There goes one potential closer option for the Tigers with Brandon Lyon inking a 3 year, $15 milion deal with the Houston Astros pending a physical. It’s a great deal for Lyon, but probably a year longer than the Tigers would have preferred to go.
Earlier in the evening Ken Rosenthal reported that with the context of LaTroy Hawkins deal with the Brewers Lyon was looking for 2 years and $9 million. Maybe Ed Wade should have been on Twitter.
Lyon was signed just before the start of spring training last year on a one year deal and given a shot to be the Tigers closer. He struggled in spring training and those struggles extended through April. Then something clicked and Lyon was lights out. From May 19th until the end of the season he threw 63 innings with a 1.86 ERA.
The Tigers other free agent reliever, Fernando Rodney, is attracting attention from the Phillies. If it was going to take a multi-year deal to get either I would have preferred Lyon from a durability perspective. The Tigers are also reportedly still interested in Kevin Gregg.
Lyon will net the Tigers a sandwich pick. But for a team that can’t afford Curtis Granderson you have to wonder if they’ll be able to sign him.
Image credit – RadioFish on Flickr
So we traded Brandon Lyon for the pitcher package we rec’d in return, along with whatever that pick turns out to be. Same goes for Rodney if we lose him too.
Therefore we are giving Edwin + Lyon + Rodney for Scherzer + Coke + Schlereth, and then we swapped Grandy for AJ and 2 sandwiches. I think the trade looks much worse from this perspective than it does as a stand-alone.
Oh well, pitching is the last of my concerns at this point. I just hope the Tigers select one of these interesting positional players that are available here in the Rule 5 draft. There’s a couple of interesting catchers such as Koby Clemens, Matt McBride, and Anthony Recker.
I wonder if the release of Ryan is in hopes to deter the teams ahead of us from taking one of these catchers. Perhaps Dolsi is bait too if there are some teams that look like strong candidates to take catchers that might rather have Dolsi or Ryan.