Well that sucked. By Sabathia apparently taking the Yankees 7-year $160 million offer, C.C. and the Yankees have screwed the Astros.
Because now the market has been set. Scott Boras wanted a Zito-esque contract for Derek Lowe. Now that's not going to be good enough. Don't forget it was Boras who got Zito that 7-year $126 million contract (then the largest contract ever for a pitcher).
Count on Lowe (and by "Lowe" I mean "Boras") to raise his price. And Sheets. And Burnett. Because the market has been set high, it's going to price the Astros right out of starting pitching. So what does this mean? Backe will probably be offered a contract for 2009 and Easy Eddie will pray to the Good Lord that his second year after Tommy John surgery is better than his first (as is normally the case).
Meaning a potential 60% of the Astros starting rotation has been on the DL for a significant amount of time in the last two years (Wandy, Hampton and Backe).
We didn't come out here to play tiddlywinks, son.
-Hal Smith
