The Cubs agreed to a three-year extension with closer Carlos Marmol, avoiding arbitration, the team announced. Marmol's deal is worth $20MM over three years, according to Gordon Wittenmyer of the Chicago Sun-Times (on Twitter). Marmol will earn $3.2MM in 2011, $7MM in 2012 and $9.8MM in 2013, according to MLB.com's Carrie Muskat (on Twitter).
The 28-year-old right-hander struck out a career-high 16 batters per nine innings last year, saving 38 games and posting a 2.55 ERA. He walked lots of batters (6.0 BB/9) as usual and was exceptionally difficult to hit (4.6 H/9). Marmol's new deal keeps him in Chicago through his age-30 season.
The contract buys out Marmol's two remaining seasons of arbitration eligibility and covers his first free agent season. Agent Barry Praver represents Marmol, who earned $2.125MM last year.
As MLBTR's Arb Tracker shows, this is the second time this offseason the Cubs have agreed to an extension with an arbitration eligible pitcher. They signed Sean Marshall to a two-year deal last month. Only five arbitration eligible players remain unsigned for 2011: Jose Bautista, Kelly Johnson, Hunter Pence, Rickie Weeks and Delmon Young.
Ken Rosenthal of FOX Sports first reported the agreement.
wasnt there another one of these stating the exact same thing?
Hard to argue with this.. I’m not one to overvalue relievers
but this guy is just straight nasty.
he’ll be the ubaldo jimmenez of relievers once he gets his walk numbers under control.
Even with his walk numbers, his WHIP is still very good because he doesn’t give up hits
His walks won’t be an issue until he (if he) stops striking out so many batters.
It is hard to argue this. I even thought about trying to for a while, but there’s no reason to do so.
Marmol’s control is always going to be an issue, but the K’s per 9 and H’s per 9 are so ridiculous that the BB’s per 9 don’t matter.
I would rather he give up a walk than a hit and it looks like that’s what he does. he blazes the edges, so either they K or they walk, but nothing is good enough for the batter to hit either way. that’s probably why he has such a crazy HR rate too.
I would just LOVE for him to save all of his “bad” days for when he’s facing the Brewers . . . he has a tendency to use up all of his walks in one outing . . . either loading the bases and/or allowing them to clear with the sporadic double. I know he’s a good pitcher, but when he’s playing my brewers, I hope he dies like a dog.
Walks are an issue, but his slider is one if not straight RE-DONK-ULIS-UST-ING best in the MLB
Zack Greinke is the only one that can compare…these two guys are in the same league as Randy Johnson with how good the sliders are
hear hear. Batter’s can hear the slider’s evil laugh as they swing their bats fruitlessly . . .
Bacon
Bargain
By the time this contract ends (baring injuries) The Cubs wil have extracted a great deal of value out of Marmol at a relatively small cost to payroll. As long as he stays healthy and doesn’t regress with his control he should be fnie for the next three years. Sounds like a good deal for the club and the player.
Risky but not bad. Marmol to me just seems like a reliever who when he starts to decline will just fall off a cliff because of his skill set. But hopefully that doesn’t happen in the next 3 years
I think this is a very reasonable deal and am actually in favor of the back loaded structure.
If he threw it in the strikezone more, he’d get hit more…
There’s more to it then just working on his control.
i worry a bit about his mechanics long-term, but that’s way long-term for a reliever, so it shouldn’t be a concern anytime in the next three years. Good contract overall though, and he definitely earned it.
you gotta love how a pitcher with one REALLY REALLY good pitch a less than medicore second pitch and seemingly no 3rd pitch to think of can get a BACK LOADED deal worth 20 mill?…the deal its self not bad but why would hendry back load it? If gets hurts, or loses command of that slider he is done…Sliders put a ton of strain on elbows and how hard he throws his its a count down to serious injury. And if you watched a bunch of cubs games you could see more and more guys laying off and just sitting there waiting to either his fastball or to get walked towards the end of the season. People know he is either going to strike you out of walk the bases loaded…He is a great pitcher dont get me wrong and his season last year was boarder line historic But i dont understand why hendry back loaded this deal. It should have been front loaded that way they have more money to make a “run” at albert or price or adrian(if boston does not sign him) next season. And if its front loaded and at the end of the deal he is BAD you can cut him without hurting too much now hendry has a ten million dollar guy with one pitch who has horrible controll on his hands in 2013
He has shown no signs of regression. At no point are the Cubs paying him what he was worth in 2010 according to Fangraphs. .
By all accounts cubs don’t have the money to front load it – hence the 3.2 mil this year on this contract, 1/2 of Pena’s 10 M deferred to next year,etc. I doubt no matter how it was structured it would impede a possible run at a 100m player
A less than mediocre second pitch–meaning his fastball? Really? His fastball is mid-90s with movement. A lot of movement, which is a big reason why hitters look so uncomfortable in the box against him. Your assesment of Marmol is just inaccurate– he’s a closer with a plus-fastball and arguably the best slider in the game getting a backloaded 20 mil deal. A lot more reasonable.
Tommy Boy Hendry has been backloading the hell out of everyone’s contracts once the Tribsters told him to get the team ready for sale and he has been playing catch-up ever since. Marmol was asking for $5.65M in arbitration and the Cubs were offering $4.1M. Now with this contract, the Cubs only have to pay him $3.2M this year so they save almost $1M this year. Which will come in handy since another one of Hendry’s backloaded deals hits them hard this year – Grabow at $4.8M. And Marlon Byrd gets $5.5M this year and $6.5M next year (up from $3M last season).
Actually backloading contracts makes a lot of economic sense… with inflation, 10M three years from now will be worth less than 10M today. Honestly backloading’s not all bad.
inflation does not work that quickly and given this economy 10 mill now might be worth less than 10 mill then…and in that case of inflation your not talking about much at most in 3 years it will be a difference of a few hundred maybe a grand
OMG XD Do research: yes, he might throw his arm out with bad mechanics, but if that one pitch is good enough then he’ll always have a job in the major leagues. Brandon Webb got a Cy Young off of his sinker . . . threw it 90% of the time.
yes he has bad mechanics and throws a pitch that is hard on your arm very very hard….and look what happened to webb he has been BAD BAD BAD since he got hurt. And yes webb got the cy but he also has a good fastball that was clocked in the upper 80s low 90s with movement…and had a very good change up along with a good curve ball…
and please dont ever use OMG it makes you look like a tool