We got him!!!!!
Pedro Martinez arrived with his trademark smile, the one that seems to suggest that he knows something no one else does.
Perhaps he does, and if that turns out to be the case, the Phillies may really have helped themselves by signing the three-time Cy Young Award winner to a Major League contract for the remainder of the season.
"I don't expect to be the same Pedro I was," he said during Wednesday's news conference at Citizens Bank Park. "There have been a lot of innings I've pitched since [the Cy Young years], but I still feel that I can bring something to the table, and that this team needs just a little bit of help."
Just a little bit of help is what the Phillies are seeking from the the 37-year-old right-hander, who will first be placed on the disabled list with a mild shoulder strain and sent on an injury rehabilitation assignment in order to prepare to join the club's rotation, which has the third-worst ERA in the National League at 4.98.
Martinez, who was given uniform No. 45, could make his Major League season debut in 2-3 weeks, but details have not been finalized.
"We've had some struggles in our rotation and we want to add as many solid pieces to our rotation as we can, always looking to improve it," general manager Ruben Amaro Jr. said. "We decided after talking to other clubs that the price to acquire pitching is really, really tough, and we had to think of ways to do that.
"We saw Pedro at the [World Baseball Classic in March]... we kept him in the back of our minds, and we saw him pitch a couple of times, and we thought he threw well enough that it was the right time to make a move on it."
The Phillies did not provide terms of the contract, but a source said it is worth about $1 million, plus about $1.5 million in incentives, which is less than the prorated $5 million contract Martinez reportedly had been seeking earlier this season. He became a free agent when his four-year contract with the Mets expired after last season.
"I was hoping the Mets would make a move [in the spring] and they didn't, so I decided to wait," Martinez said. "I knew that one of the teams would need pitching at this time, so I waited."
A virtual lock for the Hall of Fame when his career is over, Martinez won the American League Cy Young Award in 1997, 1999 and 2000. His records in those seasons were 17-8, 23-4 and 18-6. His ERAs were 1.90, 2.07 and 1.74, all league bests.
In the seven seasons from 1997-2003, Martinez went 118-36, never had an ERA above 2.39, and placed second in Cy Young voting twice, in addition to the three times he won the award.
Martinez is an eight-time All-Star and has a career record of 214-99 with a 2.91 ERA in 17 seasons. But injuries limited him to five starts for the Mets in 2007 and 20 in '08. He had been a free agent since the end of last season.
"Pedro obviously has had a tremendous path and accomplished many great things," Amaro said. "We're very pleased to bring him to the Phillies family."
The Phillies watched Martinez pitch twice last week at their baseball academy in the Dominican Republic. They came away impressed and flew Martinez to Philadelphia late Monday night to take a physical.
Martinez has not pitched regularly since last season, when he went 5-6 with a 5.61 ERA. He told two Philadelphia TV stations at the airport Monday night that his health and the death of his father affected his performance last season.
"I was too brave sometimes," Martinez said, suggesting that he wasn't fully healthy the past two seasons.
Amaro said earlier this week that Martinez's arrival would not preclude them from making other moves, including the pursuit of Blue Jays right-hander Roy Halladay.
"We're going to try to improve the team either with starting pitching or a bullpen piece or a bench piece," he said.