Starters or closers- which pitchers tend to get paid better?

Answer 1

Don't listen to everyone else. They have made a major error in analysis. If you ask for starters vs. relievers, it is clearly so, however you specified starters vs. closers. The important thing to understand is that there are five starting pitchers on every team and one closer. To determine who gets paid more, you would need to compare the average of the five starters vs. the salary of the closer. Using this context, it is obvious that the closer gets paid more. The role of the closer on the major league level is seldom given to a young player with low salary. The fourth and fifth starter positions are almost always the young, lower salary player. That means that the first and second starters would have to have almost $20 million salaries to create a starting staff salary average that would be comarable to the $10 million salaries of the top closers. The only players making that kind of money is a SS turned 3B and a head-case in Beantown. CLOSERS on average make more money than starters!

Answer 2

Salaries range all over the place, depending on local market, year signed (2006-07 offseason contracts are going to be remembered), previous performance, and the rights level obtained by the player.

So let's consider free agents, where there are no artificial constraints on salaries during negotiations.

Top starters get WAY more than top relievers. Which is as it should be; a league-leading starter will put up about three times (if not more) as many innings as a top closer, despite that, yes, the innings the closer throws tend to be (not always) higher-leverage in terms of winning a game. Anyway, salary offers do reflect this.

Witness, and I realize it's an outlier example but it's one that people know well, Clemens getting a $28M deal for one season (of which, pro-rated, he'll rake in about $19M -- still near the top of the heap). No closer comes remotely near that bounty. And it's similarly true for other superstar, free agent starting pitchers.

Answer 3

Starters notoriously get more money only because the length of their contract is longer. For example, a closer signs a 3 year 45 million dollar deal, while a starter signs a 5 year 75 million dollar deal, they are being paid the same on a year to year basis. Starters usually have more incentive money in their contracts, such as a whip below 1.3, an ERA under 3, etc. Closers only rack up saves. 90% of closers come and go. Look at the Marlins, i think theyr on their 4th this year. Teams dont like to lock up closers on long term deals because of a tendency to become suddenly innefective. Even Rivera has lost his edge and is nowhere near as dominant as he used to be. Starters bring in the longer contract because they are more valuable to the team.

Answer 4

Starters get paid way more. Even the best closers in the game make only about half as much as the best starters in the game.

Answer 5

The ones who can consistently deliver what's expected of them.

These are the 2006 salaries for some of the top starters and closers.

Johan Santana $8.75 M
Roy Halladay $12.75 M
Roy Oswalt $11.00 M
Mariano Rivera $10.50 M
Billy Wagner $10.50 M

Salary levels are also indicative of when the contract was signed.