-You’re mistaken. The ratio of prospects busting to prospects starring, for pitchers, is very heavy on the former, rather than the latter, side. I would not be shocked if it was 10:1 in favor of busting-

yes, except that the chances of 3 very good onces ALL blowing out their shoulder (which was what i said) on the same team is not the same as one of them busting.

~~~Yep, 2004 season was a prime example. Who saw Mussina, Brown, Duque, Vazquez, among others getting hurt?~~~

I would disagree. It’s much easier to project for a pitcher when he has many big league seasons on his belt – than it is to project for a prospect with one or two seasons in the minors.

Basically, you just summed up the problem of finding pitching in general. There are few “safe bets” in pitching in the majors. Santana for 7 years is a really unsafe bet. Carl Pavano was given a green light by Will Carroll before we signed him.

I think that however it is a pretty safe bet that we’ll be able to piece together a very good pitching rotation over the next two years with Pettitte, Wang, Mussina, Kennedy, Hughes, Chamberlain, Horne, Marquez, White, Igawa, McCutchen, and the rest of the crew once some are weeded out.

Also, the major league success seen already by the big three is a very positive sign. They could still have injury problems, but I don’t think that its unreasonable to say that they’ve shown that will be assets if healthy.

But, at the same time, one should always try and learn from the past – even those situations which seemed like they were impossible probabilities.
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Yep, 2004 season was a prime example. Who saw Mussina, Brown, Duque, Vazquez, among others getting hurt?

Who foresaw the injury problems the Yanks had last year?

~~it’s highly unlikely, but it’s actually more likely for one of them to turn out like that and the other two doing reasonablly well then all 3 blowing out their shoulder and/or developing mental cases.~~

You’re mistaken. The ratio of prospects busting to prospects starring, for pitchers, is very heavy on the former, rather than the latter, side. I would not be shocked if it was 10:1 in favor of busting.

So you throw out one of the greatest prospect bust case in the last decade, a guy who just never manage to stay healthy and was usually effective when he actually was healthy, and a guy who was actually pretty good early on in his career before losing even more velocity due to injury as example?

should I use Doc Gooden and Mark Fidrych (the Bird ) as example and then suggest we should just trade any young pitcher who dominates at a young age too?

IF you don’t remember, Paul Wilson was hurt in his first season then became a real mental case, he was essentially Zach Grinke times 100 .

We all know that Carl Pavano was actually reasonablly good when he was able to be truely healthy. which just happens to be way too rare.

Bruce Chen was actually very good early in his career, he then got hurt and lost even more zip on a already mediocare fastball.

so you essentially raise 3 cases where they got hurt and lost their stuff as example?

I might just as well look to the other extreme and say that Joba / Phil / Ian could be

Clemens (fell in the draft due to INJURY CONCERN and had SHOULDER SURGERY IN THE MINORS and also just happen to have the same size and repetory and domiance and attitude)

Mussina

and

Maddux

it’s highly unlikely, but it’s actually more likely for one of them to turn out like that and the other two doing reasonablly well then all 3 blowing out their shoulder and/or developing mental cases.

With the price of pitching, and the risk involved the only option that you have to build a constant winner is stockpile as much as you can. That being said, I can already see next off season coming, weather the yankees win the World Series or not, with the $84 million coming off the books, including Pettite, and Mussina. The Yanks are going to throw Santana money at Sabathia, and probably pay the posting fee for Yu Darvish that will make $52 million seem resonable. But hey, you can never have too much pitching.

That is what my above ramblings meant…I just wasn’t smart enough to figure out how to write it cogently into one sentence.
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Thanks, but if I had seen your post before I hit “submit,” I would have removed that sentence.

***These “pitching prospects” have already proved to varying degrees that they can succeed, at least to an extent, at the ML level, so the degree of projection required is somewhat attenuated***.

That is what my above ramblings meant…I just wasn’t smart enough to figure out how to write it cogently into one sentence.

This just in: life involves risks. We get it.

Guaranteeing $137.5 million to a pitcher that is nearing his 30s, who has pitched almost 220 innings in each of the last four seasons, who is not a huge guy physically, entails risks as well.

Cash and many of us are going into this with our eyes wide open, and we still prefer to keep the kids.

These “pitching prospects” have already proved to varying degrees that they can succeed, at least to an extent, at the ML level, so the degree of projection required is somewhat attenuated.

If Santana underperforms or experiences a serious physical problem, it’s a lot harder to overcome would be the sunk costs of his record setting contract than it would be for three kids who will be paid near the league minimum.