Ted Lilly and the Dodgers agreed to terms on a three-year contract yesterday and now Tony Jackson of ESPNLosAngeles.com has the details:
Lilly will get $33 million, including a $3.5 million signing bonus “to be paid out over the life of the contract” and the remaining $29.5 million “is weighted toward the back end of the deal, but only slightly so.”
Three-year contracts for 34-year-old pitchers are always going to be very risky, but Lilly has thrown 175 or more innings in five straight seasons and has performed better than he did prior to signing the four-year, $40 million contract that just ended.
During that four-year deal he went 47-34 with a 3.70 ERA in 113 starts for the Cubs and 7-4 with a 3.52 ERA in 13 starts for the Dodgers, ranking 20th in ERA among all starters with at least 600 innings over that span. Lilly has been a solid No. 2 starter and that’s certainly worth $10 million per season to a high-payroll team like the Dodgers, but the big question is whether he can remain healthy and hold off a mid-30s decline.