheezWizHed]

Of course a deal like this can also be a baseline for all of our predictions signing FA pitchers... And that doesn't bode well for us.

[TooLiveBrew]

Horrible (imo) signing for StL. What a waste of funds. I'd love to know the odds on Lohse sustaining 2008 performance for all 4 years of this deal.

 

From The Book blog, here's MGL's (Mitchell Lichtman) take:

 

I think they paid almost twice what he is worth... I have him projected an 1.5 WAR next year, 1.2 after that, then .9, and then .6. That comes out to a fair contract of about 4/22. 4/41 is ugly...

 

Here is the really interesting thing though. At the beginning of the season, he was really undervalued (for some strange reason). They basically picked him up for a song. He also basically pitched this year about the way you would have expected him to pitch, maybe a little better. So why wait until he is overvalued to sign him to a 4 yr deal? Why didn't you (STL) sign him to a 3, 4, or 5 year deal before the season started? He is no less of a risk now than he was after last year. In fact, less so, as he is one year older. They could have gotten him for half that at the beginning of the season, I assume. If you are a team that is presumably smart, but you are going to occasionally sign FA pitchers to long term deals which you probably shouldn't, then you should make those long-term deals when you find a pitcher who is underrated, not overrated! You had and opportunity and blew it.

 

And Tangotiger's:

 

I don't have my Marcels ready yet, but I'm going to guess that Lohse is going to come out ok at something like a 4/30 deal.