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Originally posted by fish16
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You have Eury, Eder, Meyer, and Fulton forever
You have Sandy, Cabrera, and Garret for 5 (Also Sixto and Poteet and Neidert)
You have Rogers and Luzardo for 4
You have Pablo for 2
The idea of arbitration buy outs is cost savings, and the costs savings are 1-2 of the underlines replacing 1-2 of the bolds. They don't need to sign any of these guys with what they have longterm. Especially with pitcher volatility (see Rogers). That's also ignoring everyone but Sandy is extremely cheap for 2 more seasons minimum, and Pablo is the stop-gap here that makes this even more impactful.
Further, Luzardo has extremely below average EV/HH, Chase, Spin, and BB rates - https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/savan...r-pitching-mlb. I think he is really good don't get me wrong (please recall I was his top cheerleader this offseason), and he's a tweak from becoming even better, but this isn't a profile you bet 6-7 years on today unless the Marlins know something we don't. His pitch mix is VERY high effort with all the offspeed pitches. He's just extremely risky for a big longterm deal versus 4 years of arbitration. The prudent course is taking him to arbitration for 1-2 years and seeing what the next 150-350 innings look like. There is still an opportunity to sign him at that point if he really turns the corner as he's still years from free agency. To note, as I've mentioned Cabrera and Rogers are excellent pitch mix potential guys. If we're thinking longterm signings, it's those two. They have a much higher chance of holding up over 6-7 years as Luzardo and Garrett are max effort volatility pumping offspeed pitches.
Also about contracts. His innings and performance are way low. He's barely thrown one full season for his career (254 IP). He might make $2m next year. Pablo made $2.4 if you recall this year and he was well better than Luzardo at this stage. Extrapolating that to let's assume he throws this level of performance to 150 IP next year, and gets to 160-170 thereafter, he might be 4/$25-27 in arbitration if he's good, and maybe another $5+ more if he hits his peak. That's all non-guaranteed. This is excellent value. He'd have to go full on "Cease" to get above that. This can also easily go lower with any injury or throwing a 4 ERA year. They don't need to commit $30-45m more in 2027-2029 here at all to make him the most expensive pitcher of all time.
If you still do want to sign him, I think it's floating him 5/$30 and has a 6th year team option to make it 6/$42.5 or so. Call it $2-$4.5-$7-$7-$7 with a $2.5 buyout/$15m year 6. This is definitely front loading also. Basically HALF guaranteed of what you're throwing out there. That juice may be worth the squeeze for the Marlins. Guarantee him what a solid arbitration projection would look like if he stays healthy, and you get a "free" free agency year and a team option if he's good for doing it. This makes sense if Luzardo just wants to cash that in and be happy that sets himself up for life, with the opportunity for a Ray/Gausman deal later if he holds up when he's 30. This is STILL very risky for the Marlins, but it's not expensive enough to really demolish you like a Stanton deal, so why not bet Luzardo is still really good when he's 30.
Marlins have all the leverage here. This is a super team beneficial deal or go to arbitration.
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