According to the Freep, DD is actively shopping AG after he was bumped from the roster today to make room for Brad Penny.
Crazy, because they just signed him to a 1-year, $2.3M deal. Why sign him and then toss him like an old moldy bag of tangerines, you ask, Coleman? Here’s why.
No one wants to trade for a player headed to arbitration. Too much dirty work to deal with. Now the arb monster has been tamed. And the Tigers see value in him, which is why he’ll likely be traded in the next 10 days. I’m not opposed to believing that he was going to get closer to $3 or $4M in arbitration, and the two sides got together and worked this all out. If they can’t trade him, he’ll be sent to the minors after a swim through the waiver wire, though he might not last with sharks like the Yanks and Mets in the water. In fact, at least one source is saying that the Yanks will look into Armando. Could the Orioles be a potential suitor? Henning reminds us that the Tigers turned a similar position into Willie Hernandez on the eve of my 7th birthday.
But, as Lynn Henning astutely stole from my brain before I could write it, by signing him to a $2.3M contract, the Tigers made AG less likely to be claimed off of waivers. So if he can’t get traded, we may get to keep him on the squad, unprotected and all. Let’s not forget that former All-Stars Brad Penny and Brandon Webb just signed for $3M base + incentives (in Webb’s case, INCENTIVE$).
In the end, my guess is that DD and Ol’ Smokey like Turner/Oliver/etc., much better than whomever is carrying Boesch/Kelly/Thomas’ bags, and feel that an extra starter is the one expendable position. Honestly (and I know that I’ll get an essay from TSE here on why we should have traded AG & Fu Te Ni for the ghost of Doyle Alexander), I can’t say that I disagree. He’s a good guy and I wish him the best, though roster management is a funny thing, and it looks like DD covered his bases here.
Update:
Beck is reporting via Twitter that the Tigers send Galarraga to the Diamondbacks for Kevin Eichhorn and Ryan Robowski.
Eichhorn is an averaged sized RHP who was drafted out of HS in the 3rd round 2008. His Class A performance last year was underwhelming, but the kid is only 20. For now he’s a starter. He’s also the son of former Royal’s great Mark Eichhorn.
Robowski came out of Old Dominion in 2009 and was selected by the DBacks in the 16th round. He’s a little bigger than Eichhorn and throws from the left side out of the pen, but doesn’t project as high as Eichhorn does.
Flipping Galarraga for two young pitchers, a R and a L, seems like a good deal to me.
Why sign Galarraga and then toss him like an old moldy bag of tangerines? Oh, nevermind, I see you answered my question above, thanks.
But I’m still left wondering: which is scarier–the ghost of Doyle Alexander, or Doyle Alexander?
And now the speculation over the trade package. Didn’t I just offer Galarraga and for Michael Young? That still sounds terrific. However, some people won’t be satisfied unless we get a LH bat for the #2 spot in the order – someone like – Johnny Damon . So I’ll offer a list of what I think makes a good #2 hitter and see if any names spark interest. The most interesting point of this is that Wil Rhymes rates pretty high on the list.
Galarraga (and package) for:
Robinson Cano – forget it
Ichiro – keep forgetting
Denard Span – not likely to give Twins any pitching
Joe Mauer – see how ridiculous this list is?
Juan Pierre – hmmm, now things are getting reasonable
Jose Reyes – sounds good to me, but is he a Shea favorite?
Julio Borbon – not far off from the Young suggestion, this one has merit
David DeJesus – aha, here is a deal that might actually get done 1-for-1
Skip Schumaker – unlikely, but I’d take it
Omar Vizquel – how do you spell ‘old’? it starts with an O
Anyone else, and we’re better off with Rhymes at #2 spot. In fact, I’d rather just skip the LH/SH bit and just get Young. Let Inge and Peralta battle to see who belongs in the lineup, and Young plays SS.
I am amazed how pitcher contracts are given out. Just look at all the injuries that players with decent contract have had. Compare that to a healthy guy like Armando.
I just don’t understand. Maybe I should pickup a $6 million dollar injury risk for my fantasy team. Maybe the big contract is a sign for the 2011 season. The paying team
could be expecting a rebound. Or, maybe a guy like Armando will have the better year.
Who knows?
Guillen not expected to be ready for season opener. Are we surprised?
Didn’t think so.
…and if he’s a May roster arrival, what’s the line on him being on the DL before the All Star break?
Twins sign Pavano to $16.5M over two years… i can see why DD took a pass.
