Would a breakout season for Marcum price him out of Milwaukee after 2012?

[TwinsBrewersWorldSeries]

It will be a bittersweet offseason if Marcum continues his stellar first 6 weeks of the season through the end of 2011. At the moment, I would project Marcum at 16-8 with a sub 3.00 ERA, sub 1.10 WHIP and 4-1 K-BB Ratio. At that pace, even with his injury history, i'd imagine he might be able to position himself for a 5-7 year contract at 18-20/per.

 

I realize there is a huge risk in signing a pitcher with injury history to a long term deal, but I'm starting to feel that if Marcum has a stellar first half, the All-Star break might be our final opportunity to sign him beyond 2012 before he decides he wants to test the market.

 

Early discussion surrounded a contract offer between 4/40 and 4/56 to Marcum. Might Melvin be seriously considering tendering Marcum? While our early season struggles suggest we might not be able to put it together in the Fielder Era, i believe that signing Marcum long term is a key factor in keeping Greinke around post 2012.

[endaround]

Guys with Marcum's stuff don't tend to age well.

[dadofandrew]

Marcum seems thrilled to be in the Midwest. He might take less to stay in MIL rather than requiring a premium.

[mothershipconnection]

I'm secretly hoping that, in the case we're not making the playoffs anyway, Marcum is simply decent and not awesome to finish the season so Doug can give him a reasonable amount of years and dollars. I'm too risk-averse to be ready to hand out 5-6 years after a 2 year window of health to a guy who'd be 35 or so at the end of the deal. An extension of two or maybe three years at the right price would be awesome.

 

I'd way rather keep the players, but if we lose Prince, Greinke, and Marcum in consecutive seasons, we at least get some pretty big help for the farm system through comp picks.

[Oxy]

Guys with Marcum's stuff don't tend to age well.

Really? I don't know but I find that surprising. Seems like junkballers hang on longer to me since they don't rely on power anyway.

[crewcrazy]

Guys with Marcum's stuff don't tend to age well.

Not to mention guys with Marcum's delivery don't tend to have long careers.

 

I love Marcum. I've had a lot more fun watching him than I have watching anyone else since Sheets and Sabathia left. I hope he's really good for the Brewers through 2012. But I want no part of an extension that involves a lot of money and/or a lot of years. It's just too big of a risk. If he wants to tack on another year or two past 2012 that's one thing, but hopefully the Brewers stay away from a 4-5 year deal.

[TwinsBrewersWorldSeries]

Crewcrazy- Since he's arby eligible (i believe) for next year, would you be opposed to a 4 year deal (Last Arby Year + 3 year extension?). He'd be 33-34 at the end of that deal.

$8M (2012), $10M (2012), $12M (2013), $14M (2014) - 4 years / $44 million. The deal would expire soon enough that it wouldn't prevent us from extending Gallardo (assuming he pulls out of his funk)

[TwinsBrewersWorldSeries]

Marcum continues to deal... really would like to sign him for 3-4 years by the all-star break. If he's something like 10-2 with a sub 3.00 ERA, we need to get it done

[TheCrew07]

What does early season success during his transition to the NL mean for the long-term? I would wager not very much.

 

He'll be 30 when his contract is over, the perfect time to collect a couple of draft picks and move on. He's already had 1 TJ surgery, 1 more and his career is over. It's far better to cut ties with a player too early than too late in MLB, simply because the contracts are guaranteed.

 

He could pitch till he's 40, or he could be done in his next start. I hate to keep repeating the same facts but injury risk go up exponentially with age, it's a very steep curve. Signing pitchers over 30 isn't a solid plan, we're much better off building around youth than operating the way we have, that's how we ended up with no pitching in the first place.

[And That]

3 year/$30ish million dollar extensions seems to be popular with pitchers around Marcum's age to slightly older. I could be convinced that a 3 year/$35M deal wouldn't be a terrible idea, especially if next year was year 1 of that deal.

[TwinsBrewersWorldSeries]

CrewCrazy, what about the first 2 months of Marcum's starts has given any indication of a decline. With the exception of a bad inning today, he has been lights out for nearly 6 weeks.

Good pitching (sub 4.00 ERA) is extremely valuable.

 

If he'd take 3/30 or 3/35 i'd be absolutely thrilled, but iIm a bit irritated that people are throwing Marcum in with the scrap heap.

[SoCal Brew Crew Fan]

I'd sign him to a 3 year extension, but he'll probably be looking for 4 and likely get it...that makes it tough. They won't resign Wolf by that point so they would have room for a Marcum type. If they can get some type of discount now, maybe they do it but no reason to pay market at this point just to lock him up.

[joepepsi]

Aren't pitchers who've had TJ surgery actually less of an injury risk than those who have not? Seldom do pitchers need a second surgery, Capuano being the exception.

 

Other than that surgery he's been quite healthy over his career and very successful. The apparent bump in performance this year is probably due to the league change....he's averaging one more K per 9 than last year, thanks to having pitchers bat, no doubt.

