Archive for Jason Marquis

Guessing the starting pitcher with most strikeouts per nine innings early on in the season should not be too difficult. Clayton Kershaw has struck out more than a batter per inning in his career, and in the early part of this season has shown more of the same, striking out 35 batters in just over 24 innings pitched for an excellent 12.95 K/9. There are a few other players we would expect to see in the top ten in the early going with Felix Hernandez, Matt Harvey, and Gerrit Cole fanning a bunch of players along with Trevor Bauer’s quest to never allow a player to make contact with a baseball (19 IP, 26 K, 11BB), and even Brandon McCarthy, Tyson Ross, Chris Archer, and Francisco Liriano are not a complete shock, but to see Jason Marquis in second place on this list behind only Clayton Kershaw is very surprising no matter how early we are in the season.

That Jason Marquis has pitched 15 innings thus far in 2015 is an unusual development given the way his career has taken shape. Here are his numbers over the past five years.

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The Nationals made a pair of moves Saturday, sending utility-man Jerry Hairston Jr to the Brewers and starting pitcher Jason Marquis to the Diamondbacks. Both were marginal moves that weren’t all that exciting, but the Nats turned two players who didn’t factor into their plans into prospects who might. In exchange for Hairston, the Brewers sent back outfielder Erik Komatsu. For Marquis, the Diamondbacks traded away shortstop Zach Walters. Neither prospect is what we might label “can’t-miss” but both have the upside to help the Nationals as their rebuilding blossoms into contention.

Hairston signed a one year, $2 million deal in the offseason with the Nats, leading some to question why a team in their position even needed someone like him. Well, this is why. As the trade deadline approaches, some fringe contender is going to need middle infield help, either to replace a failed starter or to bide time due to an injury, and will make a trade for a player of that ilk. Hairston accomplishes both of those goals for the Brewers, who are not only dealing with the offensive impotence of Casey McGehee and Yuniesky Betancourt, but also injuries to Rickie Weeks and Carlos Gomez.

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They’re not necessarily the sexiest names in town, but Coco Crisp, Brandon League, and Jason Marquis all changed teams in the past week and are all still below the 30-ballot threshold. Click here to cast your projections for the triumvirate.

Crisp suffered shoulder problems last season, and Kansas City declined his 2010 option. Oakland just signed the outfielder to a one-year, $5 million deal.

Kinda Disappointing Fireballer League is heading West in exchange for other Kinda Disappointing Fireballer Brandon Morrow. Has Baseballing Wizard Jack Zduriencik struck again?

Jason Marquis, uh, … has a cool last name? Also, he signed two-year, $15 million deal with the Nationals — which, that’s always a good sign.

The Washington Nationals are the winners of the Jason Marquis derby. His contract is for 2-years, $15 million. Marquis is coming off a career year in which he was worth 3.8 WAR. He started the season strong but struggled down the stretch, pitching himself off of Colorado’s playoff roster. His previous two seasons with the Cubs he was good for 3.5 WAR combined.

Marquis’ success is predicated on keeping the ball on the ground and in the park, two things he excelled at last year. His groundball rate of 56% was a career high and he allowed just .63 HR/9 in Colorado, of all places. The increase of groundballs is encouraging, but his 1.44 K/BB ratio means he’s dancing on the edge of a knife.

All in all, Jason Marquis is the walking definition of a league-average innings-muncher. I don’t mean that as a knock, that certainly has value. CHONE projects Marquis to be 1.8 wins above replacement in 2009. At $7.5 million per, the dollars aren’t too bad. To this point the market is paying about $3.8 million per win; Marquis is coming at around $4-4.3 per win for the Nats.  He’s certainly an upgrade over household names such as J.D. Martin or Craig Stammen.

But here’s the rub. What exactly is the point of spending $4 million for a win when you’re the Nationals? The team currently has maybe seventy-something win talent and they’re well on their way to becoming basement dwellers in the NL East yet again. Signing an innings-eater such as Marquis to a contract like this makes zero sense; all he does is makes the Nationals slightly less bad than they were a year ago.

