For awhile, I entertained the notion of the Mariners targeting a solid starting pitcher through free agency.  I figured someone like Edwin Jackson might come fairly cheap, giving the M’s a ~4 win player for maybe 8 million a year. This would give the M’s the ability to shop Michael Pineda or one of their top minor league pitchers in exchange for some offense. However, a day ago Ken Rosenthal reported that:

the Jays do not appear especially interested in righties Hiroki Kuroda and Roy Oswalt. They also are unlikely to pursue righty Edwin Jackson, who reportedly is seeking a five-year, $60 million deal.

Then, earlier today Jon Heyman corroborated Rosenthal’s claim:

yankees dont think they can get garza, so they eye edwin jackson, who seeks $15-17M per.

For fun, let’s compare Jackson to two pitchers who will make about 3-5 million more next season than he would, hypothetically.

One of these is not like the other.  Felix’s contract is notably backloaded; he actually only earns an average of 15 million a year over the duration of his contract.  CJ Wilson, who is also better than Jackson at pretty much everything, just signed with the Angels for 15 million a year.  With that in mind, the market rate for wins has definitely gone up – meaning that a win is more expensive than it was when Felix and Halladay signed their deals – but not to the point at which Edwin Jackson could make 15 million a year.

Fangraphs crowdsourcing sees Jackson getting 10.4 million, and I think that’s far more likely.  Even so, with the market for pitching in its current iteration, the M’s are better off dealing a starter than acquiring one.  Michael Pineda, anyone?

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Jon Heyman is now reporting that Hisashi Iwakuma is “leaning toward” signing with the M’s. The international market for starting pitchers is less certain but probably less expensive.  Well done, Jack.