Ricky Nolasco the next for a multiyear contract?
by craig on Jan 22, 2010 4:12 AM EST
in News and Rumors
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Joe Frisaro is reporting that the Marlins are considering signing Ricky Nolasco to a multiyear contract, depending on how he performs in 2010.
After 2010, Nolasco will be entering his third and final season of arbitration. The Marlins have already spoken with Nolasco's agent, Matt Sosnick, who also represents Johnson, about doing a multiyear deal next offseason.
The condition is if Nolasco has another solid season, the squad would be receptive to locking up the right-hander long-term.
I am all for signing Ricky to a multiyear contract. Nolasco, in many ways, can be the Marlins most devastating pitcher to face when he is on the mound and I have little doubt, if he stays healthy, that won't change. Ricky really look like the Ricky of old once he returned from the minor league stint. I really don't think he did much differently in the minor league stint than he was doing before, but it gave him time, against lesser competition, to get everything together. In 2007 Nolasco threw only 21.1 innings before calling it a season due to an elbow injury. In 2008, he threw 212.1 innings which is a lot coming off an injury. In 2009, Ricky was hit and miss, mostly miss, in the early part of season, which isn't surprising given the increase in workload on his arm from 2007 to 2008. Pitchers who increase their workload that dramatically are often not as sharp the following year. And Nolasco wasn't. But given some time he worked out the kinks.
Ricky finished the season with the 3rd highest K/BB in the NL (4.432) which was about the same as the number he put up in 2008 (4.429). In doing this, he increased his K/9 from 7.9 in 2008 to 9.5 in 2009. That is a really big jump. On the downside his BB/9 increased to 2.1 in 2009 from the 1.8 in the previous year. Still, 2.1 BB/9 was good enough to finish the 10th best in the league. Ricky's BABIP (batting average of balls in play) increase in 2009 (.284 to .336) mostly came from the early part of the season, and also the fact the Marlins outfielders weren't exactly in the best configuration. Let's face it, Cody was playing left. Hermida was in right. Maybin was in center and was lost out there at the time. Expect for his BABIP to come down. The same thing happened with his strand rate, pretty low early on but improved as the season progressed. What I am getting at here is forget the increase in ERA, he had a really good season once everything started clicking. And there is no reason to think he won't again this year. So the bottom line is: should Ricky stay healthy he will be the next recipient of a multiyear contract and deservedly so. If the Marlins still have the purse strings open. Assuming the Marlins only sign him to a three-year deal, my guess is it will be between 25-27 million. You may have other ideas.
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Stellar analysis
If the Fish give Nolasco an extension after this year and Volstad puts things together, then the Marlins could have one of the best rotations in baseball for a long time. Who knew they could be so easily intimidated by the player’s union?
"Who knew they could be so easily intimidated by the player’s union?"
It’s for the better.
And extending Ricky would be an excellent move. Johnson and Nolasco is a very formidable front end of a rotation. VERY formidable.
by FloridaownsFSU on Jan 22, 2010 10:54 PM EST up reply actions
Good stuff Craig
There is definitely nothing to worry about when it comes to Nolasco. I am checking out how he does in the stretch vs. the windup to see if there are any differences. There could be, but I’d imagine it’s not huge. Will keep everyone updated.
Marlin Maniac, a Florida Marlins blog
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My guess he will be better out of the windup -- most starters are.....
but, as you say, it may not be huge. Due to his low walk rate and high strikeout rate, he may not get as much practice pitching out of the stretch as other starters. But I don’t know, haven’t looked at it, just a thought.
I've been digging through the numbers.
Last year he showed a pretty extreme split compared to the league average on things like whiffs, getting hitters to chase, and putting it in the zone. I was a little concerned. I’m still digging to find out.
Marlin Maniac, a Florida Marlins blog
Come attend Intro to Sabermetrics 101!
Check me out at Beyond the Box Score as well.
.336 BABIP is horrible luck.
I don’t care who your fielders are… nobody allows a .336 BABIP.
(.284 is low. You can’t expect that. But .336 is high.)
Bottom line is, a healthy Nolasco’s ERA is probably in the mid to high 3s. He’s a decent no. 2 or a strong no. 3 starter. He’s well worth hanging onto, bad luck last year aside.
It's a good thing Larry Bird's initials weren't MJ. '80s basketball was confusing enough -- Magic Johnson, Michael Jordan, Marles Jarkley, Mominique Jilkins... Makeem Jolajuwon...
I think that lucrative long term contracts should be reserved for potential hall of famers
like Hanley and JJ.
We’ve had a lot of guys like Nolasco come and go. Some of them do well after they leave us but many just fizzle. And our much hated much maligned much pilloried management/ownership keeps finding guys to replace them. And the new guys they find are as good or better than the old guys that left to make more money elsewhere. You can accuse our management of a lot of things but being lazy is not one of them. They work their rears off looking for new talent to replace the old talent.
At the very least with Nolasco we should see if he has another good year left in him. He is a nice guy but there is a world full of nice guys. If he shows that his game against Atlanta was the real Ricky-well hell OK give him a contract. But don’t give him a contract because he is a nice guy for God’s sake.
The Marlins should keep with their game plan of not over committing to long term contracts. Most clubs that tried to compete with the Yankees by spending and tying down their favorite players in long term contracts found themselves in trouble. Now these clubs have to spend their time worrying about how to dump lucrative contracts on underperformed players. Cleveland, San Diego, Toronto, etc etc etc.
Hell even the Phillies are now losing money and worried about overspending. That’s the Phillies with the sold and stadiums and lucrative media contracts. Check it out.
http://mlb.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20100111&content_id=7900552&vkey=news_mlb&fext=.jsp&c_id=mlb
Even the thought of another year of a visibly aging Wes Helms is a little boring for me.
Batting average on balls in play
Is a strange concoction. It seems that good is bad and bad is good. Or some such
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Batting_average_on_balls_in_play
But this is impressive form Craig: Ricky finished the season with the 3rd highest K/BB in the NL (4.432) which was about the same as the number he put up in 2008 (4.429). In doing this, he increased his K/9 from 7.9 in 2008 to 9.5 in 2009."
So that’s why he is getting the medium bucks next year. Hope he has a monster year.
BTW not only Nolasco was not the only one who had a great game at the end of the season. Anibal was lights out against the Phillies in the second game of the double header.
(Knock on wood) We could have a lights out group of starters this year as the Hurk and West were also looking good at the end of the season.
RE: BABIP
It’s based on the concept that individual pitchers have very little control over whether their balls in play go for hits or outs, and that this control is more based on their defense. It’s held up through a lot of scrutiny from the saber-community, but it’s something that has been tested thoroughly over the years (there’s a lot to link if I really wanted to).
As a result, if your BABIP is high, you’re likely to see it drop closer to the mean. Likewise if it’s low, you’re likely to allow more hits in the future to move it closer to the mean as well. Mean is around .300 leaguewide.
Marlin Maniac, a Florida Marlins blog
Come attend Intro to Sabermetrics 101!
Check me out at Beyond the Box Score as well.
This would be a great move.
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