Is Marcum worth re-signing?

[adambr2]

4/60? No thanks if that's what it takes. That's $15M a year and it's debatable whether he's worth that right now at his peak level. (Probably right around that, I would say). So I don't see any way he'll be worth that in 4 years.

 

We do need good pitching but I think we could see what options are available in free agency to better and more safely invest that $15M a year.

 

I wouldn't be mad about 3/$36, but I would be pretty discouraged about a 4/60 investment.

[Bombers]

 

We do need good pitching but I think we could see what options are available in free agency to better and more safely invest that $15M a year.

 

The bad thing to me with just seeing what the options are in FA is going to net us another Braden Looper. You are also relying on Estrada and Narveson to hold the 4 / 5 spots. I am assuming we will let Fiers / Peralta get a spot ... So if we don't sign anyone we have

1. Gallardo

2. Peralta

3. Fiers

4. Estrada

5. Narveson

 

Leaving us with have no backup depth. I am ok with either Estrada or Narveson getting the 5, Fiers and Peralta getting the 3 / 4 ... that is where I give Marcum the money and he is our 2. Even if you find some sort of bargain FA buy, then put that FA bargain buy into the 3. And let Fiers, Peralta, Narveson, Estrada fight for the 4 and 5 spots.

[Invader3K]

I'd be open to seeing a Marcum extension, but it better be heavily discounted.

[rluzinski]

To me, it's simple.

 

1st-Pitchers who throw softer I don't believe are putting less stress on their arms. Not when we're talking about Greinke throwing 93 and Marcum throwing 88. Marcum has a high effort delivery, Greinke doesn't seem to have one. Either way, they're both maxing out their velocity(or close to it, I'm sure each could throw a little harder if they REALLY wanted to).

 

2nd-The harder you throw, the more you can get away with. If you throw 92 MPH, but leave one over the plate you have a better chance of that ball not getting hammered than if you throw 88.

 

3rd-As pitchers lose velocity, obviously their fastballs and their off-speed pitches don't have the the same difference in speeds. That's going to impact the soft tossers more.

 

Add to that Marcum has proven to be more of a injury risk thus far, and I think it's safe to say Greinke's the safer bet moving forward by a wide margin.

 

1. I agree that a more efficient throwing motion allows pitchers to throw pitches at a higher velocity with less wear and tear. I suspect in general, however, that a 96 MPH fastball causes the joints to be subjected to greater forces than an 88 MPH one. Does that translate into a higher probability for injury? I have no idea.

 

2. We are talking about two pitchers who are otherwise equal but one throws harder than the other.

 

3. Why?

[RockCoCougars]

3rd-As pitchers lose velocity, obviously their fastballs and their off-speed pitches don't have the the same difference in speeds. That's going to impact the soft tossers more.

 

To me, this is the key. The slower the fastball gets, the easier it is to sit on the offspeed stuff and adjust to the fastball. As for the wear and tear argument, I couldn't really care less about deliveries. Marcum has a history of major surgery on his arm, and that would concern me moving forward. Bottom line, let someone else overpay for him.

[Thurston Fluff]

Marcum has a high effort delivery, Greinke doesn't seem to have one.

 

I heard an interview with him once saying he isn't a max effort guy. He takes some off of most of his pitches to get more movement and better control.

 

Add to that Marcum has proven to be more of a injury risk thus far, and I think it's safe to say Greinke's the safer bet moving forward by a wide margin.

 

He had Tommy John surgery. That does not prove he is more of an injury risk moving forward. If anything it means less chance of having ligament problems in the future. Pitch type has been shown to matter. One of the worst pitches to throw is the slider. That was the stated reason Lincecum didn't throw them in spring or early in the season this year. It is also why Greinke stopped throwing them half way through his final season in KC. Marcum's repetoir is not as taxing on the arm as Greinke's.

[monty57]

We'll see how this plays out, but I think Melvin may have missed his chance at extending Marcum, at least to any kind of team-friendly deal. In an article from earlier this season, Marcum said he wanted to re-sign with the Brewers, but was disappointed that they hadn't contacted him. I may be wrong, but I'd guess that Melvin's plan was to try to sign Greinke and have Marcum as "plan B." This past offseason, it may have been possible to have signed Marcum to a 2-3 year deal with team options. Now that Marcum was "slighted" and is pitching very well, it'll probably take 4-5 years and a lot more money to sign him. I personally wouldn't go 4-5 years out with a 30-year-old pitcher.

