Catching up on a few notes:
– Looks like Gerald Laird may be bringing the party back to the Big D.
– The Tigers are in talks with the Braves about Martin Prado. Ian Casselberry did a great write up on why Prado would be a tremendous fit a few weeks ago here. Prado is coming off of a down here, but in ’07, ’08, and ’09, his OPS+ figures were 121, 117, 119, respectively. In 2009 he finished 9th in NL MVP voting. Now, Prado is most attractive as a 2B, but note that he didn’t play any games at 2B last year, and statistically, he’s a better LFer than 2B. Considering the dearth of fielders at both positions, I think we can find room for him somewhere.
– A few from the web which I don’t think carry much weight are Jose Reyes and Cole Hamels. Reyes is likely going to see 9 figures in his next contract, and Hamels would require trading away Jacob Turner, and paying Hamels $14M before he demands $20M+ in 2013 as a FA.
– 40 man list is due tonight. Casey Crosby will be #35, I’m certain. After that, the Tigers will have to make a decision on Brandon Douglas, Cody Satterwhite, Matt Hoffman, Jay Voss, Tyler Stohr, Ben Guez and my player of the pregame for Game #17 in 2014 – Gustavo Nunez.
– Spring Training anyone? (schedule)
Beck is tweeting that the Tigers have agreed to a one year deal with Laird.
Done deal. I was hoping that they would sign somebody that could actually do something besides catch (Doumit?). I know Avila needs a break from time to time, but having Laird sitting around polishing the pine for 125 games doesn’t seem like the best use of a roster spot to me.
It was a mildly surprising deal: 1 year, 1 million. He passed his physical, which is the mildly surprising part.
Supposedly the Tigers are pursuing A-Ram:
http://m.freep.com/Sports/article?a=2011111280425&f=1233
Im in, looks good…….. Sign him up
2 years with an option maybe, but he’ll probably want more. More years than that and he gets in the way of Castelano. AR is 33, a statue at 3B, and prone to injury in recent years. Can you say Dean Palmer?
Castellanos is irrelevant to the decision. If AR is likely to maintain his value for 4 years, go ahead and sign him for 4 years. If you wake up in the Spring of ’14 with two legit 3Bs… well that’s just the kind of problem you like to have. It wouldn’t be any trouble to trade one of them.
The only question that matters is whether AR is worth the contract he’s likely to get.
Just posted this on another site and logged on here to see you were talking about AR, here were my comments…
He’s getting old, and his fielding sucks from what I’ve heard and seen from his numbers. The monetary price doesn’t make much sense either. He’d have to give us a better deal than $16M a year. Or we’d have to do some other trades to make the team gel and appeal on an overall basis. Like if we traded Cabrera or Verlander to release us of those massive contracts and acquired cheap young guys, then that might be a sensible route to take. But not like this, it’s not financially logical and gives us not enough efficiency to develop a dominant foundation for the future. For those that want the player though, fortunately DD doesn’t care about logic, and he just wants to do whatever helps 2012 no matter what the cost to the following 20+ years, so odds are very practical that we sign him.
TSE is actually making falsifiable assertions?? Am I dreaming?
Just so we’re clear, you’re saying:
1. AR won’t perform well enough to merit his market price
2. Notwithstanding #1, you would consider supporting an AR signing, as long as we trade away our two future Hall of Famers in their prime
3. DD will sign AR and retain Verlander and Cabrera, thus dooming the franchise to the cellar for 20 years.
I must say… I’m anxious to find out if your predictions will come true!
I’ve become pretty good at interpreting TSE over the years. Here’s how I see it.
TSE is arguing that ARam is not worth the $16M which he will likely get. If the Tigers were to sign a player for $16M, that salary would handicap the franchise to a point where the only way to get back to economic stability would be to trade high contracts. JV and Miggy happen to be those high contracts. I don’t think he’s advocating trading those two players, but rather sees trading their contracts as a necessary consequence of signing a player as expensive as ARam.
And I completely disagree with TSE. Let’s carry this over to Hot Stove Talk Part 3.
To Jeff:
1) No, I think market prices of players are skewed higher than what players are worth. The average value of a player to me is lower than the average market price. Players are paid way more than what they are worth, because too many guys make $10-20M dollars per year in exchange for not proportionally delivering stats better than the $1-5M players. Well proportionally is not the right term, there should be an escalating pay and diminishing return on the dollar to a certain point, but the point that the market has taken that level of diminished return to is too far.
2) No. I don’t support paying him $16M with or without the trade. I said it “might be a sensible route to take”, as I’m looking at the logic and perspective of somebody who might be able to justify that perspective, I didn’t say that I would be one of those people. I’m talking about on behalf of other people that the new team design might work for and accomplish their goals in a positive way far better than we did last year. It’s definitely possible to win the WS next year with AR and without Verlander or Cabrera or both.
3) I didn’t say anything about the franchise being “doomed”, nor do I know what that means by your interpretation.
To Kevin:
I’m saying all that up until the last sentence with the “,but” as it’s not a necessary consequence that those players would have to be traded. I said we would have to do “other” trades, and said “like” Verlander and Cabrera, you know as “examples” of possible trades that could be done. With or without AR we could vastly improve the team if we trade our top 2 players and get more than what they are worth in return. There’s tons of stupid teams out there and I think it’s an easy way to take advantage of some idiot GM out there that doesn’t understand how to properly value players.
And I don’t know what you disagree with me on, as I don’t think you understand my opinion based upon that last part you said.