Bonderman Signed Through 2010

The Detroit Tigers and Jeremy Bonderman have agreed on 4 year contract which will keep the pitcher on the Tigers through 2010. According to the Cutoff Man at MLive, WDFN radio is reporting that the deal will be worth 38 million over the length of the contract.

Bonderman would have been a free agent after 2008 but this deal buys out his last 2 years of arbitration and goes 2 years beyond that. This looks like an excellent deal for the Tigers. As Billfer points out, this is very similar to the deal received by Johan Santana last year in a more conservative market.

This is a very important signing for the Tigers. Bonderman gets a lot of criticism from fans but people forget that he was just 23 years old last year and has been improving each year. Bonderman was 14th in the league with a 4.08 ERA and had an excellent K/BB ratio of 202/64 in 214 innings in 2006. He was 4th in the league with a FIP ERA of 3.37, 2nd in strikeouts per 9 IP (8.6), 6th in fewest homeruns per 9 IP pitched (0.77) and 7th in ground ball percentage (48.2%). So, he's already good and could become dominant as he matures.