If the Nationals wanted to fill a spot, why not just sign a Ken Phelps All-Star like Lenny DiNardo  (whom CHONE projects to be worth 1.7 WAR) and save the millions for Bryce Harper?

I’m also enjoying the irony that Stephen Strasburg is getting paid $15 million from the Nationals for four years, while Marquis is getting the same for two. Those wacky draft picks are just so overpaid, right Rob Dibble?

Rocktober is making a comeback. After stumbling out of the blocks, the team fired Clint Hurdle and installed Jim Tracy as their manager, who has since guided the team to a 41-20 record. They now are on pace to win 90 games and PECOTA gives them better than 55% odds to make the playoffs. Before the season, their CHONE projection pegged them for just 78 wins. Managerial regime changes aside, what’s the story behind the Purple Revival?

For starters, it’s been the starters. Starting pitching, that is. The Rockies’ starting five has been the best in the National League by a good margin – their 125.6 runs above replacement is 11.6 runs better than San Francisco’s. The Rockies seem to have torn a page or three out of Cardinal pitching coach Dave Duncan’s book “Keys to Winning with an Iffy Staff”. We know Ubaldo Jimenez is great and Aaron Cook is usually solid, but the Rockies are getting good production out of three retreads – Jason Marquis, Jason Hammel and Jorge de la Rosa. What pitching coach Bob Apodaca (fun name to say) has been able to do is coax his pitchers to throw strikes and induce ground-balls.

Colorado pitchers throw more fastballs than any team – 67.6% .The starting five also induces more ground-balls than any team – at a 51.9% clip. More burned worms has led to fewer homers, as the Rockies have been surprisingly good at keeping balls in the yard – 0.83 HR/9. As I said, they’re also throwing strikes, ranking third in the National League in walks per nine innings at 2.9. So it turns out that you can pitch at high altitude, you just have to go about it the right way.

Couple the strong pitching with a resurgent Troy Tulowitzki, who his hitting .302/.392/.619 since June 1st, and more of Seth Smith in the lineup (.385 wOBA, 7.4 UZR), and it’s easy to see why the Rockies are the back in biz.

With the All-Star rosters unveiled, Charlie Manuel showed that you can be a championship-winning manager and have no more intelligence than your average fan when it comes to putting together an All-Star team. Picking Jason Marquis over Ubaldo Jimenez vividly illustrates that point that Manuel is still living in the dark ages.

Ubaldo Jimenez is what the All-Star game should be about — showcasing the brightest and the best talent in the major leagues. For starters, he throws consistently harder than any major league starting pitcher, averaging 95.6 MPH on his fastball. Obviously, putting together an All-Star pitching staff should not based upon finding the pitchers who throw the hardest, but it doesn’t hurt that Jimenez is also really, really good. His fielding-independent ERA (FIP) is 3.33, 7th among NL starting pitchers, and his wins above replacement total is 2.9, good for 5th best. To to sum up: Jimenez is young, he has electric stuff and is pretty stinkin’ good at pitching.

Jason Marquis on the other hand is leading the NL in the preeminent Wins category, with 10 to his credit. What Manuel seems to have forgotten is that Jason Marquis is the definition of a back-end starting pitcher (with a career FIP of 4.88). He forgot that Marquis has an average repertoire and is striking out just 4.2 batters per nine innings. He overlooked the fact Marquis is getting lots of run support, at 7 per game. Marquis does have a near-identical ERA as Jimenez (3.87), but he is exactly the type of pitcher you expect burn up as he hurtles quickly back to earth. His rest-of-season ZiPS projection calls for a 4.73 FIP. All Manuel saw was 10 Wins.

I don’t expect an old school manager to care about rest of season ZiPS, FIP or WAR, but I would think they would know the difference between an ace and a back-end starter having a fluky first-half of a season. And who wouldn’t want Ubaldo Jimenez coming out of their bullpen, pumping in 100 MPH fastballs? Few fans get the privilege of seeing Jimenez pitch with him tucked away in Colorado, and unfortunately they’re not going to get the chance to see him shine on one of baseball’s biggest stages.