There were several teams in on free agent starting pitcher Brandon McCarthy up and till the Winter Meetings when the Dodgers (who were rarely ever discussed as potential suitors for Brandon) signed McCarthy to a 4-year $48 million deal that was finalized on Wednesday the 10th. McCarthy was expected to get a 3-4 year deal from somebody, but since the Dodgers have a new front office that are not big fans of giving out big contracts, LA was certainly a bit of a surprise. One of the main reported reasons that this contract was a little high may be because of the size of the contracts that some other players have already gotten this offseason.
Brandon McCarthy may had had a nice second half with the Yankees in 2014, but because of his inconsistency and injury-prone career, it is fair to say that the Dodgers overpaid for the right-hander. $12 million/year for a starter is arguably the amount of money that a #3 or weak #2 pitcher in the any rotation would make. Obviously though as the Dodgers have the highest payroll, they can easily afford this new contract. Plus the departures of Kemp and Hanley also help a significant amount as their arrivals to new teams frees up cap space for LA.
What McCarthy brings to the Dodgers that might help significantly is 34% of his career starts were over 100 pitches. That will help the Dodgers as their bullpen is a weak point, so in order to stay out of the bullpen as long as possible is to have the starter go deep into the game, which McCarthy does.
Some pitchers get wild though as their arm tires out the deeper they go into a game, but not McCarthy. In 2014 McCarthy threw only 4 wild pitches while the league average for a starter was 7, and Brandon has never thrown more than 4 wild ones in a season. His general numbers may not be so good the last 2 season as he went 15-26 with a 4.29 ERA, but the Dodgers don’t need McCarthy to put up great numbers as the #4, they need him to go deep into the game, as LA only has 1 other starter that can go 7 innings or over 100 pitches consistently, and that is Kershaw. Greinke and Ryu are great starters, but they both have a history the last two seasons to not go deep enough into the game. Team’s offense also seams to take a liking to McCarthy when he is on the mound as his career run support per game is 4.3 runs, so that will certainly not be a problem continuing, as the Dodgers ranked 6th in the MLB with 4.43 runs per game. With Brandon’s key stats matching up with the Dodgers, this signing gets a grade of an A, but it would be a lower grade if money were a problem for the blue crew.
