Trades, Winter Meetings

More notes on the trade

49 Comments

UPDATE 7:30 PM: Freddy Dolsi and Dusty Ryan were designated for assignment. I’m surprised by both moves with other seemingly expendable players on the 40 man roster…Jason Beck spoke with Gerald Laird and got his take…Beck also spoke with Dombrowski and Phil Coke’s role has been left open…Danny Knobler sees the Tigers as potentially big spenders after this season.

UPDATE: 4:50 PM: The press conference just ended Dave Dombrowski fielded most of the questions. Here are the notes:

  • Dombrowski: team needed to make adjustments. Wanted to get a young starter and a young centerfielder to start. Team is trying to stay competitive and set themselves up for the future.
  • On Schlereth: He was a player the team considered drafting in 2008. For the Diamondbacks to include him, they were going to need a second arm which brought in the Yankees.
  • On Austin Jackson: they are counting on Jackson to make the big league club. They have been scouting him for a while. “Jim Leyland breaks in young players as well as anybody.”
  • Cashman on Granderson: After speaking about how hard it was to give up the young players that they did he went on to say he’s a premiere player and an exceptional character guy. He can step in right away as an established player which was important with potential departure of Damon and Matsui
  • Dombrowski on trading Granderson and his popularity: It’s difficult and he told Granderson it was one of the more difficult calls he’s made in his career. Granderson has meant a lot to the franchise, the city, and the state but it is a business decision. He’s a unique individual. Hope is that they have acquired more players that the fans will learn to love.

UPDATE: 4:08 PM: Now pretty much every writer says its official and the presser comes at 4:30. Also John Lowe has a story on Leyland’s media session this afternoon and his concerns about the youth of the team and the right handedness of the lineup.

UPDATE 3:35 PM: Joel Sherman just tweeted that the trade is official. Expect press releases and a news conference very shortly.

UPDATE: 2:10 It sounds as if Jim Leyland is holding court with some reporters at the moment. Kevin ‘Duk Kaduk of Big League Stew (@bigleaguestew) has been tweeting the notes. Leyland is frustrated to be talking about players he used to have and is worried his lineup is too right handed. Sounds like a familiar refrain.

It looks like there will be plenty of news, notes, and opinion on the trade that will come out today – along with a formal announcement and quotes galore. I’ll use this post to try and capture some of the more salient information.

As of 11:15 AM what’s being reported is:

49 thoughts on “More notes on the trade”

  1. Wow, Scherzer for Jackson wasn’t enough for the Tigers?

    I don’t buy that for a second, especially when the initial rumors of the 3-way didn’t really mention Schlereth. It had to be the other way around.

    1. I agree. If the Tigers were getting Scherzer and Schlereth for Jackson they should have given up a prospect to make it happen and keep Granderson. Doesn’t seem realistic.

    1. I heard yesterday that there were concerns about his durability due to his throwing motion and that he had Tommy John surgery while still in high school.

      I’d be curious to know if they have any desire to make Coke a starter since that’s what he frequently was his first few years in the minors.

  3. Granderson said that the wind was blowing in a different way at COPA. He did not had problems at another park including the ddome. At the huge field in Detroit , he had to cover up for the short range and bad positioning of Magglio and whoever was been experimented in the left

  4. Granderson said that he had problems at Copa. He said the wind was blowing in a different way.He never had problems at other parks like the ddome. He was forced by the huge Copa´s outfield to cover up for the bad positioning of Magglio and whoever was been experimented in lf

  5. I’m not going to lie, I shed a few tears watching that press conference. Not that it wasn’t a good trade, but man, this sucks.

  6. But who leaves the 40 man roster to make room? Don’t they have to do that before finalizing the trade?

    Really think DD underestimated the impact that trading Granderson would have on the fan base, no matter how good it was from a business perspective.

  7. Tigers.com e-mail listed Coke as 20 (he’s 27), Schlereth as 21 (he’s 23) and Scherzer as 21 (he’s 25).

    This is all pretty sorry stuff. Of course, if the e-mail was correct about the ages, this would be a great trade!

    1. Magically enhancing those 3 players by 14 total years of age would get me on board with the trade as well.

  8. Yikes! btw, how come Edwin is dressed in a Yankee uni? Was he drafted by them? Since I’ve been out of the loop for 3 days since moving to a new residence across town, I’m still trying to digest everything. It’s all so shocking. Grandy a Yankee. But that’s the least of the surprises. I think he’ll love it there, unless he doesn’t hit. He’s so media savy, but that doesn’t get you far in NY if you don’t produce. I’m sad to see to him, but personally, I’ll miss Edwin Jackson the most. I just loved that guy. I don’t know what else to say at this point. I knew when Polly left, it was the end of our ’06 team era. That team that brought us so much joy. But maybe this “new team” will, too. Being older, I’ve been through all this before…..watching teams get dismantled, seeing your fav players going other places. But, of all the players, Grandy is the most business minded and probably is overjoyed at the challenge of playing in New York. Wow, what an off season, and it’s not over yet.

      1. Oh my. I never thought I’d do that. Honest to God, they are similiar, but I should have known better. Another good-looking Mr. Jackson.

  9. The toughest decisions are always the ones that aren’t as good for you as the no-brainer decisions.

  10. The Pirates just signed Bobby Crosby for $1M. Dang, I’d rather take a flier on Crosby than pay more money to Everett. Crosby has had 1 or two relevant hitting seasons to Everett’s zero. This sucks.

    1. But Crosby can’t stay on the field and last year he couldn’t even play shortstop. There’s more to a baseball player than slugging percentage.

