If the Giants’ signing of reliever Bobby Howry to a $2.75 million, one-year contract is any indication, the Cardinals played their cards right in not offering arbitration to Type-A free agent Russ Springer. Howry projects to be as good as Springer next season, and more durable, as the Bill James and Marcels systems figure — we’re generating Pitching Runs Created based on last-year’s Run Environment for the NL and 2009 projected Fielding-Independent Pitching instead of ERA:

Despite his subpar 2008, Howry still looks to create between five to eight more runs than the Cardinals’ erstwhile ROOGy. Springer made $3.5 million in 2008, so on the strength of his last two (effective) seasons, he’d be looking at something north of $4.0 million in an arbitrated contract for 2009. Howry is coming off a season in which he made $4.0 million, so you can see how depressed the marketplace is at this point. Granted, Howry is in a slightly different situation, given that he had a really bad 2008 (and Springer had a good one), but the projections still show Howry to be a better deal. If the Giants — and, theoretically, the Cardinals — could sign Howry for less than $3.0 million, it appears that the Cardinals made the right call in not offering arbitration to Springer. And, as both sides have mentioned, they may sign him yet — just for less money.

This entry was posted by Pip on Thursday, December 4th, 2008 at 2:58 pm and is filed under analysis. 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.