San Diego State announced that longtime reliever Mark Melancon has joined the school’s baseball program as the pitching development coordinator. Melancon hasn’t pitched since the 2022 season, so this new job implies that the 39-year-old has ended his playing career after 14 Major League seasons.
“It’s exciting to be part of a staff that has great experience and a clear vision on what needs to happen to be successful at the highest level. I’m eager to help these players compete for a national championship and hopefully move on to the next level,” Melancon said.
Assuming that Melancon is indeed hanging up his glove, he’ll finish his career with 262 saves and an excellent 2.94 ERA, over 726 2/3 innings in the majors. As opposed to most bullpen aces, Melancon didn’t bring heavy velocity or big strikeout numbers, instead relying on superb control and a knack for keeping the ball on the ground. Melancon had a 55.3% groundball rate over his career, the seventh-highest grounder rate of any pitcher in baseball (minimum 700 innings) within the 2009-22 timeframe.
Selected by the Yankees in the ninth round of the 2006 draft, Melancon ended up pitching for nine different clubs at the MLB level after he made his debut in the Show in 2009. The travels started early, as Melancon changed uniforms via three trades in as many years — from the Yankees to the Astros at the 2010 trade deadline, from Houston to Boston in December 2011, and then from Boston to Pittsburgh in December 2012. Though Melancon had seemingly broken out with a nice 2011 season, the rebuilding Astros still dealt him, and he then struggled through a rough season with the Red Sox.
The move to Pittsburgh brought both some stability for Melancon, and set the stage for the best stretch of his career. Melancon became a dominant set-up man and then closer over his three-plus seasons with the Pirates, delivering a sterling 1.80 ERA and 130 saves over 260 1/3 innings in a Bucs uniform. The right-hander was named to three All-Star teams during this stretch, and finished eighth in NL Cy Young Award voting in 2015 after posting a league-best 51 saves.
Free agency loomed for Melancon after the 2016 season, however, and the Pirates weren’t going to pay top dollar for a star closer. The result was yet another trade, as Melancon was dealt to the Nationals at the 2016 trade deadline, and he continued to pitch well for Washington throughout the rest of the regular season and into the playoffs.
The big free agent payday then came that winter when Melancon inked a four-year, $62MM deal with the Giants, which briefly stood as the biggest contract ever given to a relief pitcher. While Melancon had a respectable 3.67 ERA over 115 1/3 innings with San Francisco, it wasn’t the kind of elite performance that was expected from the hefty contract, and injuries also hampered Melancon’s effectiveness.
As the Giants entered a partial rebuild and looked to cut payroll, Melancon was moved to the Braves at the 2019 trade deadline, and had an uptick in results (2.78 ERA in 22 2/3 IP) during the shortened 2020 season. A one-year, $3MM deal with the Padres followed that offseason, and Melancon enjoyed one final All-Star campaign by posting a 2.23 ERA and 39 saves for San Diego. This led to a two-year, $14MM contract with the Diamondbacks in December 2021, but Melancon struggled in 2022 and then missed all of 2023 due to a shoulder strain.
We at MLB Trade Rumors congratulate Melancon on a terrific playing career, and we wish him the best as he moves into the collegiate coaching ranks.
Good luck Mark in the next chapter of your life!
He’s nice man both on and off the field. Met him during spring training 2015 and gave my brother signed ball. Congratulations on successful career as pitcher, I hope you can inspire the kids at San Diego State to compete at the highest level!
Melancon has a nice bonilla deferred package from Giants blunder of a contract for many years earning him $1m, so whatever he makes at SDSU is a cherry on top of that nice deferral package.
Plus he could get a state pension if he’s there long enough. Double pensions.
Although I could go on about how college coaches getting millions then getting high 5 figure/month pensions from the state when they retire is a disgusting misuse of public funds, but that is neither here nor their in relation to Melancon.
He has a pension in MLB for having at least 10 years of service time. He’s making bank and is set up good for the rest of his life
Plus he owns a successful turf business. He’ll be aight
Data-it was Bobby Evans that signed Melancon to that horrible 4 year contract, it was Farhan Zaidi that managed to get rid of that bad contract. Yet people want Bobby Evans back now and wanted Farhan fired. Unbelievable stupidity
Mark had a great career as a closer and earned a nice bag, nothing but the best at San Diego State for him!
I still regret the Yankees trading him for a half season rental of Lance Berkman.
I wonder why no one signed him in 2023 or 24, maybe he didn’t want to take a minor league deal?
He was under contract with the D’Backs in 2023, but missed the season due to shoulder problems.
Melancon become a dominant set-up man
Refine your Ai writers. Best of luck at sdsu though, loved my time there
The fact you think a spelling error that was fixed means they are AI is a damning review of SDSU. Perhaps you majored in crayons?
SDSU is actually renowned for their Underwater Basket Weaving seminars…
Go Tecs!
If anything, spelling or grammatical errors like that are proof these days that a human is doing the writing
He’s gonna teach those kids that Roger Beshens Football Slider.
@SBRKTT
As mentioned on the Bud Black post, both the Democrats & Republicans are using it, and maternity wards have been using it successfully for years…
Awesome to have you back home Mark, best of success at the Mesa
Nice he had a really good career and now a cool job.
Very happy for Mark! Will be a fulfilling career and he ‘s a great guy.
Orioles could use him!
SDSU.EDU
Enroll today!
wheat ridge’s finest. i hope he has a good life outside of playing baseball
May he reign… in blood!
*devil horns*
lol i appreciate the slayer reference
Thank both of you for setting the tone for my day which will start shortly with a slayer mix(reign thru diabolous) with a bonus track of Richard Cheese doing War Ensemble. And thank you YBC for reminding me who the Yankees traded him for. I’m always surprised during these career wrap ups that details like that aren’t provided considering the name of the site. I also wonder why more trade assessments aren’t done 3 to 10 years after to better gage the value. That would surely be front office stuff which I don’t pay for but more of those past trade reviews and even draft analysis from years ago are simple enough to find the info to then editorialize. Just my 2 cents which you aren’t currently making hahaha. I don’t own a credit card or have a bank account and there’s no slot for dollars in my phone so …….