 

At this point, our two options seem to be either to trade Marcum and Greinke away for a really good return, or to let them pitch through the season hoping they both remain healthy and good enough that we can offer them a one-year $13MM (or whatever) deal and get the draft picks. The former option will be "giving up" on this season, but get more advanced prospects, while the latter will let us "go for it" this season, but have a lot of work to do to get a team together for next year. Both options have benefits, but both also have risks.

 

Of course we could get in the bidding war to sign either of them as free agents this offseason, but at this point in the season, our exclusivity is probably pretty much meaningless, as I doubt either of them will forego the chance to test the free agent market when they're only half a season away and pitching like aces.

[RockCoCougars]

I don't blame the Brewers a bit for not extending an offer yet to Marcum. What if the carriage turns into a pumpkin again in August and Marcum hits a wall?

[monty57]

I don't blame the Brewers a bit for not extending an offer yet to Marcum. What if the carriage turns into a pumpkin again in August and Marcum hits a wall?

 

Melvin would've looked bad if he had extended Marcum this offseason (after his late-season collapse last year) and Marcum had went out and laid an egg this year. However, since he wasn't extended then (and Greinke hasn't and probably won't be extended) then that makes for some interesting times ahead of us. As it currently stands, we have Yo locked into the 2013 rotation. We may exercise Wolf's option, but he's not pitching very well right now. Narveson will get expensive and may not be able to pitch, so he's a huge question mark, and Estrada's a fringe MLB player. I doubt we'll have four rookies in the rotation, so what do we do?

 

We could trade some guys this year, but Attanasio seems hell-bent against that, which leaves us with the option of signing one or two free agent pitchers next offseason. At this point, I consider Greinke and Marcum to be part of this free agent class. We may sign one of them, but I doubt we get any discount.

 

It would have been risky for Melvin to have extended Marcum for 2-3 years this past offseason, but I wish he would've done it.

[adambr2]

I don't blame the Brewers a bit for not extending an offer yet to Marcum. What if the carriage turns into a pumpkin again in August and Marcum hits a wall?

 

We may exercise Wolf's option

 

Please, please no.

 

$10M option with $1.5M buyout, which really makes it an $8.5M dollar option. I like to look at possible options this way. If Randy Wolf was a free agent, could he get a 1 year, $8.5M deal right now? No chance. After last year? Probably.

[monty57]

I don't blame the Brewers a bit for not extending an offer yet to Marcum. What if the carriage turns into a pumpkin again in August and Marcum hits a wall?

 

We may exercise Wolf's option

 

Please, please no.

 

$10M option with $1.5M buyout, which really makes it an $8.5M dollar option. I like to look at possible options this way. If Randy Wolf was a free agent, could he get a 1 year, $8.5M deal right now? No chance. After last year? Probably.

 

Yeah, that's why I followed that with "...but he's not pitching very well... I doubt we'll have four rookies in the rotation, so what do we do?"

 

IF we don't exercise Wolf's option (which isn't looking promising at the moment), and IF we've missed the window to extend Greinke and Marcum (which is getting more & more likely), then our options have to be to either:

 

1) "Sell" this year and try to bring back some pitching,

2) Start next year with 3 or 4 rookies in the starting rotation

3) Hit the free agent market this offseason looking for starting pitching. This could include going after Greinke or Marcum as a free agent. I just doubt that at this point we will see them sign a "team friendly" extension.

 

Since we've let it go this far without extending Greinke or Marcum, and we'd probably need to play something like .600 ball the rest of the season to make the playoffs, I believe that we should look to start selling soon, with our targets set on picking up a SP who can be in the 2013 rotation and a young SS.

[Bombers]

Why should we sell soon? We don't have a rotation for next year, so we might as well throw away this year too? We are 6 games under .500 in the first week of June. There is 4 months of baseball left. I am pretty sure Doug isn't budging at all until the All star break.

 

In addition we are in a stretch now where we play the 4 worst teams in all of baseball. If our record is back above .500 before the break, I could see Doug "going for it" one more time.

[TheCrew07]

Why should we sell soon?

 

As has been pointed out numerous times, with the changes to the CBA the rental player market doesn't exist as it had in the past. Therefore rental players have more value the longer the team acquiring them can use them, as such the players will carry more value today than they do tomorrow.

 

If you want to maximize the return you simply cannot wait until the end of the July to make a trade and get any kind of meaningful prospects back, you have to strike when the iron is hot. A pitcher goes down, Melvin should make a call immediately and test the waters...

