Vigilante Sports

The Chicago Cubs signed free agent Ryan Dempster to a 4 year deal worth $52 million. The fourth year of the deal is a player option. Dempster is 31 years old right now and has battled some injuries in the past. Dempster was 17-6 last season with an ERA of 2.96. During the regular season he was 10-0 at home. 2008 was a career year for Dempster. His timing couldn’t have been better.

I have mixed feelings about the length of this deal. Given his age, this is a risky move. If the Cubs didn’t give him the 4 year deal, he probably would have gone somewhere else. I think Jim Hendry did a good job of balancing the investment in Ryan Dempster. Lately it has been the older pitchers in the league that have been dominant, so 35 isn’t too old. Dempster also has spent a lot of time in the bullpen so he doesn’t have a ton of innings logged. In his 11 year career he’s only averaged 157.3 innings per year. Other players who debuted in 1998 like Dempster have considerably more innings pitched per year (Roy Halladay – 229.3, Javier Vasquez – 218.0, Jarrod Washburn 206.3).

Will Dempster continue to be a vital top of the rotation pitcher for 4 more years? I doubt it, but I think the cost of losing him would have been even greater than $52 million.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 18th, 2008 at 5:27 pm and is filed under Chicago Cubs, MLB. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.