3:51pm: Troy Renck of The Denver Post reports that Hammel will earn $3MM in 2011 and $4.75MM in 2012.
11:42am: The Rockies and Jason Hammel have agreed to a two-year deal according to the team (on Twitter). The deal buys out Hammel's next two years of arbitration-eligibility, though he will still be eligible for arbitration in 2013 as a Super Two. He is represented by Octagon.
MLBTR's Arbitration Tracker shows that Hammel filed for $3.7MM in arbitration earlier this week while the team countered with $3.1MM. He earned $1.9MM in 2010. Colorado has already signed Matt Lindstrom, Carlos Gonzalez, and Troy Tulowitzki to multiyear contract extensions this offseason.
Hammel, 28, was acquired from the Rays for minor leaguer Aneury Rodriguez before the 2009 season. In his two years with the Rockies, he's pitched to a 4.57 ERA with 7.0 K/9 and 2.3 BB/9 in 354 1/3 innings, though he battled a groin strain and arm fatigue in 2010. His 46.4% ground ball rate over the last two years ranks 35th among the 78 pitchers with at least 350 innings.
I’ve always liked Hammel. Glad they were able to work something like this out with him. Guessing it’s around $8MM.
I’ve also been a big fan of Hammel. He’s one of the Rockies most consistent pitchers
One of the most underrated pitchers in the game. Hi FIP the last 2 seasons has been 3.70, get this man some defense and watch him put up #2 starter numbers.
Don’t get me wrong, I think Hammel is awesome, but he doesn’t fool batters when he pitches. He pounds the zone without much deception and ends up getting pounded because of it. He will always look worse than his FIP because he doesn’t hand out free passes. He needs to put some movement on his fastball so he gets more weakly hit grounders and perhaps a few more swings and misses.
I understand that he can get light up when he pounds the zone but thats also the only way he can be successful and he will be the first to tell you he lives and dies with pounding the zone. When he starts to get cute and really try to pinpoint his location thats when he falls behind in counts and gets himself into trouble.
Yeah, but he still needs to hide the ball better or get some more tail / sink on his fastball to induce more weak contact vs line drives, he’s never posted a positive wFB according to fangraphs. Toss in that 65% of the time he’s getting batters to swing at his pitches in the zone and 90% of those swings make contact. Something’s gotta give, hopefully Apodaca will help him develop a cutter or something.
I agree he does need to do one of the 2, either hide the ball better in his delivery or get more cut/sink on that fastball and if he does so he could really be a solid middle of the rotation guy, he is only 28 (I believe) so he does still have a lot of time to develop another pitch or really work on that delivery. I believe Apodaca could very well help him but more so with the mechanics and hiding the ball. I feel the other guys on this staff could help him the most with developing another pitch….talking to Ubaldo about maybe a 2-seam fastball and how to develop one because we all know Ubaldo can make that thing dance, also maybe talking to Cook about a sinker. There is a lot of guys that could really help in Hammel’s development.
this guy is really good. he had an ERA of around 4 until september rolled around. I believe he is the 3rd best starter in the rockies behind jimenez and chacin. next step is getting rid of aaron cook
You’d take him over De la Rosa? I like him too but he’s overwhelmingly mediocre…
Read the fangraphs article on how unlucky he was last year (I would link it here if i could.) The past 2 years he has pitched to a FIP around 3.80 sporting strong peripherals and a nice GB%. He should have much better defense this year with Brad Hawpe out of the outfield completely, and EY Jr at 2nd base for most of the year (hopefully.)
If you’re looking for a good defense behind him then start pulling for Herrera over EYJ at 2B. That goes for at the plate, too.
His fastball is too straight, he lacks deception, those are his problems (though EYJ at 2B doesn’t help much right now), pound the zone with a straight fastball and you’ll get pounded.
yes in my eyes i see de la rosa as your typical “im going to pitch 100% due to upcoming free angency” then pitch as a 4th starter now that he has nothing to worry about.
You do know that DLR took less money to stay in Denver right? He wouldn’t do that if he was one of those pitchers.
And Mark, I just read the article you suggested — very interesting that his FIP was around the same as Clay Bucholz’s. Thanks for the rec; I never realized that the defense was so bad behind him. If he moves to the league average and Friedrich or Matzek pitch lights out at Spring Training we’ll have a great rotation this year.
His stats are quite similar to DLR’s over the past two seasons, and he’s been healthier and pitched more innings.
Good point. I guess Hammel’s consistency is nice, in terms of pure nastiness DLR wins easily which makes him far more entertaining for the average fan like me to watch.
Good point. DLR gives the Rockies more opportunities for team wins as well, I believe. He throws 2 really good games and one bad game where Hammel is pretty average almost all the time.
I was hoping this guy was going to be a fantasy sleeper last year and it never really materialized.. I’ll chalk it up to injuries and try again this year!
Good signing for both sides. I see Hammel nearing 200 innings this year with an ERA around 4.20 or so. I’d take that in a heartbeat.