 

I think he's as good a bet as any pitcher to remain healthy and effective for another 4-5 years. I'd like a 3-4 year extension in the offseason.

[Invader3K]

I don't see how his delivery or mechanics make him more susceptible to injury than other SPs. I wish someone would explain that.

[crewcrazy]

CrewCrazy, what about the first 2 months of Marcum's starts has given any indication of a decline. With the exception of a bad inning today, he has been lights out for nearly 6 weeks.

Good pitching (sub 4.00 ERA) is extremely valuable.

 

If he'd take 3/30 or 3/35 i'd be absolutely thrilled, but iIm a bit irritated that people are throwing Marcum in with the scrap heap.

I don't think anyone's throwing him in with the scrap heap -- he's a very good pitcher. Probably not as good as he's been through his first 11 starts, but still good.

 

I do think he'll come back down to earth a little bit, but it's not like he'll start pitching like Suppan. An uptick in his strikeouts this year could be explained by facing National League lineups, his walk numbers are returning to normal after a rough start to the year in that area, and while his BABIP against seems low (.266) compared to league average, his BABIP against for his career is around .270. Those are things that I think can be sustainable.

 

The things I worry about a little bit are his career-best (to this point) HR rates. After averaging 1.25 home runs allowed per 9 innings over his career, he's only allowed 0.76 this year, and that's with allowing 5.3% more flyballs than he has averaged over his career. That kind of thing just leads me to believe that more balls are going to eventually find their way over the fence, and we kind of saw that last night. The good thing is with the way Marcum pitches, it doesn't seem likely that he'll have very many runners on base if/when he starts surrendering a few more homers. He just hung a curveball to Crawford last night and the bases happened to be loaded...stuff like that happens.

Invader3K

wrote:

---

I don't see how his delivery or mechanics

make him more susceptible to injury than other SPs. I wish someone

would explain that.

He's an Inverted W guy, but the problem isn't with the Inverted W as much as what happens with his timing because of it. Basically, his plant foot hits the ground early, and because of that, more stress is put on his arm and elbow because he isn't using his body's momentum to "power" his throw as much (the reason not all Inverted W's are evil is because some are like Carlos Marmol and can get their arm cocked before their plant foot hits). Tom Verducci wrote an article about Stephen Strasburg's mechanics a couple months ago about it, and I applied it to Marcum and took some screen caps back in March if anyone's interested in checking that out.

 

The delivery has obviously worked for Marcum on the mound, but it's enough to make some people nervous about the future.

[TwinsBrewersWorldSeries]

I am thinking "W" everytime Marcum pitches, but every stellar outing he has, I feel like i'm adding a million dollars to the contract Marcum will reach.

 

I still think 4/40 or 4/50 is doable, but if Marcum finishes with an ERA below 3.25, with 15 wins, a solid WHIP, and stellar K/BB ratio, i think the minimum deal goes to 5/75 in the offseason.

 

I'm willing to go 5/75 for Greinke (even with his rough start), though i'd prefer to keep Marcum for 3-4 years, and no more than 12-13 per

[Warning Track Power]

I think this season will prove to management that we will consistently be in contention if we can pair excellent pitching with above average, not excellent offense, i.e. 2012 Brewers without Prince. I think Attanasio, Melvin & Ash will go out of there way to ensure Gallardo, Greinke & Marcum are here for the next 5 seasons at least.

 

My guess today is that we sign Marcum for right around the 4 year $48MM ($12MM/AAV) contract everyone has been discussing and Greinke gets a Lackey type deal for $5 year $85 MM ($17MM/AAV). I know it isn't as simple as subtracting Prince's and Wolf's salaries in 2013 and adding extended Greinke and Marcum, but the numbers are relatively close with Wolf getting $9.5MM & Prince getting $15.5MM or $25MM this season and my proposed extensions equaling $29MM.

[TwinsBrewersWorldSeries]

I know some people cringe at the thought, but I have zero problem having Yo, Greinke, and Marcum locked up for $40M combined (annually). That does mean that we can't afford $9-10M for our 4-5 starters, but i think finding cheap guys for the backend of the rotation is much easier. Fill in Braun, and 1-2 $10m/per types, and we will need to have a few "pre-arby" guys on our team to make it work consistently for under $100M, but i think we can do it.

 

To Borrow Barry Alvarez: It takes 5 great players: Braun, the Big 3, and one of (Hart, Jon-Luc, Weeks)

[CheezWizHed]

He's an Inverted W guy

 

Nah, its "M" for Marcum! http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/wink.gif

[Roderick]

It's far better to cut ties with a player too early than too late in MLB, simply because the contracts are guaranteed.

I might agree if the Brewers had more of a sure thing replacement for him. But if we wait and he leaves via free agency and someone isn't ready to pitch at a #3 type pitcher level level from Estrada/Rogers/Piralta/etc (after replacing Wolf with one of these guys already) then you are going to end up overpaying for a free agent pitcher.

 

Might as well see about the pitcher that you know and he knows you - even if we don't get a hometown discount, we won't have to pay the "come to Milwaukee" free agent premium.