I’m teaching my kids how to pitch. Every day, from dawn till dusk, we’ll head to the park and work on their motion, grips and pitch selection. Forget the Crusades, chemistry and calculus — if I want my kids to succeed in life, all they need is a decent curveball and good endurance. Because if you want a cool, seven- to eight-figure salary, pitching is the way to go.

The kicker? Compared to your peers, you don’t even have to be good.

Carlos Silva, formerly of the Minnesota Twins, signed the largest contract for a starting pitcher in this year’s free agency period. The Seattle Mariners inked the righty for four years, $48 million. At $12 million a year, he’ll be making $7,500,000 more than Brandon Webb, the 2006 NL Cy Young Award winner.

Surely, then, Silva must be ace material. Quite the contrary. Silva is a below-average pitcher whose best attribute is his endurance. But, that’s not necessarily a good thing — Silva posted a mediocre 4.19 ERA last year, which was his best since his rookie year. So, although he’ll stay in the game longer, he’ll give up more runs in the process — his ERA is particularly bad because long outings generally lead to lower ERA totals, since more innings are taken into account and it’s assumed that managers won’t leave struggling pitchers in the game.

But let’s not just judge him on the 2007 season. His career ERA isn’t any better: 4.31. His career ERA+, a variation on ERA that takes into account ballpark factors and the performance of other pitchers in the league, is a mediocre 102, only two points above average. And his career WHIP (walks and hits per innings pitched, perhaps the most useful common statistic used to determine a pitcher’s success) is a below-average 1.368. And, to top it all off, Silva went 13-14 last year.

Silva has no business making $12 million a year — he is, at best, mediocre.

But Silva isn’t the only one making a killing. Detroit’s Nate Robertson, who just re-upped for $21.25 million over three years, is even worse than Silva. His career totals are as follows: 4.60 ERA, 97 ERA+ and 1.411 WHIP.

However, Robertson knows how inflated his salary is.

“I think it’s ridiculous to pay baseball players what we get,” he said on Michigan’s WDFN radio.

Silva and Robertson headline a system that rewards mediocrity. The Yankees will pay Andy Pettitte $16 million next year — although Pettitte posted a good 110 ERA+ last year, his WHIP was a poor 1.426. He deserves a better contract than Silva or Robertson, but he shouldn’t be making $16 million, which makes Pettitte one of the best-paid players (at any position) in baseball.

And those are only the starting pitchers — closer Eric Gagne, the one-time Cy Young Award winner who was so bad with the Boston Red Sox last year that he was effectively benched down the stretch, will make $10 million with the Milwaukee Brewers next year.

Some good pitchers will get their due: closer Francisco Cordero, one of the best in the game, inked a four-year, $46 million contract with the Cincinnati Reds.

But even exceptions such as Cordero don’t disprove the general rule — in recent years, the price of pitchers has skyrocketed to the point where average players are making upwards of $10 million a year. Baseball is one of the only businesses where such mediocrity is rewarded.

So on the day when my first kid is born (boy or girl, it matters not), I will present them with a glove, a ball and a training regimen. They will aim to be the best, but if they fail, no worries! The Seattle Mariners, and others of their ilk, will still fork over an eight-figure salary.