Padres bring back Jason Marquis for 2013

The San Diego Padres agreed to a one-year deal with Jason Marquis for the 2013 season. Marquis will make $3 million, the same as he made in 2012 split between the Minnesota Twins (who released Marquis in May) and the Padres.

The 34-year old Marquis was awful during his tenure with the Twins. In seven starts and 34 innings, Marquis walked 14, struck out 12, allowed nine homers, and had an 8.47 ERA. You can't get much worse than that, but the .352 BABIP, 63.8% strand rate, and 27.3% HR/FB indicated that he wasn't necessarily that terrible. Sure enough, after being signed by the Padres, Marquis cut his ERA to 4.04, and struck out 79 while walking 28 in 93 2/3 innings.

However, despite cutting his homer rate with his new club, Marquis still allowed seven homers in 41 2/3 innings at Petco Park, a notoriously good park for pitchers. That's pretty terrible, and despite his success relative to how dreadful he was with the Twins, it's not a good sign going forward. Also, Marquis is 34-years old, so it's not as if he's suddenly going to "get it". Marquis has always allowed homers by the bucketload over his career, and has actually been a sub-replacement level player in two of the last three seasons (including 2012).

I'm well aware that the Padres rotation isn't great at all, but I would have rather rolled the dice with a recently nontendered younger player like Jair Jurrjens, Jeff Karstens, or even John Lannan than bringing back an older retread like Marquis.

About Joe Lucia

I hate your favorite team. I also sort of hate most of my favorite teams.

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