Still Waiting for an Answer on Germán Márquez

In this time of interchangeable elbow ligaments, we’ve mostly become inured to the effects of routine Tommy John surgery. Pitcher blows out, pitcher gets stitched together like a beloved sock monkey, pitcher returns in 12 to 18 months.

If that were always the case, Tommy John would be little more than an annoyance. But it’s not always that simple. Sometimes, the pitcher wears out before his UCL undergoes rapid unscheduled disassembly. Sometimes there are half-measures — rest, PRP injections, what have you — that end up having no effect other than prolonging the agony. Then there’s the timing of the injury and surgery; go under the knife in September, and you might not even miss a full season. Show up to camp with a threadbare elbow in February, blow out in late March, and you might miss two.

Two years ago, I authored a post expressing concern for one of my favorite pitchers in the league, Rockies righty Germán Márquez. Through the first five seasons of his career, Márquez had been durable, reliable, and — against all odds in Coors Field — effective. But he was pretty terrible in 2022, with a K-BB% of just 11.2 and an ERA of 4.95. The question I posed then was simple enough: Is the old German Marquez still in there?

We’re still waiting for an answer. Márquez suffered the dreaded April elbow blowout four starts into 2023, and while he recovered fairly quickly to return to the rotation in July of last year, that return lasted only four innings. Márquez’s new UCL was fine, but the strain of pitching had caused a stress reaction in his elbow. That required at least six weeks of time off of throwing, possibly more; the Rockies quickly concluded that trying to bring Márquez back in 2024 was not worth the risk.

Part of my interest in Márquez’s story back then came from his rapidly approaching free agency. He was just six months from the open market when his elbow gave out, and while 2022 had been forgettable, he would have had a full season in which to rebuild his reputation. To say nothing of the unusual potential he would’ve represented as a free agent: a 28-year-old, who’d been successful in the most hostile developmental environment available to a young pitcher.

Instead, Márquez took a two-year, $20 million contract to stay with the Rockies, and we’re right back where we started. A 30-year-old free agent pitcher isn’t quite as attractive as a 28-year-old, but Márquez is still relatively young, and the price of free agent starting pitching has only gone up.

If Márquez is even marginally effective this season, he’ll probably get an eight-figure AAV from a GM who believes in his pitching coach. If he turns in anything resembling his 2018 season — 4.1 WAR, a 28.2% strikeout rate, and 82 ERA- in 196 innings — the sky is the limit.

On Tuesday, Márquez took the mound for the first time since his stress reaction last July… and it wasn’t on TV. But we do have some limited video highlights and Baseball Savant data.

Looks fine to me. Compact, easy, short arm swing, typical Márquez.

I’m encouraged that Márquez’s average fastball velocity is back up into the 96-mph range right out of the gate, but to be honest, I wouldn’t have been worried if that weren’t the case. The first spring training start of the year can be a bit bumpy under favorable circumstances, and Márquez is two seasons removed from his last consistent major league action and three seasons removed from the last time he pitched effectively.

Nevertheless, this is encouraging.

Márquez was an All-Star in 2021; in 2022, when everything unraveled, his arm angle dropped by six degrees. Right off the proverbial bat, he’s getting on top of the ball more. Márquez’s arsenal is a little unorthodox: It’s a lot of fastball velocity, but his breaking pitches both average in the mid-to-upper 80s and don’t move that much relative to their velocity. You can actually see that in the above highlight clip.

Márquez got Michael A. Taylor looking on an 0-2 pitch that the announcer struggles to identify. He guesses either a changeup or a sinker — going on video alone, I would’ve said a changeup — in fact it got tagged as a 91.2-mph backup slider. Sometimes, the last thing a hitter expects to see is a dead duck breaking ball, and if it comes in that hard it’s in the catcher’s mitt before the batter can think, “What the frig is that?”

Anyway, dropping that arm angle took away even more spin-based movement, and combined with an over-reliance on his sinker — which opponents hit .342 and slugged .576 against in 2022 — that caused the whole house of cards to fall down.

Márquez only threw 32 pitches over two innings, including only six sliders, five knuckle-curves, and a single sinker. Too soon to draw conclusions, in other words. Though the man himself seemed relatively happy with his progress.

If the Rockies are competitive this year, I’d be shocked. Not only is this a 101-loss team that made no major additions, Colorado shares a division with four teams that are going for it, with rosters that range from solid to so good a bunch of people spent all winter agitating for a sport-killing lockout in order to take them down a peg.

I’d say that if Márquez pitches well, he could be a potential deadline trade candidate, but the Rockies’ idiosyncratic way of doing things often keeps them out of midseason trade action. So let’s turn our eyes forward to next offseason.

I don’t know if it’s fair to say that this was a weak free agent pitching class, but it was a weird one. There were two recent Cy Young winners on the move in Blake Snell and Corbin Burnes, in addition to Max Fried, who’s generally regarded as a strong no. 2 starter.

But nobody who hit the open market in 2024 put up more than 3.7 WAR in his walk year. Even so, the three aforementioned pitchers all got north of $180 million in total value. Six others signed contracts with an AAV of between $21 million and $25 million; 12 more signed for between $12.5 million and $17.5 million a year.

If you’re looking for a relatively young free agent who was dominant in his youth, then lost his touch, then came roaring back in his walk year, it’s hard to think of a better comparison for Márquez than Jack Flaherty, who got $35 million over two years, and was expected to receive much more.

It won’t take much for Márquez to get paid like Flaherty, or Luis Severino, or Sean Manaea. He’s just got to stay healthy, and he’s got to stay on top of the ball.

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