1:14pm: Hammel will receive a one-year deal that is expected to be worth around $6MM, tweets Jeff Passan of Yahoo Sports.
12:39pm: The Cubs have agreed to sign free agent starter Jason Hammel, tweets Ken Rosenthal of FOX Sports. The deal is pending a physical. Hammel, 31, is represented by Octagon.
After posting a strong 3.43 ERA in 2012 season that was shortened due to knee surgery, Hammel failed to repeat in 2013. Hammel had reached 8.5 K/9 and 53.2% GB% in 2012, both of which represent career highs by a substantial margin.
As MLBTR's Tim Dierkes noted in ranking Hammel 48th on his list of the top fifty free agents, Hammel saw a dive in his strikeout and groundball rates and dealt with elbow issues. He ultimately ended up with a 4.97 ERA over 139 1/3 innings in 2013.
Prior to the long DL stints in his last two seasons, Hammel had registered three straight years with at least 170 innings for the Rockies. Though he averaged only a 4.63 ERA in that stretch, his numbers were inflated by pitching at Coors Field. Fangraphs put his value at 8.9 fWAR for those three years, though Baseball-Reference saw it as a less-impressive 4.0 rWAR.
The Cubs had signed only three players to guaranteed MLB deals before landing Hammel, none of whom are starters. Hammel will presumably fill out the club's 2014 rotation, joining Jeff Samardzija, Edwin Jackson, Travis Wood, and Jake Arrieta to form the regular starting five.
After missing out on Masahiro Tanaka, Chicago had been rumored to be looking to make a value play on a mid-tier starter. WIth recent injury issues holding down his value, Hammel looks to be the same kind of pitcher that the Cubs targeted last year, when they inked Scott Baker (one year, $5.5MM), Scott Feldman (one year, $6MM), and Carlos Villanueva (two years, $10MM).
