Just like that, the Marlins closer situation is under control, sort of. The Marlins dealt out of favor prospect Yusmeiro Petit to the Diamondbacks for relief pitcher and former closer Jorge Julio. The right hander has both closed and acted as a set up man for the Mets, Diamondbacks and mostly the Orioles. He was the Orioles closer from 2002 through 2004 but he ultimately lost the job to B.J. Ryan. Then he got traded to the Mets and then subsequently got dealt to the Diamondbacks where he got a battle field promotion and got the closer job back. The guy is a fireballer and he has 345 strikeouts in 357 2/3 innings and he has 99 career saves. He’s one of those high ERA relief pitchers though (career 4.20) so he’s apt to get shelled now and then. And in a way, he’s still living off of his best year, which was also his rookie year back in 2002.
Not a bad deal because Yusmeiro Petit was hardly a high end prospect. He was bombed in a call up last year and only pitched okay at Triple A. Yeah, he’s only 22 but John Sickels only gave him a C+ rating and that’s with some major league experience under his belt. One down side is, Julio might be a rented player because he becomes a free agent at the end of the year so we might only get his services for one year. And the better he throws for us, the more he’ll make on the market and the less likely we’ll get him back.
One idea is, if he goes gang busters as a closer, to make a deadline deal for him. Teams are usually looking for closers and the deadline so we could always deal him for what would hopefully be a better prospect then Petit. Not that I’m trying to get rid of Julio already, just thinking out loud.
