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.