The Most Valuable Player often is an offensive force who drives in the most runs and gets the most balls over the fence. Now and then it’s a pitcher who posts a 1.xx ERA with 20 wins, or a closer who rattled off 84 consecutive saves. For this, I will be taking a little bit of a different look at “most valuable” and I’ll throw Tim Wakefield’s hat into the ring.
Now, I understand fully that Tim Wakefield will never be winning an MVP award. It just won’t happen, as he doesn’t fit the model of the typical MVP from a numbers point of view. Wakefield however, gives you much more than what his numbers might suggest. Let’s start with his contract. $4 million a year. That’s it. Let me remind you that Gil Meche, with his 11-8 record and 4.48 ERA through 32 starts scored $11 million per year on the free agent market. That’s about 1/3 of a million dollars per start or $1 Million per win. Wakefield currently sits at 14-10, earning a decision in every one of his starts. Okay, so 10 losses, it happens, he’s a knuckler, and a streaky pitcher, but look at those wins. Fourteen. Let’s take a gander at the other 14 game winners in the league. John Lackey (15 wins, $5.8 million), Josh Beckett (15 wins, $6.6 million), C.C. Sabathia (14 wins, $8.7 Million), and Carlos Zambrano (14 wins, $12.4 million). Look at the company that Wakefield holds. Those are aces of pitching staffs. I’m not saying I would replace any of them with Wake, but Wakefield is a #4 starter, and is only making $4 Mil a year! That’s value.
How about the innings he eats? 150 innings through 24 starts this year, second on the Red Sox pitching staff only to Daisuke Matsuzaka. Isn’t a valuable thing to be able to be able to eat those innings? For example, the Red Sox just had a rough series in Baltimore. The Orioles roughed up Gagne, and the Sox bullpen (often regarded as the best in the majors) wound up blowing two games that could have been wins. I think it’s fair to say that after that, the pen may have been tired, maybe a little over worked, and could use a day off. But wait, the next scheduled day off isn’t until Thursday. When your #4 starter can come out and throw a no hitter into the 7th (yes, I know, not the norm for Wake), and put up zeros for 8 innings, that bullpen has gotten its rest! Gagne, Okajima, Snyder, Timlin, these guys all got a day where they can just recover a little. That’s valuable.
And that hasn’t even gotten to the intangibles. How do you even measure the value a player brings to the clubhouse with his veteran presence? What kind of value do you put on the endless charity work that Wake does? (Not to mention that he never, ever expects any recognition for it.) You will never see Wake in the news for going to a hotel with a strange girl, or in the tabloids for any reason what so ever. He is a classy guy with his morals in tact. He portrays that with everything he does, and it rubs off on the players around him. That’s valuable.
151 wins in a Red Sox uniform? 42 more wins and he would be the all time Red Sox wins leader (Over Roger Clemens and Cy Young.) I want nothing more for him to pitch the next 3 years, and accomplish that impressive feat, which in my mind not only solidifies him in the Red Sox hall of fame, but Baseball’s hall of fame.
Tim Wakefield is valuable in every aspect of the game. He may have an ERA in the 4’s, and some losses to go along with his wins, but you can not under appreciate what he does for this baseball team. Tim Wakefield is a tremendously valuable player.
1 Comment
August 14, 2007 at 2:36 pm
I totally agree with your comments. I thought that losing Wakefield last year hurt the team tremendously because it caused considerable strain on the bullpen. If you can count on one thing, you can count on Wake to give you innings.