Baltimore Orioles reliever Darren O’Day isn’t going anywhere. O’Day re-upped with Baltimore on a four-year deal worth a reported $31 million on Sunday, ending a busy courtship that included interest from the Nationals and Braves.
O'Day gets $31M 4 year deal #orioles @Ken_Rosenthal on it
— Jon Heyman (@JonHeyman) December 6, 2015
The 33-year old O’Day has been a force in relief for the Orioles over the last four seasons after bouncing around from the Angels to the Mets to the Rangers to start his career. As an Oriole, O’Day has a 1.92 ERA in 263 innings, striking out 283 strikeouts and walking 62. O’Day’s best season was his most recent, pitching to a 1.52 ERA in 65 1/3 innings, striking out 82, and walking just 14 while also being named to the AL All-Star Team.
But while O’Day is clearly a good pitcher, there isn’t much history in terms of middle relievers getting four year deals. And the history we do have to pull from isn’t exactly stellar.
The history of four-year contracts for non-closing RPs is short and ignominious: Scott Linebrink, Justin Speier, Steve Karsay, Paul Shuey.
— Jeff Passan (@JeffPassan) December 6, 2015
Scott Linebrink got four years and $19 million from the White Sox before the 2008 season. He never had an ERA lower than 3.64 or threw more than 57 1/3 innings during the life of the contract, and retired once the deal ended in 2011 (which Linebrink spent with the Braves).
Justin Speier got a four-year, $18 million contract from the Angels before the 2007 season, was released by the club in 2009, and never pitched in the majors again (pitching to an ERA over 5.00 in two of the three years of the contract he actually completed).
The Yankees gave Steve Karsay four years and $25 million before the 2002 season, and he didn’t pitch at all in 2003, threw just 6 2/3 innings in 2004, and was released by the Yankees after throwing six innings in 2005.
But that doesn’t mean O’Day’s deal will necessarily be a flop. None of those pitchers who received four year deals were all that similar to O’Day aside from being middle relievers. However, if you want to compare O’Day’s contract to those of closers, that’s fine – he’ll be making an average of $7.75 million per year over the life of this deal, a hair more than Joaquin Benoit will make in Seattle this year and a hair less than Huston Street will be paid by the Angels and Wade Davis will be paid by the Royals. O’Day is getting paid like a top ten reliever in baseball, and while you may not think of him that way, he *has* been quite good compared to the rest of the league.
My main issue with the contract for the Orioles is this – they’ve still got plenty of question marks. Bringing back O’Day helps their bullpen, but Baltimore still has questions in the rotation and lineup with both Wei-Yin Chen and Chris Davis likely to depart as free agents. With O’Day and Zach Britton locking down the eighth and ninth innings, that’s great – but can the Orioles actually get them leads to protect?
