It Wont Be About the Money Pedro

We all know that Pedro is the highest paid pitcher ever, and we all would like a happy healthy Pedro to remain pitching with the Red Sox until he retires. The problem is this "The Best Pitcher in Baseball", Pedro has heard that and continues to hear that probably every day. Because of this Pedro thinks he is much better than he actually is. Pedro admittedly wanted to stay in Boston and was willing to take a home town discount to do so. What is a home town discount mean to Pedro? It means to him that he is willing to not be paid like the best pitcher in baseball anymore and thats about it. Who is the best pitcher in baseball? No one really knows, statistically today Roger Clemens is and at 12 million dollars a year less. Will Pedro be willing to take Clemens money? Most certainly not, but realistically that is exactly what he should be paid. So if Pedro is not the best pitcher in baseball what is he? The second best, third, tenth? We don't know that either, simply because every time Pedro takes the mound no one including Pedro knowns what kind of performance we are going to get. So we return to the statistics, as of today Pedro is statistically the 44th "best" pitcher in the majors. Yes that is bad. How bad you say? Well, names like Jeff Suppan, Joe Kennedy, Jake Peavy and others you have never heard of top Pedro. Its early you say? admittedly a little, and where Pedro and Rodger will be at the end of the year no one knows. But I do know it will take some sort of miracle of statistics and physics to get Pedro back near the top of this list by the end of the year. Pedro is a proud man and sometimes pride can make you over look an arbitrary argument of who is best. However, there is nothing arbitrary about his ranking today and the quality of Pedro's pitching any longer. Its time to swallow your pride Pedro and face up to the fact that there is a long list of people that are better than you right now and will continue to be better than you. So when you are negotiating your next contract and you feel you have "gone as low you can go" you might want to find out exactly where you do rank these days, by the numbers of course.

1 Roger Clemens HOU $4,751,741
2 Randy Johnson ARI $16,500,000
3 Tom Glavine NYM $10,765,608
4 Kenny Rogers TEX $2,406,551
5 Brad Penny FLA $3,725,000
6 Jason Schmidt SF $7,937,500
7 Ben Sheets MIL $2,425,000
8 Mark Mulder OAK $4,450,000
9 Curt Schilling BOS $12,000,000
10 Carlos Zambrano CHC $450,000
11 Matt Clement CHC $6,000,000
12 Paul Wilson CIN $3,500,000
13 Cliff Lee CLE $303,200
14 Jake Peavy SD $350,000
15 Chris Carpenter STL $500,000
16 Mark Buehrle CHW $3,500,000
17 Kevin K Brown NYY $15,714,286
18 Steve Trachsel NYM $5,000,000
19 Tim Hudson OAK $5,000,000
20 Russ Ortiz ATL $6,200,000
21 Esteban Loaiza CHW $4,000,000
22 Kazuhisa Ishii LA $2,497,342
23 Brian Lawrence SD $925,000
24 Doug Davis MIL $450,000
25 Roy Halladay TOR $6,000,000
26 Jeff Suppan STL $1,000,000
27 Eric Milton PHI $9,000,000
28 Javier Vazquez NYY $9,000,000
29 Scott Schoeneweis CHW $1,725,000
30 Dontrelle Willis FLA $353,500
31 Joe Kennedy COL $320,000
32 Wade Miller HOU $3,400,000
33 Brad Radke MIN $10,750,000
34 Freddy An Garcia SEA $6,875,000
35 Oliver Perez PIT $321,000
36 Livan Hernandez MON $6,000,000
37 Kerry Wood CHC $8,000,000
38 Andy Pettitte HOU $5,500,000
39 Horacio Ramirez ATL $330,000
40 Carl Pavano FLA $3,800,000
41 Carlos Silva MIN $340,000
42 Roy Oswalt HOU $3,250,000
43 Odalis Perez LA $5,000,000
44 Pedro Martinez BOS $17,500,000




Rankings as of 6/3 provided by CBS Sportsline