The Marlins have signed veteran right-handed relievers Nick Vincent to a minor league contract and will add him to the team’s 60-player pool, baseball operations president Michael Hill told reporters on Monday (Twitter link via Jordan McPherson of the Miami Herald). They will also add infielder / outfielder Sean Rodriguez once a minor league deal was closed to re-sign. However, perhaps the most interesting thing for Fish fans is that # 3 overall choice Max Meyer will be added to the pool as well. That trio of moves will fill the starting group of the Marlins.
Vincent, 33, had some unusual fights with the Giants a year ago when he posted an ugly 5.58 ERA in 30 two-thirds innings. However, a tight pectoral muscle may have been the culprit, as Vincent was sharp during his first six weeks with San Francisco (2.25 ERA in his first 24 frames) before imploding for the next two weeks and finally landing on the list of injured. By the time he was healed, the Giants chose to simply release him. He caught up with the Phillies and gave up just three runs in 14 innings with a 17-4 K / BB ratio to end the year.
From 2012-18, Vincent was a very effective pain reliever in silence. Over the life of 332 innings with the Padres and Mariners at the time, he compiled an impressive 3.17 ERA and 3.09 FIP with 9.0 K / 9, 2.2 BB / 9 and 0.78 HR / 9. The extreme right-wing softball throwers are not exactly in vogue these days: Vincent is averaging 89.7 mph on his fastball and has a career 33.9 percent ground rate, but Vincent’s solid record can’t be denied. And if you make it to the Miami Corral, your spacious park should help keep those balls in the air in the yard.
Rodriguez, 35, can play virtually anywhere on the diamond and has generally been a solid, if unspectacular, bat against left-handed pitching. However, that makes him a good potential hitter for a club with an expanded roster in 2020. Rodriguez’s 2017-18 seasons were ruined by an off-season car accident in 2016 that ultimately led to shoulder surgery, but it changed. things up to a point last year. After hitting .167 / .277 / .305 in the wake of the car crash, he posted a .233 / .348 / .375 line with Philadelphia in 2019.
Meyer, 21, is one of the best pitchers in the history of the University of Minnesota. The now-former Gopher ace was expected to be one of the top 10 picks, but the Marlins still surprised some pundits by stepping over other college arms like Asa Lacy and Emerson Hancock, as well as Vanderbilt third baseman Austin Martin, to get Meyer out of third. overall earlier this month. With a triple digit fastball, slider plus, and a 2.13 ERA and a 187 to 41 K / BB ratio over 148 college innings, it’s easy to see why the Marlins were so in love with Meyer.
Many scouting reports on Meyer chose him to be among the fastest players to reach the big leagues in this year’s draft, if not he the fastest. Athletic’s Keith Act even suggested that some clubs might be optimistic enough to think that Meyer might pitch in the big leagues as early as this season, though that accelerated timeline would burn a year of control and service for the Marlins despite that they are not expected to contest. Anything can happen in a shorter season, though, so if the Fish are off to a steamy start, they might be encouraged to bring Meyer to the big leagues in an effort to beef up his staff.
