No one has ranted more about the high cost of medical care and the cost of insurance to cover it than yours truly. You can ask my wife, my coffee group and my insurance guy for verification if you wish.
The recent financial departure packages that Sanford has doled out to a few Sioux Falls doctors and executives has been in the news and the talk at the coffee shops.
It’s difficult for many of us, me included for sure, to fully comprehend the kind of dollars and all the factors that go into establishing the final payouts. All of that is above my pay grade.
My Brewster math education, however, helps me break down Max Scherzer’s salary. Never heard of him? Me either –until he signed a three-year contract to pitch for the New York Mets major league baseball team.
From what I gather, Scherzer is a very good pitcher, if not one of the best currently playing. He’s 37 years old and has played for a few other teams … and I want to remind you he is very good at his craft.
His new three-year guaranteed contract will pay him $130 million, or a little over $43 million a year.
Keep in mind he is a pitcher, and in today’s MLB world, an individual pitcher pitches in about every fifth game. There are 162 games in a major league season, so at a rate of very fifth game he will pitch in 32 games. Nowadays major league pitchers call it a day after seven innings of work.
Now take 32 games times seven innings each, and that adds up to 224 innings of pitching. An average pitcher throws about 16 pitches an inning. Now take 16 pitches times 224 innings for the year, and Scherzer may throw 3,584 pitches for the year.
Here is where my Brewster math comes in handy. Take 3,584 pitches and divide that by $43,000,000 and Scherzer will earn $12,000 every time he throws a pitch –ball or strike – it doesn’t matter.
Now that is insane! But what is really insane is that that is the market rate.