This has been a surprisingly active offseason thus far.  Generally the top free agents don’t sign with teams until after the winter meetings take place in early December.  However this year we have already seen most of the top free agent pitchers sign with a new team. 

In Boston we saw David Price sign the richest pitcher contract in baseball season, but that was until today when the D-Backs and Zack Greinke agreed on a six year $206,500,000 contract.  Greinke is making $34.4 million per year which top the record setting $31 million per year contract that Price signed just a day earlier.  As of right now the two sides have only agreed upon the contract it has not been signed, but assuming talks don’t fall through for some reason Greinke is going to be a very rich man, and the D-Backs may soon be a competitive team.

Both of these pitchers are great regular season pitchers but Greinke is already 33 and is now signed until he is 39.  Also, neither one has been very good in the playoffs.  Greinke has a career 4.05 ERA in the playoffs, and Price has a 5.12 postseason ERA.  So unless these guys can get it done when it matters most, I find it hard to believe they are worth these record setting contracts.

Besides Greinke, and Price we have also seen Jeff Samardzija ink a new deal with the Giants worth $90 million over five years, and Jordan Zimmermann with the Tigers.  This is a decent signing for the Giants as many had thought Samardzija may make over $100 million.  As long as Samardzija is not the pitcher we saw last year in Chicago then the Giants have a solid one two punch with him and Madison Bumgarner as their aces.

Zimmermann signed for five years $110 million with the Tigers which is huge for the Tigers.  The Tigers have a massive ballpark which will help out Zimmermann, and he will bolster a pitching staff that ranked third to last in baseball in runs allowed with 803 runs. 

Some other notable signings are the Blue Jays resigning Marco Estrada to a two year contract $26 million contract.  Estrada had the best season of his career for the Blue Jays so this is a nice signing.  You also have the Cubs bolstering their rotation by signing John Lackey to a two year 2 year $32 million contract.  The Cubs desperately needed depth in their rotation, and now they have it with Lackey, Lester, and Arrieta.  In Baltimore the Orioles managed to get Matt Wieters to sign his one year tender worth 15.8 million.  Wieters hasn’t had the career the Orioles had hoped for but if he stays healthy this year may finally be his year.

Finally, in Los Angeles the Dodgers resigned Brett Anderson to a one-year, $15.8 million contract.  Anderson rarely stays healthy but the Dodgers are going to need him to stay healthy to make him worth all that money, and to help soften the blow of losing Greinke.