Well it didn’t take long for the Tigers to get the ball rolling. One of their biggest areas of need was the bullpen, and even if you think Troy Percival is on the downside of his career and the Tigers paid too much, their bullpen is better for it. Of course the downside is that the Tigers now have $10 million invested in two guys in the bullpen. The common thought is that Urbina will be dealt, however I could see the Tigers keeping him and moving him to the set up role. Also, given Percival’s health concerns, and the kidnapping situation in Venezuela it might not be bad to keep both around.

As for Percival, he became expendable with the emergence of Francisco Rodriguez who is better and cheaper for the Angels. The main reason to not like this deal for the Tigers is that Percival’s strikeout rate has plummeted the last 3 years. In 2002 it was 10.9, and then 8.8 in ’03, and it fell to 6.0 last year. The other big knock is that he was diagnosed with a degenerative hip in 2003.

Now that we’ve gotten the two big negatives out of the way, here comes the positive. Even with his drastically reduced K-rate last year, he was still better than any pitcher the Tigers had in their bullpen. According to Baseball Prospectus’ runs prevented, Percival prevented 7.1 more runs than an average pitcher. Last year Jamie Walker prevented 6.7, and the next closest was Esteban Yan at 3.4. Al Levine (.3) and Urbina (.7) were the only other Tiger relievers with postive RP’s. Now 7.1 RP probably doesn’t justify $12 million over two year, but it improves the bullpen.

Because nearly half of the Tigers’ games are against division foes, it’s worth looking at Percival’s performance against the Central. Here are his numbers over the last 3 years.

Opponent ERA	  G      IP    H   R   ER  HR   BB  SO        AVG
vs. CHW	5.68	  7	6.1    9   4   4   1    2  10	0.321
vs. CLE	1.29	  7	7      5   4   1   2    3   7	0.192
vs. KAN	0.84	  11	10.2   5   1   1   0    4  11	0.143
vs. MIN	0.00	  9	8.1    7   2   0   0    6   9	0.226

While he’s struggled against the White Sox, he’s fared quite well agsint the other 3 divisional opponents. Combine this with the fact that the Indians were also in the market for a closer, and it looks like Percival might be a good idea.

Other reasons I like this are because Dombrowski managed to cut Percival’s free agent tour short. Instead of the Tigers being a last resort for guys, Detroit has actually become a place to consider. While the Tigers may have overpaid based on Percival’s performance, I’m not so sure they overpaid compared to what the market will yield. That’s also a difference from last year.

The other reason I’m kind of excited about this signing, is that I think it might signal that Illitch is ready to win now. The Tigers’ aren’t looking for value, they are looking to get better. While I’m not crazy about signing Jeff Kent and displacing Infante to the left side of the infield it would bolster the offense. With the Kent discussions and the Percival signing it seems like the Illitch is looking to win in the next two years as opposed to building a team for the future. This could be like the summer that the Wings acquired Hasek, Hull, and Robitaille. This could be what Illitch promised Pudge last year. This could be the year the Tigers stop thinking like a small market team and the payroll surpasses $80 million. I know I’m making a large jump based on one meeting and one signing, but this could be the year the Tigers make the leap.