According to the official Pittsburgh Pirates twitter account, the team has come to terms with closer Mark Melancon on a contract for the 2016 season, avoiding arbitration. According to Jon Heyman, the deal is for $9.65 million.
Melancon is coming off the first 50-save season in Pittsburgh Pirates’ history. He followed a slow April with one of the best relief pitching seasons in franchise history. He went 3-2 with a 2.23ERA and a 2.82FIP to go with his 51 saves. This following a tremendous 2014 season where he took over for Jason Grilli mid-season and saved 33 games. During his three seasons as a Pirate, Melancon has been everything the organization could have wanted and more. He’s posted a 1.85 ERA, a 2.20 FIP, and recorded 100 saves as a Pirate.
The terms of the deal have not been officially released, but Melancon was projected to make $10 million in arbitration by MLB Trade Rumors, so it will be extremely interesting to see the numbers he and the Pirates agreed upon.
Another interesting note was that the Pirates did not mention Chris Stewart as a player they avoided arbitration with, despite the recently reported multi-year extension he signed with the Pirates. It could be that the Pirates are waiting until Stewart passes a physical to officially announce the deal to the public.
Make sure to keep up with all of the Pirates’ arbitration news over at our 2016 arbitration tracker.
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