As it's been requested, here's a breakdown of Izzy's stats. Izzy worth the 7 million?

To find that out, it's necessary to determine what value a closer is expected to deliver for the money he's paid. As the save is the stat closers are judged by, that's a good starting point.

However, the save is only the end result. More than any other type of pitcher, the closer relies on strikeouts to get the job done. Of the 21 pitchers in 2005 with more than 30 save opportunities, 14 have 2 or more strikouts per walk. There's three pitchers who have converted more than 90% of their save opportunities with a k/bb ratio of less than 2 : Bob Wickman, Jason Isringhausen and Ryan Dempster. So in that respect Izzy's different than your average closer.

So how does he do it then? A breakdown per month shows a rather consistent pattern with perhaps a bit of a weaker June month, but nothing particularly striking.

Month    G   IP   SO  BB   W-L-S-H-B  ERA
April    10  8.1   6   6   0-0-7-1-0  1.08
May       9  9.0   6   5   0-0-8-0-0  0.00
June     10  9.0   9   4   0-1-7-0-2  5.00
July     11 11.0  11   5   0-0-7-0-1  0.82
August   11  9.2   8   2   0-0-5-0-0  1.86
Sept/Oct 12 12.0  11   5   1-1-5-0-1  3.75

If we split things between positive (win, save, hold), negative (loss, blown save) and neutral, it becomes clear that when Izzy sucks, he sucks bad. What's interesting is that his strikout rate when doing badly isn't any worse than when doing well.

type     G  IP    SO  BB    ERA
W/S/H    41 37.1  38  14    0.24
L/B       5  5.0   5   5   14.40
Other    17 16.2   8   8    2.70
Non-L/B  58 54.0  46  22    1.00

When looking at the blown saves and losses it's only the June 2 outing in Colorado that really sticks out as bad. Against the heart of the Rockies order Izzy gave up 3 hits and 2 walks without making an out. Other than that it's largely bad luck. On June 26 it was a solo homer that did the job, on July 15 one hit followed by 2 sacrifices, on September 2 2 solo homers in 2 innings and finally on September 28 it was a single and a double that lost it for Izzy. So that's 3 of the 4 homers during blown save opportunities.

So apart from the odd miss, Izzy's a damn fine closer. But the question was whether he's worth the money. That question is a bit complicated. Well, the question isn't, but answering it is. See, you could argue that Izzy delivered 39 saves for 7 million, while Chad Cordero delivered 47 for less than four grand, but it's obviously not as simple as that. You'd have to look at the closer qualities at the time when the contract was signed and see how the guy did since then. Return on investment type stuff.

According to Col's it looks like this:
2005 7m
2006 8.75m
2007 8.75m
2008 8m club option /w 1.25m buyout

Interesting is that it was an extension on a 2002-05 contract with an option for 2006 which actually gave Izzy less money for 2005.

Over his period with the Cardinals prior to this extension, 2002-2004, Isringhausen recorded 101 saves, the seventh highest in the majors over that period of time. If we look at the 2005 salaries of the guys with 100+ saves in 2002-2004, they average 7.1 million and of those guys only Gagne and Benitez are younger than Izzy.

Player             Saves Sal. Age  2005sv ip   sv/ip
Eric Gagne         152   8.0m  29       8 13.1  .600
John Smoltz        144   9.0m  38  starter
Mariano Rivera     121  10.5m  35      43 78.1  .549
Jose Mesa          112   2.0m  39      27 56.2  .476
Eddie Guardado     104   6.0m  34      36 56.1  .639
Armando Benitez    101   5.0m  32      19 30.0  .633
Jason Isringhausen 101   7.0m  32      39 59.0  .661
Billy Wagner       100   9.0m  33      38 77.2  .489

While injury is all part of the game, saves per inning pitched gives a bit of an insight in the player's net productivity. Among the known big guns, Izzy proved by far the most effective with .661 saves per inning. So considering similar types in the market when he extended his contract, the 7 million look to be worth the money. You have to consider that the 39 saves were made while missing 3 weeks of the season.

The young generation guys like Chad Cordero might give more value for money right now, but that will change rapidly when their current contracts run out. Brad Lidge, after a season and a half as Astros closer, signed a 1 year extension at almost 4 million for example. 7 million seems to be about marketvalue for an experienced and dependable closer without too much injury worries.