 

However, trading for prospects has never been Melvin's forte going all the way back to his time in Texas. As such, I don't see anything happening. Regardless the theory is sound, if you want to maximize the return you have to also maximize the value you're willing to give. If Greinke is gone no matter what then what's more valuable? 2 comp picks or 2 proven prospects? 2 comp picks or 1 super prospect? 4 months of him pitching us to a 3rd place finish? Forget about hoping and wishing Marcum or Greinke will resign before FA, which scenarios would make the organization the strongest? It can either be 2009 and 2010 all over again or we can evaluate the situation for what is and attempt to build a stronger and deeper team for 2013. What's going to be?

 

We had paper thin depth last year and everything worked out wonderfully, this year that lack of depth was exposed and it will continue to cost the Brewers all season long unless the replacements play over their heads. What's the more likely scenario? The Brewers play .600+ ball from here on out and make a run at the playoffs, basically winning 2 out of every 3 games pushing themselves towards 90 wins, or they float around .500 all season and finish somewhere around that mark? I firmly believe that anything can and will happen, but if I'm forced to make a choice I'm never going to go with the best or worst case scenario, I'm going to pick something in that middle ground, as such I don't see the Brewers playing a .600 clip the rest of the season. I certainly believe they can get to or be around .500, but I don't see the playoffs at this time.

[adambr2]

Why should we sell soon? We don't have a rotation for next year, so we might as well throw away this year too? We are 6 games under .500 in the first week of June. There is 4 months of baseball left. I am pretty sure Doug isn't budging at all until the All star break.

 

In addition we are in a stretch now where we play the 4 worst teams in all of baseball. If our record is back above .500 before the break, I could see Doug "going for it" one more time.

 

Because selling is probably the best way we can put ourselves in position to contend the next few years.

 

Our IF is in rough shape and we have no infield prospects on the horizon. As you mentioned, our rotation is being gutted next year.

 

I would rather trade the chips we have for guys that can help us weather the storm over the next couple years rather than "go for it" one more time when frankly the chances are that we probably just are not good enough to do so.

[DHonks]

Adam, you do know that prospect trades almost always work out with one winner....the team that acquired the star.

[adambr2]

Adam, you do know that prospect trades almost always work out with one winner....the team that acquired the star.

 

Not sure what you mean by this. Are you saying it's really never worth selling?

 

Every star was a prospect at one time. I'm certainly not saying trade some of your best players for the sake of doing so, but if you end up out of the race and said player won't be returning next year anyway, you have really no good reason not to try to get value for him.

[rluzinski]

Adam, you do know that prospect trades almost always work out with one winner....the team that acquired the star.

If you are going to make such a strong statement, you should at least attempt to back it up. For every example of when it worked you may wish to sight, I can give you an example where it didn't, so anecdotal evidence isn't going to sway me.

 

The fact is, there are any number of ways you could try to quantify who the winners and losers were, so I don't thin it's possible to make such a declarative statement either way. Economics 101 suggests it has to be pretty close to even, the way I see it.

 

Also, Greinke had the 5th best ZiPS projected ERA among NL starters for 2012 and currently sits with a 3.13 ERA. I don't think he's anything but a very solid ace at this point.

[danzig6767]

Why should we sell soon?

 

As has been pointed out numerous times, with the changes to the CBA the rental player market doesn't exist as it had in the past. Therefore rental players have more value the longer the team acquiring them can use them, as such the players will carry more value today than they do tomorrow.

 

If you want to maximize the return you simply cannot wait until the end of the July to make a trade and get any kind of meaningful prospects back, you have to strike when the iron is hot.

 

There is a flip side to those CBA changes.

 

Given that teams now won't get comp picks from a rental player gotten in a trade, it could make some teams choose to prefer waiting until mid-late July before making a move. Reason being that before trading some valuable prospects for a rental player which won't return comp picks, teams will want to be really sure that they have a good shot at the playoffs.

 

Say a hypothetically a team currently playing well traded for Greinke right now, but then suffered some injuries and/or just started struggling a lot for whatever reasons and come mid-late July when everyone else is looking to make moves, their team now doesn't look so good and thus they are starting to regret trading those prospects for Greinke so early.

 

Besides the fact that often there are few sellers before July, another reason i think few trades get made is many teams like to use that mid-late July time as a good evaluation point to try and judge just what level of team they think they have, if a playoff berth is a pretty realistic goal, and if so what at that point is their biggest need/needs. That can easily change from early June to instead in July given so many thing can happen over a month plus of time.

