Pittsburgh Pirates: It's Time for the Team to "Extend" Paul Maholm

The Pittsburgh Pirates have an option for $9.75 million on LHP Paul Maholm in 2012. Based on the way he has played this year, they should exercise it.

More to the point, they should think about "extending" him beyond 2012. Now might be the best time to do it. He's not maximally marketable right now.

Maholm is the one Pirates starter that has been clearly above league average since 2008. (Charlie Morton finally cleared that hurdle, but only this year.) Thus, he is "worth" the money he would be paid.

He pitched only 162 innings in 2011 before he was shut down, but that's a low. He's done 20 to 30  more in most previous years.

His "sabermetric ERA" (a formulaic construct based on home runs, walks, and strikeouts) has hovered around 4.00 for the past four years. This is true even though his actual one spiked in 2010, because he was "unlucky," that is, fewer hit balls than normal were successfully fielded by a rookie defense last year.

More recently, Maholm went 6-14 for the season, despite having one of the better ERAs on the team. In those 14 losses, the Pirates scored only 23 runs, or an average of 1.6 per game. That's not really a reflection on his ability, but it doesn't do anything good for his trade value. 

The Pirates' main weakness is that they have a number of capable starters who can't go for long innings within the context of most games, or of a whole season.

Compared to the others, Maholm can do so, at least if you take his previous record into account. He can be an "innings eater" in order to take some of the pressure off the relievers.

The story might have been different if the Pirates had been more successful with their late summer and September call-ups. But Jeff Locke, acquired with Charlie Morton for Nate McLouth in trade, doesn't seem to be ready. Nor can one expect a lot from Brad Lincoln. And Brian Burres looks like an "on again, off again" pitcher.

Maholm fills an important hole in the Pirates' rotation for now. To weaken it is to invite the disasters of the 2007-2010 period. Starting pitching lifted the team out of its former rut, so paying at least one person what he's worth would encourage others.