MLB Roundup 1/2: Ross Detwiler signs with the Marlins

Marlins sign Ross Detwiler

It is our first MLB Roundup post of 2021, and it is.... Well, it’s not really that big of news. Unsurprisingly there isn’t a whole lot going on right now around the new year holiday, though things should hopefully pick up a bit soon. I mean, it has to at some point, right? Anyway, over the last couple of days as people were celebrating 2020 turning to 2021, the only real major-league addition made around the league was down in South Beach, as the Marlins signed reliever Ross Detwiler to a one-year deal. The exact terms of the deal are not known as of the time of this writing.

Detwiler himself feels like he’s been around in this league forever, and that’s because he sort of has. The southpaw made his major-league debut back in 2007 and was a mainstay on the Nationals pitching staff for years in the early 2010s. Back then, he served as a swingman who would play in whatever role was needed, but more recently he served only as a reliever for the White Sox in 2020. It was something of a bounceback year for Detwiler, albeit in a small sample. The lefty tossed 3.20 ERA over 19 ¹⁄₃ innings of work. Most of his production came against lefties, who produced a .436 OPS against the veteran while righties managed a mark of .877.

As far as how this affects the Red Sox, I’m certainly not going to lose any sleep over missing out on Detwiler. Kept to the right role he can be productive, as we saw last year, but the Red Sox aren’t really in need of a left-handed specialist. The rules work against those guys now, for one thing, and they have Darwinzon Hernandez and Josh Taylor. Boston simply needs talent, not specialists.

I am, however, interested in what this means for Miami. I’m not reading too much into a signing that will probably include a base salary under $1 million, but that they are targeting a specialist likely means they are looking for a postseason spot in 2021. That’s not too surprising since they made it last year, but I had been holding out hope they’d look to tear down a little bit for salary reasons, specifically making Starling Marte available. That appears a pipe dream on my part at this point, though admittedly Detwiler isn’t moving the needle in that regard much at all in either direction.