Which version of David Price will the Los Angeles Dodgers see in 2020?

The David Price of Old

To understand why David Price was a $32 million a year pitcher, we have to first know what kind of pitcher David Price was before he became a member of the Boston Red Sox in  2016.

From the moment he entered the league as the first overall pick of Tampa Bay Rays in the 2007 draft out of Vanderbilt University, Price was always labeled to be a top of the rotation arm. Price would make his MLB debut just a year later, getting a cup of coffee in September before becoming a weapon out of the Rays bullpen during their playoff run 2008.

Price became a full-time starter in 2009 and never looked back. During his 7-year stretch in Tampa Bay, the lefty would be an unquestionable staff ace, posting an 82-47 record, a 3.18 ERA, a 3.33 FIP, and a 122 ERA+. That led to four All-Star nods, three top-10 finishes in the Cy Young voting, and a Cy Young win in 2012.

The Rays would flip him to the Detroit Tigers at the trade deadline of the 2014 season, when the penny-pinching Rays felt they would be best off trying to get as much value out of him a year away from free agency.

With the Tigers, Price gave Detroit 32 total starts before they themselves flipped him to another playoff content a year later, sending him to Toronto in a deal that netted them current staff ace, Matt Boyd. Price would finish 2nd in the AL Cy Young voting again in 2015, going 18-5 with a 2.49 ERA, a 2.76 FIP, and a career-best 164 ERA+ between Detroit and Toronto.

That level of success helped guide David Price from his arbitration years to franchise-record value deal with Boston, a 7-year, $217 million pact with the Red Sox.

The David Price of the Present

Any pitcher that comes into town with an average annual salary of $31 million obviously does so with heavy expectations. For the most part, David Price met those expectations in the first year of his deal.

In 2016, the lefty made a career-high 35 starts and threw 230 innings in a Red Sox uniform. While his ERA climbed to 3.99 while making half of his starts in Fenway Park, he also went 17-9 and his ERA estimators like FIP and SIERA (both 3.60) thought better of his work. According to FanGraphs, Price was worth $35.2 million against his actual salary of $30 million in 2016, giving the Red Sox good value for their dollar in his first season.

Needless to say, there was some reason for optimism for better efforts in the years to follow.

The optimism faded quickly though in 2017, as injuries started to nip at Price’s heals a bit. Overall, he made just 16 appearances (11 starts) during his second season in Boston, and while the results were encouraging (3.38 ERA, 3.64 FIP, 135 ERA+), the lack of innings hurt the team and they ultimately received just $11.7 million in value from Price.

2018 was a tale of two seasons, Price went 16-7 during the regular season, with a 3.58 ERA. However, ERA estimators thought a bit less of his work, with FIP (4.02) and SIERA (3.82) grading lower and suggesting that Price was overachieving against how he was actually pitching.  However, he turned it around in the postseason and helped the Red Sox capture the 2018 title while going 3-1 with a 3.46 ERA in the playoffs, including two wins in the World Series.

Things ended on a bit of a bittersweet note for Price in his Red Sox tenure. Repeated injuries curtailed his 2019 season, resulting in a rough season. In 22 starts, Price managed just 107.1 innings of a 4.28 ERA (his worst since his first full season as a starter).

Overall, David Price spent four seasons in a Red Sox uniform and won a World Series. However, he won just 46 games during his tenure, and contributed a 3.84 ERA, a 3.74 FIP, and an ERA+ of 118 over 588 innings in Boston. Value-wise, the Red Sox spent $169 million on David Price (including the $48 million sent to the Dodgers over the next three seasons) but saw only $85 million of the value returned according to FanGraphs.

The David Price of (Dodgers) Future

Entering his age-34 season, and with 2000-plus innings and a recent injury history that isn’t very encouraging, the expectations on David Price should be relatively low entering the 2020 season. However, all things require context as well.

Firstly, we have to temper our expectations in regards to acquiring an ace level pitcher. If David Price were still pitching at his peak, he obviously wouldn’t have been included as a salary dump. Rather, we have to realize that we are acquiring an arm that has a lot of mileage on it and is on the wrong side of his prime. Slotting him in as a number three starter seems accurate and hoping for an approximation of his 2018 season would likely be ideal.

Secondly, the Dodgers aren’t getting a $30 million per year pitcher at this stage. With the Red Sox pumping in half of Price’s yearly salary over the next three years of his deal, the Dodgers will only be picking up $16 million per season over that time. While that is still a steep number, that would put Price in the same area as the likes of J.A. Happ, Miles Mikolas, and Danny Duffy among MLB starters (according to Spotrac). While ideally, the Dodgers would get more out of Price than the expectations placed around Happ and Duffy, this at least provides perspective in regards to where he should fall in terms of salary to value ratio.

ZIPS currently projects Price to contribute the following over the three years he has left in his contract:

2020 – 9-6, 130 IP, 9.35 K/9, 3.74 ERA, 3.91 FIP

2021 – 8-6, 115.1 IP, 9.13 K/9, 3.90 ERA, 4.10 FIP

2022 – 7-6, 113.1 IP, 8.97 K/9, 3.97 ERA, 4.21 FIP

While the trending decline is to be expected, the Dodgers would obviously prefer to see some more innings eaten along the way. However, taking Price on in order to acquire Betts was the ultimate goal of the deal and anything out of the lefty this season will be welcome. The first year of his tenure if likely the most important, as the expectation of developing arms rising to claim more spots in the rotation likely tempers any reliance on Price beyond 2020.

What would you ideally like to see out of David Price in a Dodgers uniform?