The Pittsburgh Pirates were unbearably bad last season, with a final record of 57-105. How Wiz Khalifa still parades around their apparel in his rap songs and is proud of it, I have no clue. Anyway, Ross Ohlendorf, one of the starting pitchers, was brave enough to take a case to arbitration and ended up getting a raise… despite the fact that he only had one win last season.
Ohlendorf was awarded a raise from $439,000 to $2,025,000 Wednesday by arbitrators Steven Wolf, Fredric Horowitz and Robert Herzog, who heard the case a day earlier. The Pirates had argued he should be paid $1.4 million.
The 28-year-old right-hander had a 4.07 ERA in 21 starts for Pittsburgh last year, and his record on a team that went a major league-worst 57-105 was down from 11-10 the previous year.-ESPN.
Now, obviously wins aren’t indicative of a pitcher’s ability, but looking at Ohlendorf’s other stats, it’s not a fluke he only won a single game in 2010. He had a 1.38 WHIP this season, 8.8 hits per nine innings and an ERA of 4.07 in 108.1 innings pitched. Ohlendorf also had a WAR rating of 2.0, meaning that he was basically a below average pitcher. Paying a little over $2 million for that kind of player doesn’t sound like a lot, which is exactly why the Pirates will pay it and keep their parade of astounding ineptitude going all the way until next season. Go Pittsburgh!
