Miami Marlins add veteran left-handed pitcher as they continue to add depth to staff
The Miami Marlins opened the new year by adding a new pitcher to their roster.
The Marlins are signing veteran left-handed pitcher Ross Detwiler to a one-year deal, a source confirmed Friday night. The deal, first reported by Sports Grid’s Craig Mish, is pending a physical. A corresponding move will have to be made once the deal is official because the Marlins already have a full 40-man roster.
Detwiler, 34, has bounced between starting and throwing out of the bullpen. The No. 6 overall pick in the 2007 MLB Draft by the Washington Nationals, Detwiler has made 224 career MLB appearances over a dozen MLB seasons. That includes 95 starts and one complete game back in 2009.
He has a career 4.56 ERA over 673 1/3 innings, with 415 strikeouts against 243 walks. Opponents have hit .283 against him all-time.
Detwiler spent the last two seasons with the Chicago White Sox after opening his career with the Nationals (2007-2014) and also having stops with the Texas Rangers (2015), Atlanta Braves (2015), Cleveland Indians (2016), Oakland Athletics (2016) and Seattle Mariners (2018).
He made 16 appearances in 2020 for the White Sox, posting a 3.20 ERA over 19 2/3 innings.
Detwiler has a five-pitch mix, but the main pitches he relies on have varied by season depending on his role.
In the shortened 2020 season, when he was used exclusively out of the bullpen, he leaned more heavily on his slider than he had at any point in his career. The pitch, which he threw 30.5 percent of the time, averaged 83.2 mph and resulted in swings and misses 34 percent of the time. Detwiler also has two fastballs — a sinker primarily used against lefties and a four-seam fastball primarily used against righties.
His role heading into 2021 is undetermined at this point, but he will mostly likely be part of a bullpen that is once again undergoing an overhaul.
The Marlins have already released or not tendered contracts to eight pitchers this offseason who either saw significant playing time or seemed possible to factor into roles: Brad Boxberger, Adam Conley, Robert Dugger, Brandon Kintzler, Josh A. Smith, Ryne Stanek, Drew Steckenrider and Jose Urena. They’ve added Adam Cimber and Zach Pop via trade as well as Paul Campbell via the Rule 5 Draft.
The relief pitchers from 2020 who are still on the 40-man roster as of Friday: Richard Bleier, Jeff Brigham, Yimi Garcia, James Hoyt, Stephen Tarpley and Alex Vesia. This doesn’t include Nick Neidert and Jordan Holloway, both of whom were in the bullpen to open the season but are viewed as starters.
However, Detwiler could potentially get occasional spot starts with the Marlins potentially placing inning restrictions on their starting pitchers as MLB expands back to a full 162-game season from 2020’s 60-game slate.
The Marlins only have one starting pitcher — 2020 Opening Day starter Sandy Alcantara — who has pitched a full season without injury. The 25-year-old made all 32 of his scheduled starts in 2019, throwing 197 1/3 innings. However, his innings total dipped to 54 2/3 over nine starts (including two in the playoffs) during the abbreviated 2020 season and missed a handful of starts early after being one of 18 players who tested positive for COVID-19 after the opening weekend.
Pablo Lopez, who made 11 regular-season starts in 2020 plus started one game in the National League Division Series, led Miami pitchers with 62 1/3 innings pitched last season. No other Marlins pitcher threw more than 47 innings in 2020.
“It’s definitely a concern, not only of mine but the whole organization as we talk about our young staff,” Marlins manager Don Mattingly said earlier this offseason. “We’ve walked through some scenarios. Our analytics and our pitching guys are talking about what we think is a doable number of innings. You think there will be some restrictions on a lot of our guys on the number of innings. How do we manage that? Those are all part of discussions that are ongoing walking into the season.”
