Lohse’s 1 year 4.75 mil contract

Kyle Lohse signs a 1 year 4.25 million dollar (with 500k in performance bonus) contract with the St. Louis Cardinals. Similarly replacement level pitchers like Carlos Silva and Jeff Suppan have been getting something like 4 year $40m contracts in recent off seasons, but something changed. Maybe a critical mass of major league teams have finally realized the value of replacement level performance, as suggested in the timely USS Mariner article (via EWC). Also it’s probably ironic that the ever rising salaries of free agents brought on this shift in player valuations sooner than later (though, it’s the future replacement level free agents that will miss out on free money, the current batch have already laughed their way to the bank at least once).

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