      1. Well I’d also rather have Santiago or Dlugach at SS than Crosby, that’s how much I think of Crosby. His health concerns cannot factor my interest out of him enough to want Everett over him considering that I’d rather have nobody in his place. I’m just saying the money we just spent on Everett is completely wasted and we would have been better to get Crosby for $1M if we were going to throw money out the window. I like Crosby for his defense the most, since that seems to be better that his bat lately, it certainly hasn’t been his slugging percentage.

        And why are you acting like I’m a SLG% freak. You have said many times before that you think everything I talk about is all SLG-focused but it is not the case so you keep bringing up misinterpreted opinions of mine that aren’t consistent with things that I’m saying on here.

    1. He’s totally wrong about Schlereth. His fastball is definitely not fringey at 88-90. He averaged over 93 last season. He also doesn’t have much of a changeup, but that article suggests the change he has is “plus.” Seems pretty clueless to be wrong on fastball velocity by 5 mph.

  12. That link to the Danny Knobler article makes me somewhat hopeful. Obviously there is no way to know what they’re willing to spend a year from now but the thought of those contracts finally dropping off makes me relax a bit.

  13. Why is this team dropping young players like Dusty Ryan and Dolsi, and yet they keep holding on to this hope that Willis is going to have a revival? Money was lost, deal with it. Hold on to the young guys.

  14. @TSE- If Everett could hit he’d be a $6 – 8 mil a year SS. His defense alone is worth about 3 mil a year. That makes him a great bargain at $1.5 mil.

    1. Hmm, so his defense alone is worth $3MM, yet nobody in baseball signed him to anything more than $1.5MM. If you truly think his defense is worth 3 mil, then have you considered that being a below average hitter can actually negate that value? Or do you believe that if he was the worst hitter in the history of the world, let’s say .000, that he’d still be worth $3M just for the defense? So a guy that is a .000 hitter and comparable to Everett’s defense is worth the same as Everett is what you are saying?

      1. Yeah, defense doesn’t matter, just SLG%.

        By the bye, why don’t you drop by MTS to talk about the trade?

    2. Mr. X, I think it’s great that even while the Tigers are shedding so much payroll they still have the cash to pay you to run your ‘everything is awesome’ black ops blog campaign.

      2. stephen,
        I can be a real downer, if you want.
        Just think of the ’94 strike, the steroids, the lies, the cheating, the late night night partying, the wife beating, the spitting, and fighting, that all these players are associated with. In reality, baseball players are just pieces of meat that the fans will chew up and spit out. The names and faces will come and go because there is no loyalty from the players or the fans.

        Everything about baseball sucks.

        So there.

        1. A pretty good response I must say; yet, still…

          well it’s still important to be able to judge various levels of sucking and have a decent idea of a hierarchy of who sucks the most.

        2. Mr. X: I disagree. There are days at the park, just father and son. There’s the day you look up from your Crackerjakcs and realize you’re about to see a no-hitter in person. There’s the sublime pleasure of slipping into a nap with Ernie lulling you into dreamland. There’s the memory of blowing off an assignment and watching Ordonez hit his series winning homer in a deserted media lounge. There’s the day sitting in Old Comiskey with a 103 fever just because the Tigers are playing two and just a few games out of firsts.. There are nights of walking the shore of Lake Michigan trying to get WJR on the Walkmen just to hear what Chet, Lou, and Tram are doing. There’s an August afternoon sitting next to Mr. Harwell in a Tiger Stadium dugout and telling him about a weatherbeaten MudHens cap with his signature on the bil that I’ll never throw out.
          And there’s a 2008 3am victory over the Yankees spent on this great, wonderful, indispensable blog.
          Baseball is the best.

  15. Austin Jackson’s month-by-month numbers in AAA this year trouble me.

    .371/.444/.468 – April
    .339/.419/.422 – May
    .269/.309/.452 – June
    .258/.324/.348 – July
    .255/.288/.327 – August

    1. If Austin Jackson hits like that for us in April and May, he’ll be immortalized by the time June rolls around.

      Here’s Granderson’s splits last year also-
      .241 .309 .494 – April
      .270 .362 .486 – May
      .262 .347 .456 – June
      .253 .343 .453 – July
      .248 .319 .438 – August
      .227 .280 .445 – September

      Granderson’s AVG and OBP weren’t that good to start off with, but He just kept declining. Now that’s troubling.

  16. Lyon has signed with the Astros. Awesome. Looks like either Rodney or new blood in the closers role.

  18. Pingback: Winter Meetings Day 4

      1. I see a 26 in the BLSV column …

        I have nothing against Rodney, I just don’t think he’s going to be worth as much going forward as he will want to be paid.

        1. Hmm. On my screen it shows a zero. If you click to expand his stats then it shows the numbers. For some reason every pitcher shows 0 for their BLSV column for careers.

      3. Nevermind, its ESPN who can’t work a spreadsheet. You’re exonerated TSE, but just this once!

  21. One minor tangent to the Granderson trade is that we’ll find out something about Girardi…Curtis has worn number 28 his whole career, and the only two other numbers he has worn in his life are retired and belong to Jeter. Girardi is #27…but he wants to change to #28 next season to symbolize the Yank quest for title #28.

    So which wins, the player-friendly gesture, or the managerial gimmick?

    My money is on the gimmick, since he can sell it as being about “the team” and knows Curtis is too polite and humble to complain

  22. Just ordered my Tigerfest tickets for Jan 23rd. Hopefully they don’t trade or release Paws between now and then, my kids would be crushed!

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