Seattle Mariners Pitcher George Kirby Gets Decent Bonus In Pre-Arbitration Pool
The Seattle Mariners starting pitching rotation was arguably the best in the majors in 2024.
The group of Luis Castillo, Logan Gilbert, George Kirby, Bryce Miller and Bryan Woo led MLB in quality starts and was the only rotation that had four pitchers start 30 or more games.
One of the pitchers to cross that threshold, Kirby, got a little bit richer as a result.
The pre-arbitration bonus pool list was released on Dec. 13. Players get a certain amount of money based on awards. For those players that don't win awards or place on specific honors, the bonus money is allocated via a WAR formula.
Kirby had a 1.9 bWAR (Baseball Reference WAR) and a 4.2 fWAR (FanGraphs WAR) in 2024. Based on that formula, Kirby netted a $446,287 bonus, according to the list of bonus recipients.
Kirby set career highs in strikeouts, innings pitched and games started. He had a 3.53 ERA with 179 strikeouts in 191 innings pitched across 33 starts.
George Kirby is arguable the best command pitcher of all time. Yes, I'm including Greg Maddux.
— Rob Friedman (@PitchingNinja) April 28, 2024
George Kirby also throws absolute flames. pic.twitter.com/3tpF2IiDo4
Kirby is one of the best command pitchers in the league. His arsenal of seven pitches (four-seamer, slider, sinker, splitter, knuckle curve, cutter, knuckleball) led to him having a pitching run value of 14. That ranked in the 87th percentile in the league, according to Baseball Savant.
He also had a chase rate of 31.9%, which ranked in the 84th percentile in the league.
Kirby is up for his first year of arbitration in 2025 and is set to earn roughly $4.5 million in his first year of arbitration, according to Spotrac.
Kirby has spent three seasons in the majors and has started at least 25 games every year of his career and at least 30 over the last two. He hasn't registered an ERA above 3.53 in any of those three seasons.
Kirby is under team control for four more years including 2025.
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