2014 Season

DTW News and Notes 12-2-14

34 Comments

Throwing up a new thread to post notes ahead of the winter meetings.

In case you missed it, Torii Hunter back to the Twins. One year for $10.5M. The Tigers did not make him an offer. Bummer that he never won a ring.

There’s been some other news recently, let’s get it going in the comments.

Hope everyone’s holiday season is off to a great start.

34 thoughts on “DTW News and Notes 12-2-14”

  1. Not much Tigers news, though. I expect it to be a quiet offseason in terms of trades and signings. I can’t think of a lot that I *want* to happen along those lines. But in lieu of an actual article that would distract me from my current mission, here are a few things that people could be discussing:

    AVILA – MUST THE SHOW GO ON?
    HOLADAY – DEPENDS ON THE AVILA SITUATION, EH, WHAT WITH McCANN AND ALL?
    McCANN – UNDERSTUDY OR BAPTISM BY FIRE?
    CABRERA – WILL HE BE READY, MAYBE EVEN READY ENOUGH TO PLAY 3B?
    KINSLER – DEAL OF THE DECADE OR WHAT?
    IGLESIAS – READY TO PLAY?
    SUAREZ – THE FAIL-SAFE? SUPERFLUOUS WITH A HEALTHY IGLESIAS?
    ROMINE – DEPENDS ON IGLESIAS, OR?
    HESSMAN – WHY NOT?
    KELLY – WILL THE NEW DON KELLY BE DON KELLY?
    CASTELLANOS – PLEASE FIND A POSITON FOR HIM. RF? 1B?
    J.D. MARTINEZ – LF IS SETTLED, EH? NOT REALLY SUITED FOR RF, OR?
    DAVIS – STARTING CF OR SWINGMAN? DURABILITY THE ISSUE?
    GOSE – CARRERA ALL OVER AGAIN? JACKSON ALL OVER AGAIN?
    V. MARTINEZ – ARE WE EXPECTING 30+ HOME RUNS NOW?
    COLLINS – WILL HE GET THE CHANCE TO WIN RF OR EVEN BE PART OF A FLEXIBLE OUTFIELD?
    MOYA – BOUND FOR AAA, OR EXPECT THE UNEXPECTED?
    PEREZ – ANY CHANCE AT ALL? PEREZ VS. ROMINE?
    VERLANDER – JOURNEYMAN INNINGS-EATER NOW?
    SANCHEZ – CAN HE LAST A FULL SEASON?
    PORCELLO – THE NEW GREG MADDUX?
    PRICE – GREAT EXPECTATIONS, THE NEW ACE?
    FIFTH STARTER – LOBSTEIN, RAY, RYAN, SOMEONE ELSE, SOMEONE NEW?
    BULLPEN – LOTS OF TURNOVER?
    NATHAN – WHAT IF IT DOESN’T WORK OUT… AGAIN? NEW ROLE OR EAT THE CONTRACT?
    SORIA – HOW LONG BEFORE HE’S THE CLOSER?
    COKE & CHAMBERLAIN – LET ‘EM WALK?
    HARDY – DONE DEAL OR SOMETHING TO PROVE IN ST?
    ALBURQUERQUE – POSSIBLE TRADE OR CONTINUED ADDICTION TO “SECRET WEAPON”?

    1. And then there’s all that under the radar stuff. OF Xavier Avery (the next sleeper a la Q, Tui, Hardy, J.D.?) P Josh Zeid. P Omar Duran. 3B Jefry Marte. Dixon Machado and Angel Nesbitt added to the 40-man.

      Jim Johnson has signed with the Braves. Justin Miller and Jose Ortega have gone to the Rockies. Arb offers have gone out to all the eligible (Price, Porcello, Al-Al, J.D.). Ezequiel Carrera has gone to the Blue Jays, who meanwhile have non-tendered Andy Dirks.

      Relievers Andrew Miller (bit pricey for short track record?) and Antonio Bastardo have been mentioned in conjunction with Detroit. If you saw Ronald Belisario pitch against the Tigers this past season, you might see why that is an interesting possibility. Starter Justin Masterson has been mentioned. I like the in-house starting options better.

      Yoenis Cespedes, anyone? What’s not to like? But isn’t the outfield a bit crowded as it is? Porcello for Cespedes? I don’t think so.

      If the Tigers were to move Avila and wanted a veteran replacement to share time with McCann, Geovany Soto looked pretty good to me until I considered the injury history.

