@effectivelywild ,
@A Bad Man
I think there is a case to be made that the injury risk profile for pitchers makes larger contracts inadvisable. A bit upthread I posted some information about patterns in free agent contracts relative to WAR, and although the data has a smaller sample than I'd like there are some noteworthy trends. For position players, high tier free agents tend to be pretty reliable while lower tier free agents have a better chance of providing exceptional bang for buck but also have a better chance of flaming out.
With pitchers, the chance of flaming out is pretty high across the board. I don't know if this is entirely due to injury risk or if pitching as a skill is more volatile in the age range close to free agency. Maybe there is a "great filter" type effect where it's much more likely that pitchers will suddenly lose effectiveness regardless of initial skill level. Regardless of the cause, there appears to be a
much greater risk associated with taking on larger contracts for pitchers relative to position players.
In this case, the alternate strategy would be to sign lower tier but competent pitchers to relatively short term deals and see what sticks. Instead of flipping a coin on a Max Scherzer/Steven Strasburg you flip a few coins and try to find Lance Lynn.
I'm not saying this is the right strategy, but I think it's perhaps the logical conclusion of the argument that
@A Bad Man is making.