Keith Law on the deal, with a Jays mention:
http://insider.espn.go.com/blog/keith-law/post?id=1587
The Oakland Athletics probably have outgrown their reputation as a team operating on a shoestring that forces them to shop in the bargain bin during free agency and in the trade market, as they've handed out a few larger deals -- such as the four-year, $36 million contract they gave to Yoenis Cespedes -- in the past couple of seasons.
That said, they do still look for hidden value or potential upside plays, now a little less out of necessity and more because it's just smart business for any team that doesn't have an infinite payroll. Giving two years and $22 million to Scott Kazmir entails significant risk -- the guy was out of baseball a year ago -- but has the potential upside to make this the kind of high-ROI deal Oakland needs.
Kazmir replaces Bartolo Colon, who was in similar straits when Oakland first signed him after a shocking return to the majors with the Yankees in 2011. Colon gave the A's 342 pretty good innings in two seasons around a PED suspension and a mountain of fat jokes, but he's older than I am (which is no longer a positive for a ballplayer) and his durability and effectiveness have to both be real concerns going forward.
Kazmir won't even turn 30 until late January, had most of 2011 and 2012 off recovering from injury, and reworked his delivery to reduce some of the violence and, one hopes, keep himself healthy into his early 30s. The A's didn't invest in Kazmir for the long haul, as Kansas City and Minnesota just did with Jason Vargas and Ricky Nolasco, respectively, and are paying Kazmir to provide what Colon gave them over the past two years: 300-350 above-average innings.
I like Kazmir's chances to do it, recognizing that he's about as high-beta a player as there was on my top 50 free-agent rankings. Since those adjustments to his delivery, which included getting better leverage off his back leg and getting more torso rotation, Kazmir is throwing harder than he had in several years and started throwing his slider for more strikes than ever.
The results were astonishing; two years after the Angels couldn't find any way to deploy him in the majors, he struck out 24 percent of the men he faced, stopped walking so many batters, and was a league-average starter for 158 innings. That's worth a two-year deal, and probably close to $9-$10 million a year given the acceleration in salaries already this offseason, although $22 million guaranteed assumes a lower risk that he reverts to form or gets injured than I would want to assume given his history.
The A's look likely go into 2014 with a rotatin of Kazmir, Jarrod Parker, Sonny Gray, Dan Straily and A.J. Griffin, with Tom Milone a potential sixth starter (or maybe a home-only pitcher, if they want to be clever about it), which means Brett Anderson, due $8 million for 2014 and effective when healthy, should be an attractive trade piece for a team with the flexibility to risk losing that money to the disabled list.
Texas and Toronto are obvious fits, as are the Nationals, who tried this with Dan Haren last year and might be willing to do the same, while the Angels could certainly use Anderson even if he only gives them 15 starts.
