2010 Season, Pitching, Players, Winter Meetings

Tigers sign Benoit (and Adam Dunn talk)

22 Comments

3 years at $16.5M is a hefty price tag for a setup guy who has really only had three good years over his 8 year career.  Benoit had a sick .68 WHIP last year with 75 Ks in 60.1 IPs.  Problem is, that he’s never had a WHIP lower than 1.17 in any of his other 8 full seasons (3 of them primarily as a starter), and he has a career 4.47 ERA, and 1.35 WHIP.

I’m not fond of 3 year deals for middle relievers, and I’m not fond of overpaying for a career year.  Though I will say props to DD for addressing a huge need, and doing so quickly.  I think we’ll get one more in the pen before camp next spring.

I also thought this was interesting – at least some are reporting that Phil Coke will be in the starting rotation next year.

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Dunn – It was reported around noon central that talks were heating up with Dunn, but Jon Heyman recently sent this out via Twitter: “hearing dunn isn’t close yet with any 1 team, tho tigers are showing keen interest.”)

22 thoughts on “Tigers sign Benoit (and Adam Dunn talk)”

  1. Heyman’s latest tweet (someone agrees with me): “this is real players’ market. exces are complaining buck & benoit were overpaid. in a month, they will look like steals”

    2. Every year the execs complain early about overpaying, only to go out and overpay later (and later isn’t usually much later).

  2. How weak was this year’s AL rookie crop? Boesch hit .163 in the second half and still finished fifth.

    1. Yes, but I still think Austin deserved it. No big power, but he did his job very nicely and was a fabulous addition to CF.

      1. Well since the offensive side of the AL rookies was especially weak this year i think this was a perfect time to give the rookie of the year award to a pitcher. If not this year then when is a pitcher going to have a chance to earn this award? Although I can’t say that Feliz dominated, he did have a good 2.73 ERA which is great but not exactly mind-blowing by any means, and I have an issue with the fact that he only played 69 innings, that’s basically 8 full games worth compared to 151 games for AJ. AJ faced 675 pitchers and Feliz faced less than 300 hitters, plus AJ had to field a lot more balls on defense than Feliz and did a good job at that too. He also had more pressure on him with the role of a full-time lead-off hitter than Feliz’s part-time relief gig.

        1. More pressure than being a “real” rookie with no ML experience and having to somehow replace Curtis Granderson? There’s definitely a case to be made for Austin, imo. The catch he made during the “perfect game” would have been shown thousands and thousands of times, if not for Jim Joyce. His peers had no problem voting him ROY, but reporters only game him 8 first place votes. That is just indefensiveable in my eyes.

          1. Yeah good point about Jim Joyce, it definitely can’t hurt your ROY case if you say you defended a perfect game. The government really should find MLB and Bud Selig for not taking appropriate action.

            1. The government should keep it’s nose to the grindstone and just enjoy watching the games. Nuf said!

  4. I didn’t think the Tigers had much of a shot at getting Dunn given his earlier insistence on playing in the field. However, if DD can swing it, I would be extremely happy, as Dunn in the 5-slot would give Cabrera the protection he needs. It would also make a deal for Martinez moot and DD could concentrate on a more reasonably priced RH catcher (for 2 years?). Even if this deal were to come off, there is still a need for another bat, preferably somebody that can hit at the top of the order.

    I was surprised, but pleased, with the Benoit deal. If Valverde is healthy we’ll have an opportunity of playing a lot of short games provided the offense truly picks up. I wonder if DD now tries to deal some of the excess RH bullpen arms to fill other holes.

    1. So much like Ernie. Probably thousands and thousands of stories out there similiar to that one we’ll never know about.

  9. I was at the game Jim W. hit his only major league home run. It hit the facing of the upper deck right where the bleachers and grandstands meet.

  10. By the way (since we’re way off on a tangent now), 1987 was also the year the Cubs traded RP Dickie Noles to the Tigers for a player to be named later. At the end of the season, the player named was … Dickie Noles. As far as I know, the only player ever traded for himself.

  12. I don’t have Insider and won’t pay for it. He’s probably mad cause Morosi got the news first. Dombrowski said there were several teams offering 3 year contracts, so I’d imagine Benoit took the best offer.

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