Mariners sign Silva, Tigers extend Willis

As rumored, Bill Bavasi strikes again. Silva gets four years and $48 million. Comparisons with Vicente Padilla and his contract have already been made here. I'm actually not that down on this deal, to be honest. Silva has had one really bad year as a starter (75 ERA+ in 2006) and three years of 112, 129, 103. He's nothing great, but he is under 30 and I think that most of us need to take the dollar amounts in these deals and multiply them by about 0.6 to translate what we picture as good value to what market value is right now. Anyway, at least this does fill another spot in Seattle's rotation with mediocrity moving forward, and you can start to say things like "Seattle has $50 million wrapped up in Silva, Ichiro, ___ and ___."

Willis signed for three years and $29 million. This adds one year of control for the Marlins, as he was due to come free after 2009. Willis had a really bad 2007 and the Tigers are obviously betting that that was an aberration moreso than a pattern.