There's not really much that I can say that R.J Anderson hasn't already said in his post on Wade Davis's 7 year, $35.1 million dollar deal. Anderson is one of my favorite authors covering the Rays and it would do every Rays fan good to follow his writing over at The Process Report.
However, I will add this: Davis's deal is worth $3.15 million over the guaranteed portion of his contract. Last year he was worth approximately $3.1 million dollars while contributing a mere 0.8 WAR due to his 4.79 FIP. He's shown signs that he can improve on that total however; during the second half of last season he managed to improve his BB totals while posting a 3.78 FIP from August through October.
Given his top prospect status and the amount of time he spent down in AAA despite the fact that he looked MLB-ready, I think many people assumed that Davis would come in and be a very good pitcher from the start last season, a notion that was only reinforced by his 6 game stint in the majors in 2009 in which he posted a 3.72 ERA and 2.90 FIP. However, I wouldn't be surprised if last season's struggles were due to inexperience and Davis improved on his performance this year.
Davis doesn't necessarily have to improve much to justify his new contract, however, and that's the beauty of this deal for the Rays. Sure they're taking on the risk that he doesn't get injured and miss a substantial amount of time, but they're locking up a good-looking young player during his arbitration years for the price of a below average MLB starting pitcher. Deals like this show why the Rays have the #1 management team in baseball right now
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