You can hold that opinion, but he is only 34, not 40. He never was a "power pitcher" anyways, so he should be able to age better then those types anyways, he had 4 very, very productive years followed by one not as productive year but solid year anyways (make no doubt about it, a sub 4.00 ERA and 200+ IP is still productive) So either Shields had an outlier bad year, on a bad team that under-preformed all around or that Shields at 33 is toast. I think the former is the more likely scenario and you seem to content that the latter is the scenario. That ok, we can disgaree. But in terms of getting rid of Nolasco, and bringing in Shields (+39 million for 3 years or whatever) I tend to think the risk is well worth the potential reward. $13 mil a year that we would essentially owe him in this deal basically comes out to just a couple million less than what we paid Pelfrey+Stauffer last year. They can afford this "risk" all day, especially when his absolute floor still seems to be a guy who will give you 200IP, a good k rate and a sub 4.00 ERA regardless.