I remember hearing Jack Morris talking about saying this back in the 80’s to his teammates. Given the recent performance of the Tigers pitching staff, the starters might have to ask for 15 runs. The starters have been inconsistent, the bullpen has been rocked, and there’s really nothing nice to say about anyone right now. The starters aren’t working deep into games. The long relievers Yan and Knotts are getting hit hard. The set up guys Patterson and Levine are getting hammered. And the lefty arms have struggled as well.
So what can the Tigers do? Well Nate Cornejo has had a sore shoulder and knee for a month and didn’t tell anybody. Now he’s out of the rotation and on the DL. That leaves the team with 4 starters. Because of off days, they can get by with a 4 man rotation for the next week and a half. Then what happens? I have this feeling that Cornejo will need significant time to strengthen the arm so I’m treating him as unavailable. That leaves the Tigers with essentially 3 options.
1. Call up a long arm/starter from the minors. Pat Ahearne would be the most likely candidate. He’s pitched fairly well at Toledo with a 2.64 ERA and a 33/5 K/BB ratio. Other options include Shane Loux, or reaching down to Erie and pulling up one of last year’s rule 5’ers (Ledezma and Roney).
2. Trade for a starter. The problem is who? Teams aren’t looking to dump pitchers of quality at this point in the season, and the price would probably be prospects. Prospects are in limited supply in the Tigers organization making a trade difficult to complete.
Kris Benson has been mentioned often on message boards as a guy that could be acquired. He’s making a boatload of money this year (6.1 million) that the Pirates would love to dump. The problem with Kris Benson is that he’s not that good. Actually, I’ll restate that, “He hasn’t been that good since 2000.” In limited duty the last two years he’s been essentially a replacement level player. His EqERA the last two years was 5.60 and 5.58. A replacement level player can be had for about $5.7 million less then what you’d have to pay Benson.
3. Use a 4 man rotation. The Tigers are having a tough time trying to find 4 quality starters. Why would they want to try to find a 5th? My only concern with this would be the increased overall workload on Bonderman. Johnson and Maroth are old enough that I’d be less concerned with their arms. If you get into situations with double headers or you want to space out Bonderman, then there enough long relief guys to spot start someone.
If it were up to me (and there are approximately 487 reasons why it’s a good thing I don’t have any authority), this is the option I would go with. Then again if it were entirely up to me I would call up Wil Ledezma as my long man/spot starter. He can take Gary Knotts place. I also would have called up Franklyn German instead of Chris Dingman. Dingman has given up 4 homers in 10 innings of work.
With all that being said, the Tigers pitching will get better. They will not continue to give up 10 runs a game like they have for the last week. However, changes need to be made and made quickly.
I watched all three games in Anaheim. A lot of fat pitches right down the middle. The bullpen especially is a disaster. I don’t get Dingman; German is pitching much better. Maybe they don’t want to burn up German’s options until they are sure he can stick. Ahearne deserves a shot. He can’t be any worse than Cornejo. Johnson is nibbling, getting behind and then either walking guys or throwing pitches down the middle. The HR’s that Glaus hit were all monsters, and he’s limited to DH because of a sore shoulder. Guillen’s were shots too. The Angels torched them for 28 runs and they were missing Garrett Anderson and Tim Salmon. Going to Texas could be very punishing.
Agreed on avoiding Benson – entirely too much money for a (barely) league-average starter. No reason Dombrowski should help clean up Bonifay’s mess in Pittsburgh. He’s got enough of an in-house task reversing the effects of Randy Smith.
I like the idea of a four-man rotation with another arm or two in the pen. You could feasibly avoid hurting Bonderman if you made sure he wasn’t pitching when he was gassed, and that really wouldn’t matter on how much rest he gets between starts. It matters more on how many pitches he has to throw to get three outs an inning.
And I’m with you on Dingman as well. Did he get the call because he is a “reliever”? As barren as the farm system is, I would hope Dombo and Tram make these decisions based on “Who is the best arm at Toledo,” as opposed to, “We need a reliever, lets call up a Reliever.” Dingman is far from the best arm at Toledo.
They will apparently have to move somebody off the 40 man to make room for Dingman. The Tigers site lists 42 right now. I guess Spurling doesn’t count since he’s on the 60 day DL. But I think they will have to DFA or release somebody before they start play tonite.
Tim,
I think that they will probably put Rodney on the 60 day dl (if they haven’t already). That would free up the spot.
I would go with Gary Knotts for now. Calling up Dingman is a good idea. He can fill some garbage time. It’s not like they have to use him a lot. Calling up German, Ledezma, or Roney would break their momentum. They all need more time to learn HOW to pitch. Also, they would have to use up some options. If you are going to call up anyone else, have it be Ahearne. For a trade, I would like to see them go after Rodrigo Lopez from Baltimore. He had a good season two years ago and is on fire this year. The only probably is Baltimore is trying to compete, so they may want too much.
I figure to mention these players also. Chuck Finley, I know he is old and frail but he may just be the veteran that Robertson and Maroth need to have around. He did not have a bad 2002 year and the year off might have been good for him. They could work out a flexible travel schedule like Houston did with the Rocket. Look how that has worked out. I also may go after Glendon Rusch from Chicago Cubs. He had some decent years in Milwaukee.
Heh, just noticed this post a few hours after the end of Saturday’s game. Looks like 15 ain’t enough either 😉
yeah, pathetic eh?