An innocuous, off-the-cuff remark from A’s manager Mark Kotsay after a loss offered yet another reminder of how depressing business is for Major League Baseball’s worst team.
In the aftermath of Thursday’s 9-0 defeat in Detroit, Kotsay praised Tigers winning pitcher Michael Lorenzen’s performance before revealing how he pushed A’s management to sign him in free agency.
“He’s an All-Star for a reason … He’s a guy I really wanted to acquire this offseason,” said Kotsay, who had good reasons for wanting the tough-nosed right-hander on his team, even beyond the fact both are proud Cal State Fullerton alums.
Although it’s not known how seriously Oakland pursued Lorenzen, or how seriously Lorenzen considered Oakland, it was proof that even middling free agents seem out of the low-budget A’s price range. Lorenzen wound up signing a one-year, $8.5 million contract with the Tigers that makes him the 62nd-highest paid starting pitcher in the majors this season.
An $8.5 million salary would have tied Lorenzen with Barry Zito for the second-highest salary for a starting starting pitcher in A’s history.
It’s still the kind of deal A’s owner John Fisher avoids at all costs. It’s been 13 years since any A’s starting pitcher earned a salary that high.
In fact, Lorenzen’s relatively modest salary is almost double that of the A’s current five-man starting rotation, which will earn a cumulative $4.78 million this year. Paul Blackburn’s $1.9 million salary makes him the A’s highest-earning starting pitcher. Blackburn’s $1.9 million contract ranks just 117th of MLB’s 234 starting pitchers, but it’s still more than double the amount each of Oakland’s four other starters will earn. (In a nod to the idiom “You get what you pay for,” the A’s 6.00 team ERA heading into Friday would be the seventh-worst in MLB history).
Only twice in Oakland A’s history have they paid a starting pitcher an annual salary of at least $8.5 million. Zito earned $8.5 million in 2006 before heading across the Bay to get $126 million over seven years from the Giants. Then Ben Sheets received $10 million on a one-year deal from Oakland in 2010 in one of Billy Beane’s most regrettable free-agent deals.
Lorenzen has certainly been earning his paychecks thus far. His five shutout innings against the A’s Thursday lowered his ERA to 4.03, good for 20th in the American League. His record is just 3-6 for the struggling Tigers (38-48), but his 1.14 WHIP is 13th-best in the league and it helped earn him an All-Star berth last Sunday.
Sadly for A’s fans, and even the A’s manager, signing someone such as Lorenzen, a 31-year-old journeyman playing for his third team in three years, remains just a pipe dream.
How’s this for the sobering truth about the A’s finances under Fisher: A quick check of baseball’s team salaries shows the A’s current 26-man roster not only earns an MLB-low $43 million, it’s $333,000 less than what Mets right-hander Max Scherzer gets paid this year.
It’s also $333,000 less than another Mets right-hander, Justin Verlander, will earn in 2023. Yes, that means two Mets players will together make twice as much money this season as all 26 members of the current A’s.
It’s the original reason why so many A’s fans want the owner to sell the team.
