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Monday, December 01, 2008
What was Pedro worth?
In his 4 year with the Mets, Pedro was worth around 9 WAR (wins above replacement).
He was +2.7 WAA (wins above average) according to WPA, and +3.2 according to WPA/LI. An average pitcher, given Pedro’s 487 innings for those 4 years would be +6 WAR. Pedro was 3 wins above this level, making him a 9 WAR pitcher.
If you start him at 3 WAR in 2005, and decrease him by 0.5 WAR each year, that totals 9 WAR from 2005-2008. Giving dollars per win of 3.3 in 2005, and increasing by 10% every year, the total comes out to 35MM.
So, that’s pretty much what Pedro produced for the Mets: 35MM of performance, compared to the 53MM he was paid. Unless they managed to get insurance to cover some of that (and it’s very possible that it did), then Pedro was overpaid by 18MM.