2012 A.L. Starting Pitchers: Part I

If Vegas ever lets me to bet on what the average salary will be on starting pitchers, I'm going to take these incredibly wonky charts of mine and clean up.

Ten Most Expensive A.L. Starting Pitchers 2012

#	Player	$	Sal	+/-	CBS	LABR	TW	PK	2011
1	Justin Verlander	$39	29	10	30	29	28	33	$46
2	David Price	$36	26	10	26	27	25	28	$24
3	Jered Weaver	$32	26	7	28	23	26	29	$36
4	Felix Hernandez	$31	26	5	25	27	25	29	$23
5	CC Sabathia	$28	26	2	24	27	26	29	$29
6	Dan Haren	$14	25	-11	25	27	22	28	$31
7	Jon Lester	$9	22	-13	22	24	21	24	$20
8	C.J. Wilson	$17	21	-3	20	23	19	19	$27
9	James Shields	$29	20	9	21	19	20	22	$34
10	Ricky Romero	-$5	19	-24	21	19	17	21	$27
	Average	$23	24	-1	24	25	23	23	$30

I make this point every year, but while pitcher earnings fluctuate a great deal from season to season, the market places the same bets on the pitchers they believe will be the best pitchers every year.

Ten Most Expensive A.L. Starting Pitchers: 2009-2012

Year	$	Sal	+/-	Prior Year
2009	$25	23	2	$23
2010	$18	24	-7	$31
2011	$24	23	1	$25
2012	$23	24	-1	$30

There has been quite the fluctuation in what the best pitchers have earned from season to season since 2009...but the market quite clearly has a narrow bandwith on what it will pay these pitchers. Even after a great season like the one Verlander had in 2011, the market refuses to go past $30 for him. The market was even a little bit tighter than it was in previous seasons; this is the first time since 2009 that it didn't see fit to pay $31 for the top pitcher.

As it turns out, this was a terrible approach.

Top 10 A.L. Starting Pitchers 2012

#	Player	$	Sal	+/-	CBS	LABR	TW	PK	2011
1	Justin Verlander	$39	29	10	30	29	28	33	$46
2	David Price	$36	26	10	26	27	25	28	$24
3	Jered Weaver	$32	26	7	28	23	26	29	$36
4	Felix Hernandez	$31	26	5	25	27	25	29	$23
5	Chris Sale	$30	12	18	12	13	11	13	$11
6	James Shields	$29	20	9	21	19	20	22	$34
7	CC Sabathia	$28	26	2	24	27	26	29	$29
8	Jake Peavy	$27	9	19	8	10	8	9	$6
9	Hiroki Kuroda	$27	12	15	10	14	12	14	$18
10	Max Scherzer	$25	14	10	16	13	14	13	$13
	Average	$30	20	11	20	20	20	19	$24

The four most expensive pitchers also were the four best pitchers in the American League last year, in the same order they were purchased. A little more oomph from Sabathia and it might have been five for five.

Certainly, there was enough variability from Sale down to Scherzer that there were some surprises down toward the bottom. But not too far down toward the bottom. Peavy was the only pitcher who was paid less than $10, and at nine bucks he's not that much of a surprise. Doug Fister (2011, $1 average salary), C.J. Wilson (2010, $2), and Edwin Jackson (2009, $4) were much bigger surprises.

What happened to the rest of the starting pitchers will be the subject of my next post. But when the top of the heap is so predictable, the guys at the bottom won't even come close to performing at the same level as the guys at the top.