And, luckily, it wasn't with the Mariners!

As every baseball fan knows, this morning it was announced that Barry Zito- with help from his agent, The Devil, I mean Keyzer Soze, I mean Scott Boras- signed a record 7-year, $126 million contract with his former cross-town rivals, the San Francisco Giants. His contract is the highest amount given to a pitcher, besting Mike Hampton's $121 million, 8-year deal with the Colorado Rockies in 2001. (And we all remember how well that deal worked out, don't we?)

How stupid is this deal? It's stupid in the fact that Zito was perhaps worth this money- in 2002, when he went 23-5 and won a Cy Young award. So the Giants are five years late and $126 million short. It's stupid that while Zito's curve-ball hasn't completely flattened, it's definitely lost the knee-buckling drop that had left batters befuddled- which the dwindling numbers of strike-outs can attest to (from 205 in 2001 to 151 last year). Its stupid that while Zito has a dramatic career split in opponents' average batting from the left or the right (.250 versus lefties, .228 versus righties) that split was reduced to all of three points in 2006 (.260 versus lefties, .257 versus righties). This erosion of one-sided dominance doesn't bode well for facing the young up-and-comers in the division that bat from the left side of the plate (Adrian Gonzalez, Andre Ethier, Stephen Drew) not to mention Todd Helton. It's stupid because AT&T Park has a park factor of 100, favoring batters, while Oakland Alameda Coliseum's park factor is 97, favoring pitchers. It's stupid because Jason Schmidt- a pitcher with superior make-up and career numbers- signed a three-year, $47 million to leave behind his status as the Giants' ace and fill his new role as the Dodgers' ace.

For comparison, this was Mike Hampton's last season before signing his mammoth contract:

15-10,3.14 ERA, 151 strikeouts in 218 innings, and led his club, the Mets, to the World Series

now Zito's?:

16-10, 3.83 ERA, 151 strikeouts in 221 innings, and led his club, the A's, to the League Championship Series, in which he allowed five earned runs in less than four innings in his only start.

Fittingly, baseballreference.com lists Mike Hampton as Zito's closest similar pitcher at age 28. The next season, at age 29, Hampton saw his ERA increase by three-quarters of a run, from 5.41 to 6.15.

Boras's plan to garner a big contract for himself and his client was to highlight Zito's consistency. Zito has yet to miss a start over the past six years. And his won-loss records during the past four?:

14-12
11-11
14-13
16-10

Zito's been consistent, but consistently mediocre. I doubt Zito to finish with double-digits in the win column for the Giants, and I'm sure he'll have an ERA north of 4.

To get an idea of just how ridiculous this signing is, consider that nearly 20 years ago, in 1987, as a 30-year old, Charlie Liebrandt went 16-11 for the Kansas City Royals. His won-loss record in the three prior seasons were 11-7, 17-9, and 14-11. Granted, Liebrandt didn't win a Cy Young Award during that span, but he did lead his team to a World Championship in 1985. Yet in that off-season, Liebrandt re-upped as a free agent with the Royals and got a raise of all of $400,000, jumping from $850,000 in 1987 to $1,250,000 in 1988. Why did Liebrandt miss his big pay-out?

The best news out of all this is that- contrary to the rumors I was reading in the local media- the Mariners were spared a boondoggle of a suckering by Boras. And with his vacancy, the Athletics are minus one guaranteed 34-start, 200-inning starting pitcher. The A's rotation now relies on the frayed ligaments of Rich Harden's shoulder (who could, if healthy, be a consistent contender for the Cy Young crown), the unrealized Danny Haren, the enigma that is Joe Blanton (4-0, 1.55 ERA versus the Mariners; 12-12, 5.40 ERA versus the rest of baseball), the alcoholic speed demon Esteban Loaiza, and a mix from Chad Gaudin, Joe Kennedy, Kirk Saarloos, and Brad Halsey to fill Barry's big shoes.

With the cross-bay defection of Zito, this all but guarantees a non-repeat of the division title for the A's, a team built around pitching and defense, and bodes very well for the Seattle Mariners!

What do other Mariners weblogs think?

Lookout Landing calls Zito's signing with the Giants a "bullet" dodged by the Mariners, while USS Mariner imagines the ludicrous conversation held in the Giant front office that resulted in such madness as the Zito signing.