Crooked Pitch

I wrote an article over at FanHouse this morning about the Cubs decision to announce Carlos Marmol as their closer heading into the 2010 season. I may have been a little hard on Marmol with this statement.

While this is good news for Marmol, it’s more a result of Gregg stinking in the closer’s role, more so then Marmol beating him out for the job.

Since taking over the closer role Marmol has a 2.93 ERA and an 1.80 strikeout to walk ratio (18:10 K:BB). Digging a little deeper I found that Marmol has a 1.93 ERA in save situations and a 5.74 ERA in non-save situations. It looks as if the really poor pitching came when Marmol was in a set-up role, not as a closer.

Could Marmol be a completely different pitcher as a closer versus a set-up guy?

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With a 6.39 ERA last season in five starts for the Rockies, Franklin Morales didn’t show too much to support his top pitching prospect billing. The 23-year-old lefty did finish his Venezuelan Winter League stint strongly with a 10 strikeout performance and looks towards Spring Training to improve on his command.

His winter numbers showed that he’s making strides in fixing command issues that plagued him in 2008. In his five starts in 2008, Morales posted 0.53 K/9 and 6.04 BB/9 ratios in 25.1 innings of work. His Venezuelan numbers are much better. In 46.1 innings of winter work he’s working with a 6.45 K/9 and a 2.34 BB/9 ratio. In nine winter starts Morales is 3-3 with a 3.11 ERA. He’s struck out 33 and walked 12.

If Morales can keep this positive trend going in Spring Training, expect him to compete for a rotation spot. He’s still got loads of upside. Fantasy GM’s need to watch him carefully.