Moustache or not, Pavano is due for a relapse/breakdown – he just turned 35 and logged 221 innings last year.
…and the Twins continue with their best Tiger imitation… of overpaying players in hopes that paying ‘star prices’ will miraculously turn a good or average player into a star… maybe it will work for the Twinkies?
Here we go again Ol Smoky and DD must be hanging out kicking around getting rid of a possible starter and relying on a new face that is yet to prove that he is healthy in Penny. Again Ol Smoky and DD better produce come August and September or they need to see the door. Mr I is getting pretty short on years to win a series. More preseason things carved in stone that we will see how it pans out by the end of the season. Lineup AJ, whoever plays 2nd, Mags, Big Cat, Vmart, Jhonny, Inge, Raburn, Avilla. Whats the odds in Vegas on this. Who know maybe Inge ahead of Jhonny.
Hmmm, wait, why would I write an essay about how we should have traded AG and Ni for Doyle? You lost me on that one a little lol.
I just posted about the trade on another site, here were my comments:
Not really interested in trading Galaragga unless we are packaging more players to get somebody good. We are way too dilluted, we have too many players that are potentially worth a roster spot, but too few great players or high level players. We badly need to consolidate like 20 guys into 4, or something along those lines. Way too many useless players making big bucks in Detroit. We can’t win them, we won’t trade them to make use of them, and yet we still pay them and let their value depreciate away for nothing in return. Here’s a chance to turn that around and start making logical moves. I’m excited for the trade but also worried that we don’t have a real plan to acquire somebody really good.
But to answer your question, here are some guys on my hot list I would like to work a deal for, let’s start with Armando plus what to get any of these guys or anybody close to their level:
2B – Robinson Cano, Chase Utley
SS – Hanley Ramirez, Troy Tulowitzki, Starlin Castro
3B – Longoria, Zimmerman, Wright etc.
C – Buster Posey, or how about Verlander for Mauer? 🙂
Longoria? We would have to throw in Cabrera and they would still say no. Because they have him under contract for 3 million a year.
Although: find out who Longoria’s agent is, find out who else he represents, and pursue them. There’s a plan.
Why would they say no? If the trade is lopsided in our favor then we offer more if we want Longoria. Either Longoria is worth more than Cabrera or he’s not, if he is why are you afraid to pay the fair price for him? And why can’t we get Longoria without Cabrera? What if we offered our entire pitching staff, farm system, and 50 million in cash. No Cabrera. You think they take that deal? I bet they do! Which means if they will take that they will probably take less, and how much less? Point is that we don’t have to offer Cabrera to get Longoria, but we could. It could be either way, not absolutely only one way as you suggest.
Any great baseball player is going to take work to get, it’s not about finding easy solutions, it’s about finding the best solutions and then figuring out how to make it happen. That’s what I’ve done at every job I ever had was strive to do the best I possibly could by using my brain to think of the best ideas possible intiially, and then using my will to execute the best I possibly can and get the job done no matter what the obstacles are. We don’t do that in Detroit, but if we tried it we would find great success; we aren’t going to be successful until we start doing things intelligently and with effort towards the right fights, unless we want to just sit idle until we luck out with stumbling into a better position. What happened to Damon? I thought we signed him last year, why is he not still here? So where’s our trade value, where’s our WS, where’s our money back? Seems to me we should have won with him, or not signed him in the first place, what’s the point? All he did was detract from our future and other future players and use up monetary resources. That was stupid, we have to stop being stupid.
Well the Rays just signed Damon and Manny Ramirez, so they certainly are out of the market for DHs.
That’s a real shame, b/c I really liked the Young idea. I can promise you that fans around here aren’t real big on paying a DH $17M per year to hit 15 HRs and drive in 80. But I’d be willing to pay most of that at 2B.
We coulda brought him at 2nd, and then allowed the Rangers to get Ramirez, or Thome to DH. With both of those guys done, I’m not holding out any more hope.
Here’s the latest on Battlestar:
http://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2011/01/galarraga-trade-talks-progressing-deal-is-likely.html
Both Eichorn and Robowski have some upside, so I am OK with the deal. However, IMO none of Turner, Oliver, Eichorn or the handful of other young gun starters in the minors should be expected to be a replacement for Coke and/or Penny in the likely event that one/both go down with injury or fail to produce. So, I think we still need to find some experienced #6 starter as backup.
Good Crasnick article on the Tigers’ 2011 staff:
http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/columns/story?columnist=crasnick_jerry&id=6052016