Jeff Suppan is pitching to his track record

Jeff Suppan has not pitched to the contract given to him by the Brewers in the winter of 2006. The Brewers had an opportunity to sign Ted Lilly or Gil Meche instead, but chose the reigning NLCS MVP. With pitching coming at such a premier middle of the road pitchers are able to hit the jackpot. Players view the free agency money as what they’ve earned with their past performance, not what they are going to do in the future. Fans view free agent contracts as what the player is doing in the present and future.  Suppan is a career .500 pitcher with an ERA well over 4.00. During his time with the crew, he’s pitching to his track record. 

Suppan is the type of pitcher that isn’t going to over power hitters with a blazing fastball a 12 to 6 curve, and a biting slider. What Jeff Suppan can do is take the ball every five days and give his high powered offense a chance to win. The best pitchers can keep their team in the game with their “C” stuff. Suppan’s “C” stuff is like Roy Halladay’s “F” stuff. Many of Suppan’s outings aren’t pretty, he walks too many, gives up gopher balls and gets hit real hard. Suppan is intelligent enough not to challenge hitters when he falls behind in the count and goes after lesser hitters.  The fact of the matter is this, more often times than not, the Brewers have a chance to win his starts. Suppan is an escape artist and would make a tremendous pitching coach if he decides to go in that direction once his playing career is over. 

I view Suppan as a fifth starter that can give me a chance to win that’s it.  He’s a complementary piece to the starting rotation, not the anchor it’s built around.  Bad contracts for pitchers are littered all around baseball.  Take a look at some the rotations and you’ll see that Suppan is better than a lot of those 4’s and 5’s.  The Brewers can’t go back and undo the bad contract so for fans to continue to whine about it is pointless.  We’ll see in the coming years if Doug Melvin is willing to sign middle of the rotation starters to long term contracts.