Veteran reliever Carlos Marmol has cleared outright waivers and accepted his assignment from the Los Angeles Dodgers to one of the club's minor-league affiliates, reports Tim Brown of Yahoo Sports.
Dodgers notes: Carlos Marmol clears waivers, accepts minor-league assignment
LA is hopeful that it can fix Marmol’s chronic control problems with a few mechanical tweaks in the minors.
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Marmol, 30, was acquired from the Chicago Cubs (along with some cash) on Tuesday in exchange for fellow righty reliever Matt Guerrier. The Dodgers immediately designated Marmol for assignment, indicating that their plan was to have the right-hander work on his mechanics in the minors before putting him in the big-league bullpen.
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For the second time in a month, the Dodgers outfielder ran full-speed into an outfield wall. Because Marmol has more than six years of big-league service time, he had the final say on whether to accept his minor-league assignment or not. Had he declined it, he would have had to elect free agency.
Marmol began the year as the Cubs’ closer, but he managed to lose the job within the first week of the season. The right-hander straightened things out a bit in late April and May but lost the plot again when the calendar rolled into June, leading to his DFA last week. Overall, Marmol made 31 appearances for Chicago this season, posting a 5.86 earned-run average and 6.8 walks per nine in 27⅔ innings.
Marmol has always struggled to throw strikes, walking an average of 6.1 batters per nine innings over eight seasons, so the Dodgers' coaches definitely have their work cut out for them wherever he ends up. LA is hopeful that Marmol can make the same late-season turnaround that Brandon League accomplished with the team last season, when he posted a 2.30 earned-run average and 8.9 strikeouts per nine in 27⅓ innings down the stretch.
League’s serious struggles this year -- 5.83 ERA and 4.0 Ks per nine -- seem to indicate that his initial success was more of a small sample-size blip than anything else, but the Dodgers are still confident that they can remedy Marmol’s delivery issues. The Dodgers are paying only about $2.8 million of the remaining $4.8 million on Marmol’s salary, and most of that was already guaranteed to Guerrier, so it won’t be a huge loss for the club if Marmol does not pan out.
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