The Cardinals recently agreed to a two year contract extension with Chris Carpenter, that will see him get $21 M – replacing the $15 M club option for 2012 (with a $1 M buyout). Carpenter was set to become a free agent after this season, but it looks like he’ll be staying in St. Louis through age 38. On the face of it, this looks like a good deal for the Card’s.
Carpenter is finishing up his third straight very productive (and generally healthy) year, posting a 3.75 ERA in over 200 innings pitched already. This follows up his 3.22/235 in 2010 and 2.24/192 in 2009 (when he received a fair bit of Cy Young support). Carpenter has actually upped his strike-out rate this year to an above average 7.2 K/9 while maintaining his typically great control (2.2 BB/9), with the only real drop-off being a lower (though still better than average) groundball rate. The main reason his ERA is up is the .318 batting average on balls in play, compared to a career mark of .298.
A consistently very good top of the rotation type starter seems like he should have garnered more than $10.5 M a year, even with his age and injury history. Looking at his Wins Above Replacement (fWAR) since ’09, Carpenter’s average production in a single season of 4.5 wins would be enough to warrant his entire $21 M contract. Of course, we can’t expect him to keep pitching at that level into his late 30s. But still, even a drop-off to 4.5 wins total for 2012 and 2013 combined – say, 2.5 and then 2 (meaning he’d be about an average pitcher, or a very good pitcher who missed a significant amount of playing time) – would justify the deal from the Cardinals perspective. And if they were going to pick up his option anyway, paying $6 M for Carpenter’s 2013 season seems like the kind of risk worth taking.
With Jamie Garcia building on his successful rookie campaign and Adam Wainwright coming back, the Cardinals rotation should be in pretty good shape for the near future. And getting their ace (or co-ace, I suppose) back at a discount might help them keep a certain future Hall of Famer on the other side of the ball (if only a tiny bit).
