Left-hander Nick Margevicius has signed with the TSG Hawks of Chinese Professional Baseball in Taiwan, per CPBL Stats on X. The lefty is represented by the Beverly Hills Sports Council.
Margevicius, 28 in June, has 32 games of major league experience. He threw 110 1/3 innings for the Padres and Mariners over the 2019-2021 seasons, making 22 starts and 10 relief appearances, allowing 6.12 earned runs per nine innings in that time. He struck out 18.3% of batters faced, gave out walks at an 8.1% rate and kept 41.3% of balls in play on the ground.
He was diagnosed with thoracic outlet syndrome in May of 2021 and didn’t pitch for the rest of that season. He was outrighted by the Mariners early in 2022 and stayed in their organization, tossing 49 Triple-A innings that year with a 7.53 ERA. He signed a minor league deal with Atlanta going into 2023 and had a 6.82 ERA in the minors last year, split between Double-A and Triple-A.
It’s been a rough few years with the injury and subsequent poor results. Margevicius would have been limited to another minor league deal if he stayed in North America but will instead head to Taiwan to join the Hawks. The financial details of his contract aren’t known but he’ll surely make a larger salary than if he were stuck in Triple-A somewhere, in addition to getting a chance to showcase himself in a prominent foreign league.
Good plan. He’s actually pitching much better than his ERA shows. Last year, this FRA was 4.77. His problem is he’s giving up far too many walks in 2023 (10.2%) and he got hit hard (45%) in 2023. K-BB% of 10.1 isn’t great. I’m a bit surprised that he’s so tall yet he’s only averaging about 90MPH fastball.
Get to see the world and a chance to remake himself & get paid more money than a basic AAA/AA salary.
No lose situation for him.
How much of his salary will be Deferred???
Good to see some of these Padres “Hot Lava” prospects still making a living chasing the dream. You could lose a spelling bee trying to spell that last name…
Most likely, Margevicis will receive a guarantee of $50K to $60K on a three-month contract, which could be extended at the same daily rate for the entire season if the first three months go well. The main attraction for Margevicius in signing with a CPBL team may be that if he pitches well in Taiwan, a KBO or NPB team will come calling and offer MLB major league minimum money or something close to it..