Of course I’m joking, but we’re talking about a guy who most thought would be looking at a 4-year $40MM deal, recently signed with the Cardinals for 1-year $4 million. What the heck happened?

There’s a great piece posted at USS Mariner called MLB Embraces Replacement Levelthat posits the theory that some teams are beginning to use replacement player values (WARP) in making contract decisions. The article was posted just a day before Lohse signed and speculates as to why he couldn’t land the deal people assumed he would get. I think the USS Mariner theory is probably right on.

However, one of the main beliefs of the sabermetric crowd had simply not been adopted, and that was the concept of replacement level. Along with many others (notably among them Keith Woolner, one of the founders of the replacement level theory, now working for the Cleveland Indians), we’ve talked quite a bit about the idea that there is a vast talent pool of players who are capable of giving you performances that are only about two wins per season worse than a league average player, and can be acquired at essentially no cost.

These guys are just hanging around, signing minor league deals every winter and waiting for their chance. Guys like Jamie Burke and Cha Seung Baek epitomize replacement level - every organization has guys just like them, and if given the chance, they can play pretty well at times, though you’re obviously not going to win anything if you depend on them as the core of your club. But as end of roster role players who don’t cost anything and allow you to allocate all of your resources to the top spots on your roster, they have some value.

Major League teams have generally ignored this principle, however. There are some exceptions, but even most of those embrace replacement level players out of need more than out of belief that it’s the best way to build a roster. The A’s obviously make good use out of replacement level players, but an argument could be made that they’ve had to, thanks to their payroll and injury situations. When other organizations had the choice between ponying up a few million for a proven veteran or going with the low cost Triple-A guy, they’ve always given the money to the veteran.

Until this winter. For whatever reason (I subscribe to the “teams getting smarter” theory myself), major league baseball as a whole has finally embraced the concept of replacement level in deciding who gets money and for how long. Seriously.

Kyle Lohse, who made about $4 million in each of the last two years and has thrown 1,100 not horrible innings since 2001, went into the winter thinking he’d get something like a 4 year, $40 million contract. He’s not that different from Jeff Suppan, and that’s what Suppan got from the Brewers last winter. Jarrod Washburn got $37.5 million for being that same type of pitcher the year before. The market for healthy, back-end starters with some recent success but little upside was pretty clearly established.

For a slightly different take on Lohse’s Wins Above Replacement potential, Justin Inaz, who writes On Baseball — and the Reds, argues that Lohse is actually worth morethan he ended up getting. He values Lohse at 1.4-1.8 Wins Above Replacement, using a scale of $4.4 million per WAR, that a salary of $6.2-7.9 would be in order.

Both the USS Mariner and On Baseball posts bring their arguments back home by illustrating that Carlos Silva’s $48MM/4-year deal he this offseason was positively terrible. Inaz writes Silva was a -2.1 WAR over the past three seasons and projects to be a -1.6 WAR this season. Yet, despite the similar projections Silva is getting $12MM per year.

Inaz concludes:

Certainly, Silva is earning too much. We knew that. But I have to think that Lohse and his “super agent” Scott Boras must have severely overplayed their hand, or otherwise must have pissed a bunch of people off this offseason.