Jeremy Guthrie Receives Three-Year, $25 Million Deal As Royals Continue to Invest in Pitching

by Zach Stoloff on Tue, Nov 20, 2012 at 6:15PM

So perhaps Major League Baseball contracts are indeed still inflating.

After speculation the last couple of offseasons that contracts for midrange free agents had come down to more equal value, former Indians, Orioles and Rockies starting pitcher Jeremy Guthrie and the Kansas City Royals may be challenging that assumption. On Tuesday, Guthrie signed a three-year, $25 million contract with the Royals.

Guthrie was traded from Colorado to Kansas City for Jonathan Sanchez a little more than a week before last year’s trading deadline. Overall on the 2012 campaign Guthrie went 8-12 with a 4.76 ERA and 1.41 WHIP. However, the 33-year-old right-hander pitched significantly better once he left the thin air of Coors Field, going 5-3 with a 3.16 ERA and 1.13 WHIP over 91 innings with Kansas City.

Still Guthrie hasn’t had a winning record since going 7-5 over 175 1/3 innings in 2007, and hasn’t had an ERA below 4.33 in three of the last four seasons. Nonetheless, he will team up with Ervin Santana — acquired via trade earlier this offseason from the Angels — to give Kansas City more consistency in their rotation.

Photo via Wikimedia Commons/Jeremy Guthrie