 

With the extra Wild Card, we currently have so many teams feeling kind of in limbo about whether they are a legit contender for a playoff berth and thus not sure right now if they should end up being sellers or buyers. Come July though with that extra Wild Card, there likely should end up being a good amount of teams who start thinking ok, i like where were are for the most part and now maybe what can we try to add a piece to help make a run for the playoffs vs being less sure in early June.

[HiAndTight]

rluzinski, I think a major difference between Suppan and Marcum is that Marcum has an elite pitch (changeup), Suppan had none.

 

Highandtight, a coworker of mine would disagree. He played with Greinke in the minors and said he's seen few deliveries that were more max-effort, specifically citing how Greinke lets out a loud grunt on every pitch. Not trying to argue, but trying to point out what I heard in a conversation last month

 

 

With respect to your co-worker, I'm going off two things.

1-Scouting reports.

2-Eye test.

 

He looks like he's got a pretty free and easy deliver. Not to mention your co-worker who said that he played with him in the minors is about 10 years old now? 8? When he was running it up there at 96-98.

[HiAndTight]

Adam, you do know that prospect trades almost always work out with one winner....the team that acquired the star.

 

 

I'm curious how paying for most than half of a players salary, and having them pitch out the string on a losing team works out MORE than taking a shot on an elite prospect or a couple elite prospects.

 

Who did Lawrie trade work out better for? A team that wasn't going to make the playoffs for a couple years, or the team that got the star pitcher who was awful when needed most(while helping us get there, we probably get there either way).

 

The Greinke trade? Same scenario.

 

Both teams added significant prospects during years they weren't going to compete anyway. Hard to pick a LOSER out of those trades.

 

 

So I think you're looking at the trades and saying, "the best player in the trade was always the rental player." Yeah, well...probably. However since that team was going to lose them them anyway, did the Indians, a trade that was drastically in our favor really lost that much by NOT having Sabathia for the last 3 months of the season and then getting a supplemental 1st round pick and a 2nd round pick for LaPorta, Bryson, Brantley and Jackson? I think even THAT is hard to say.

 

So..again, you're not factoring that those players are going to leave anyway, and the higher profile the pitcher, the higher demand, the better prospects you get back.

 

If we get a 4 WAR SS for Greinke, despite the fact that he might not end up as good as Greinke, that doesn't mean we lose teh trade.

[DHonks]

I believe it was Baseball America (but I'm probably wrong) that did an analysis of prospect trades a few years ago. They generally don't work out. Yes, Econ classes would state that teams will only make trades if both sides can benefit.

 

Edit: I looked and I can't find the study, but I'm probably using bad search terms. This was a topic talked about probably 2 years ago

[DHonks]

Okay, I see what you're saying...if you factor in the prospect of losing the star player and wanting to get a AAA/AA player rather than draft picks, then that probably helps balance things out a lot. For the most part I don't like trading a player if we're competitive. This team has a chance to be competitive, and I'd rather let Marcum and Greinke walk with draft-pick compensation than get less-than stellar AA/AAA prospects.

[Bombers]

This team has a chance to be competitive, and I'd rather let Marcum and Greinke walk with draft-pick compensation than get less-than stellar AA/AAA prospects.

This is where I am at. Say it another way - We have a better record than the Tigers, should they sell? I would say no. Your window to make the playoffs is small, especially for a small market.

[igor67]

Given how the signings are turning out so far, and with next year being a deeper draft that has some additional appeal. I do have a hard time figuring out how you get back to a competitive team next year losing both without some more immediate return.

[paul253]

This team has a chance to be competitive, and I'd rather let Marcum and Greinke walk with draft-pick compensation than get less-than stellar AA/AAA prospects.

 

I think all of us could agree with this. Where I would disagree is that you only get a less than stellar player in return for Greinke. The guy is a legitimate ace in my opinion. His ERA is sitting at 3.13. And that is with 2 horrible starts (April 12 in Chicago and May 26 in Arizona). Without those two starts his ERA is a dominant 1.36. If we trade him we better get an elite prospect.

 

Marcum too. While he obviously won't bring back what Greinke will he should net you a decent player. And if you don't demand pitching you could probably get someone a little better.

 

As for the topic itself. I still say if you don't trade Marcum I'd be willing to offer him the one year deal you need to offer him to get comp picks. I don't know if he'll take it or not but I'm hesitant to give him anything more than a one year deal. If he turns it down you get two draft picks. If he accepts you let Wolf go and you are only paying Marcum a little more than you'd pay Wolf.