Righty Jordan Zimmermann is entering the final season of his contract with the Tigers. While his time in Detroit is coming to a close, the 33-year-old says he won’t hang up his spikes when the deal expires, as Chris McCosky of the Detroit News writes.
Zimmermann says he’s “not thinking about retirement now” and intends to “just take it one year at a time.” Instead, he’s focus on finding solutions on the mound — in particular, polishing the sinker that he increasingly utilized in 2019.
“Yeah, I thought about retiring a few years ago, but coming into spring training this year, I felt really good,” Zimmermann tells McCosky. “I haven’t had any issues. I still have the drive and I still love the game.”
Zimmermann has always put in the effort but hasn’t had the results since moving to Detroit. He gave the Nationals over a thousand frames of 3.32 ERA ball, setting the stage for a $110MM deal with the Tigers. But Zimmermann has struggled with injuries and has limped to a brutal 5.61 ERA in his 508 2/3 innings over the past four seasons.
Zimmermann is owed $25MM for the 2020 campaign, though he’s likely to earn only a portion of that due to the shortened season. He no longer has full no-trade rights — he can block deals to all but ten teams — so it’s possible he could be moved during the season if he’s able to bounce back.
Lol…. and i thought the giants did a horrible move signing Samardzija instead.
They did. At least Zimmerman used to be good
Shark had a pretty good season last year. Zimmerman has been as bad as Zito.
Even his simulated stats are bad.
PapiElf branching out!
Apparently simulated tigers signed a Russell Martin too
He has no desire to retire. But baseball has a way to make you hang them up even before you are ready. Even if he pitches well this year, he’ll have a hard time finding anything more than a minor league deal next year. Just too many bad years in Detroit for anyone to give him a guaranteed contract without stringing together a couple of good healthy seasons.
Homie, Homer Bailey just got like 7 mil. Anything can happen after a “decent” year.
Totally agree.
Anibal Sanchez got a two year deal after a minor league deal. Bartolo pitched 7-8 years after he cam to the Yankees on non guaranteed money.
I’m so disappointed. I thought he was going to be discussing flying cars and sexbots.
Maybe he would bounce back by a return to DC.
Bad baseball players on terrible, bloated contracts “thinking about retirement” stories never get any less funny to me. As if there was a shred of a doubt that they would not stick around to collect every penny owed to them.
Right! Thought about retiring a few years ago lmao. Yeah I’m sure. But now that he’s on a contract year he’s got the drive to keep going, sure buddy. I get not being all in when the team sucks though.
Of course he’s going to collect the money he’s entitled to, most ball players get one chance at a big FA contract, and he capitalized on his opportunity.
Players may be all but retired but don’t officially retire until the final pay check is in the bank. David Wright is still collecting even though he stated his career is over, a couple years back.
He actually has a FIP of 4.86 over his 4 years as a tiger. His numbers are bad, but his peripherals are slightly better. Bad things seem to happen to pitchers that sign in Detroit, look at Zimmerman, Anibal Sanchez, even Verlander’s career seemed like it was coming to an end before the trade to Houston, Scherzer was a much better pitcher when he left Detroit as well. Must be a combination of bad defense and pitch calling, lousy pitching coach and lack of run support.
Yes, Verlander was only runner up in Cy Young voting before the Mighty Astros “revived” his career! Scherzer had won a Cy Young with the Tiger, and Sanchez won an ERA title. Shame to think of what they could have been with good coaching!
Verlander also set career highs in k’s in back to back years when he left Detroit at age 35-36, dropped his whip from 1.0-1.4 with Detroit to 0.8-.0.9 with Houston, his ERA dropped from 3.04-4.46 the previous 4 seasons with Detroit to 2.52-2.58 back to back years with Houston. Big Max had a 3.52 Era over about 1000 innings in his prime years in Detroit, 2.74 in Washington in his age 30-35 seasons, leading the NL in k’s in 16, 17 and 18. Anibal Sanchez pitched to a 6.07 ERA in his last 2 years (250+innings) in Detroit, in the 2 years since leaving he’s pitched to a 3.39 ERA in 302.2 innings.
Hard to believe the Tigers didn’t win a championship with the rotation of JV, Max, Price, Sanchez and Porcello all in their prime.
Simple answer – Ausmus & terrible bullpen. Mostly Ausmus and his continued use of Farnsworth & crew during the Orioles series. Sanchez mows them down in relief and never used again. What a waste
It would seem to me that any pitcher can expect a drop in ERA, when they move from the American league to the National league. Your comparing apples to oranges
DD Never had a good bullpen for his manager, hard to win with blown saves
It would “seem” to me, that is not always the case for “any” pitcher, as you put it. Stroman and Bauer were both worse after moving to the NL last season, Jose Quintana and Yu Darvish both have higher ERA’s in the NL after spending their career in the AL. Gerrit Cole, Charlie Morton, and many others have enjoyed more success in the AL after spending their careers in the NL. It’s definitely not comparing apples to oranges, if anything it’s comparing a macintosh apple to a royal gala apple. Just because a team has a DH doesn’t automatically mean they will score more runs, would you rather be a twins starter, pitching against the Tigers and Royals offense 17+ times a year or a Marlins starter, playing the Braves, Nats, Mets and Phillies 17+ times a year.
He shouldn’t worry there is still AJ Preller in San Diego. He is still dumb enough to sign him. No player should ever give up hope while he still has a job.
He might be able to make it ass reliever. There were times he would pitch 2 or 3 solid innings but then get lit up. Hes a veteran. He always wanted to be out there. Hes not afraid. If hes healthy, it might work for him.
Zimmermann had more earned runs than strikeouts and (!) more intentional walks than wins. Freaky. Freaky he still starts games.
That’s a crazy stat.
Gonna see intentional walks go way up with this three batter rule.
come back to DC. Wish you had never left.