Dodgers Are Lucky Brandon McCarthy Is A Dodger

Sep 17, 2014; St. Petersburg, FL, USA; New York Yankees starting pitcher Brandon McCarthy (38) throws a pitch during the first inning against the Tampa Bay Rays at Tropicana Field. Mandatory Credit: Kim Klement-USA TODAY Sports

This article came out earlier today about Brandon McCarthy in which the 4th starter opened up about his free agency. He’s not a shy dude and we know that McCarthy is a great interview:

He has a

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, and is surely going to be a polarizing figure while he’s a Dodger. On one hand McCarthy threw 200 innings last season, on the other hand, that was his first time ever throwing 200 innings in a season. His time with Arizona made him out to be one of the worst starters in the game, while his time with the Yankees made him look like a high upside rotation piece that would easily surpass his 4 year/ 48 million dollar guarantee he got this offseason.

The Dodgers clearly liked him, but according to this report by the NYDailyNews, the Dodgers are lucky he was even on the market come December.

According to the right hander, he was pretty set on staying with the Yankees at the start of the offseason. There have been a few videos that have eluded to his preference to staying in New York, but nothing like that interview he gave to Andy Martino where he said things like

"Would McCarthy have returned to the Yanks on a three-year deal, had they offered it then?"

"Before answering, he pauses and sighs. “That’s a good question,” he says. “At that point, probably….(My agent) knew full well going in that ‘I want to go to the Yankees, and we need to make it work.’ And I think that five-day window just passed, and it became — It wasn’t like ‘you’re priority one, let’s do this.’ That’s where we started to open up and say, ‘Ok, what are plans B and C?’”"

It’s a bold statement for sure, despite the popular opinion, players almost always choose money over preference for family/quirks in the city they fell in love with. I remember Cliff Lee leaving money on the table to return to the Phillies, but it’s rare to see a free agent knowingly leave money on the table to go to a specific team. Remember the reports last offseason where Masahiro Tanaka‘s wife preferred the West Coast, so the Dodgers were the favorites?

Money rules the game, and seeing a player who is entering his age 31 season that would have given up a year of security to return to a team is fascinating. Read that article if you want a better perspective on the offseason, and get quotes like this from one of the biggest personalities in the game:

"It’s so stupid, but you feel like an actor. You sound so pretentious and stupid saying it, but you’re like, ‘someone showed me attention.’ You play your whole life for people to say nice things. And one team is being aggressive, and one team is just kind of hemming and hawing about it"

McCarthy might be the most exciting pitcher on the team next season, Farhan Zaidi clearly loves the guy, and that isn’t baseless, look at the pitchers he ranks between in terms of FIP since 2011:

Those are 100+ million dollar type pitchers (Shields exempt), and Cueto could crack 200 million next offseason, so depending on how much stock you put into FIP and xFIP (he ranked 9th in xFIP- at 77), McCarthy, seen by an overpay in most circles could actually be a massive steal.

The only thing really holding him back was his iffy history with his shoulder, and that at least appears to have some optimism attached to it, much more than say Brett Anderson or Brandon Beachy.

It’s not as if he’s too upset about being on the Dodgers, I mean he’s said some really flattering things about the fanbase, Southern California (born in Glendale), and he absolutely LOVES Vin Scully.

It’s always fun to take a look into the process a free agent pitcher goes through while signing a major league deal. If the Yankees made him a priority early in the offseason, we’re never talking about McCarthy in a Dodger uniform. I suspect there are a few of these types of things happening every year, but rarely will an athlete be so transparent about free agency like McCarthy has been.