The Padres today announced that they have agreed to terms with left-hander Cory Luebke on a contract through the 2015 season with club options for 2016 and 2017. The 27-year-old is represented by Meister Sports Management.
The deal will give Luebke a guaranteed $12MM, according to Tom Krasovic of Inside The Padres (via Twitter). If both options are exercised, Luebke could earn up to $27.75MM, tweets Corey Brock of MLB.com.
The contract can potentially cover Luebke's arbitration eligible years and his first year of free agency. The lefty appeared in 46 games for the Padres last season, posting a 3.29 ERA with 9.9 K/9 and 2.8 BB/9.
Yes!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! The Padres extended the RIGHT pitcher. Nicely done.
So you’re saying they extended him?
I like this signing for the Padres. Totally off topic, but I think the fonts on this site could use some updating. Something more modern and not so craigslist-y. Just my opinion.
I can’t wait until this team actually gets an owner! With all the upheaval in the front office, they are still signing some very smart extensions with their young stars.
Luebke has the makings of an ace, at least a #2, and will be an anchor in the rotation. With Kelly, Erlin and Wieland hopefully making their way to Petco in the next year or two, this signing will show them that this franchise is serious about signing their young players that have shown high upside.
Another great move Mr. Byrnes and Mr. Garfinkel. Keep this up and the new owners might just keep you on. 🙂
The padres are very quickly becoming the NL version of the Rays. They are really starting to manage the team well. The current phase of locking up core youngsters will be followed up with an effort to start drafting and aquiring higher risk but elite upside players. With the new CBA allowing for 2 years of protection on top draft picks, I could see the Padres drafting several highschoolers this year.
What do you mean by two years of protection on top draft picks?
Under the old CBA, if you failed to sign a player you got the pick back (well, one pick later) the next year. But if you failed to sign that pick again, you received nothing. Now that coverage lasts an extra year.
Allows a bit more flexibility then. I like it.
it remains to be seen if they have locked up correct players. Friedman has done a fantastic job in spotting people to lock up and then going year to year with players to not go LT with. Not to mention a super competitive team over the last 4 seasons.
It might take another couple of years before we see how well SD did on these deals before can find out if they were all smart or not, but the friedman deals were all success stories where he went multiple years and he did a good job of moving some before they went bad even.. See Kazmir to Anaheim.
You could argue that they waited too long to trade Kazmir. At one point, you could have gotten a team to unload their farm system for a guy like that.
Unexpected, but very welcome. Get on with yo’ bad self K-Y.
I think what I like most about this is the organization is not opposed to locking up pitching talent as well as the players in the field; there was a quote attributed to Byrnes that the team wouldn’t be signing pitchers to extensions, which seemed absolutely ludicrous. Please, keep management in place new owners.
Another great signing by Byrnes. Now, if they have good years, we need to lock up Alonso and Cashner and expand the core to 5 solid players, with the potential of trading the team-friendly contract of Hundley if Grandal pans out to be the player we all hope he can be. Then extend him.
If Kelly, Weiland, Erlin, Gyorko, Spangenberg, Ross, Hedges, Rincon and Liriano all pan out, we really could be something in about 2-3 years.
I worry that whoever buys the Padres decides to bring in ‘their’ guy and gets rid of Byrnes. I really, really like what he’s doing. If the new owner will keep Byrnes and continues to invest in the draft, and even gets the payroll up to the low 70’s (million), we have a bright bright future.
Sorry for jumping around, but Im excited!
Heck, if half of the players you mentioned pan out the Padres will be a team to be reckoned with. I too am worried about Garfinkel and Byrnes being shown the door when a new owner takes over, however the moves they have made since taking over from Hoyer have strengthened this franchise even further. I personally, and of course that means nothing in the baseball world, think it would be an awful move by the new ownership to get rid of either guy.
This is a great time to be a Padre fan.