      Wonder if the Tigers ever did or would consider CF Dexter Fowler. Probably not a fit. Thus the younger and less expensive Anthony Gose. But I was looking at Fowler’s career OBP and thinking, man, I want some of that to go with defense and some speed.

        1. Not sure why I’m never interested in Melky. But it remains true. Maybe it’s the last name. It’s enough already with the double Martinez business. Although it does appear that all MLB teams will have at least both 3 Cabreras and 3 De La Rosas in the not distant future.

  2. http://www.freep.com/story/sports/mlb/tigers/2014/12/05/detroit-tigers-shane-greene-robbie-ray/19944991/

    I liked the way this Greene pitched against DET last season, but I’m a little skeptical seeing as the NYY never seem to give up on pitchers with a future.

    On paper it looks like DET didn’t give up a lot…unless of course this SS prospect and Ray turn out to be All Stars

    I suspect either Price or Porcello will be traded before the end of the month – and Greene will be named 5th starter

    1. He could be the next Phil Coke! Whatever happened to Robby Ray is going to be so good he’s worth trading Doug Fister for? Seems we changed our minds on Ray rather quickly.

      1. The Fister trade was all about getting Shane Greene, it now appears. For now. Some day there will be a book and movie explaining all this and other stuff. “The Dombrowski Code.” Secret society expose. Anyway, I don’t know why the Yankees and Diamondbacks didn’t just go Greene for Gregorius. Dave just likes to help people, I guess.

        It’s funny how often the Tigers seem to end up back where they started. Once the Tigers had Quintin Berry. A number of generations of moves later, they have… Quintin Berry, only he now goes by the name Anthony Gose. Once they had Drew Smyly. Now they have Drew Smyly, a.k.a. Shane Greene. What we need now is for David Price to be traded for another ace one season away from free agency, and trading Alex Avila for another injury-prone catcher who can’t hit would also be a real boost. I don’t know if Detroit has any prospects left, but if they do, maybe they could send a couple to Seattle for Austin Jackson.

        1. It does seem at this point DD is just rearranging identical pieces, but for what purpose? My thought is he’s not going to sign more than one other free agent pitcher this year, and so he’s trying to find the next big thing–that is, a 2010 Max-esque pitcher who he won’t owe any money to for a long time. Greene fits that bill. Then again, Smyly and Ray fit that bill too, so who the heck knows what he’s doing?

          1. I suppose a less cynical way to look at trading for Greene is that “another Smyly” was literally necessary. Smyly was part of the price of Price, and it couldn’t have been an easy decision to trade him. At the time I thought they were giving up on him too early, but that wasn’t it at all. So trading for Greene shows how keenly the loss of Smyly was felt, and also how little the Tigers are willing to (or can afford to) gamble or wait and see on a #5 starter. I was thinking Lobstein had the inside track, but there’s not a lot beyond that. I suppose there’s a lot to be done yet, but I don’t know what room there is for adding free agent starters who would expect to be walking into a job. At this point they appear to have a 5-man rotation set. But a lot can happen between now and Opening Day.

            1. I’m not complaining about the acquisition of Greene, though. Looks better than what I had in mind.

    1. I saw that, and the deal didn’t make a lot of sense to me until I saw where Beck was reporting that DET is nearing a deal for a CIN starting pitcher.

      Porcello and Cespedes will be both be FA’s after next season…likely highly paid ones

          1. Factor in that Simon is a NL pitcher and the WHIP is a wash. We’ll see how this pans out on the diamond. Big savings on salary though, as Simon makes only 1.5M. Although he too is FA in ’16.

            I’m not really excited about the addition of Cespedes and his .300 OBP. Sure, he can knock in runs, but who is going to knock him in? DD seems to be going back to the good old days of loading up the lineup with sluggers who can’t get on base. We’ll lead the majors in solo homers this year and the games should go faster. At least he got two MiL pitchers along with the deal.

            Looks like the rotation is now set with Lobstein becoming Smyly 2.0 perhaps.

            Suarez (meh) and Crawford (?) won’t be missed in the short term at least, so the deal for Simon looks good for 2015.

            Now about that bench and bullpen.

            It’s interesting that the Tigers now have a roster largely split between long-term contracts and 1-year guys. It’s looking like 2015 might be the year, after which – rebuild (and under new management) if they don’t snatch the gold ring. In that regard they should be positioned well as sellers at the deadline if the new edition doesn’t work out, which is as likely as not IMO.

            1. Eugenio Suarez was a pretty good insurance policy for mystery man Jose Iglesias. What are they going to do now?

              I don’t like either deal. I’ll move on, though. In with the new, out with the old.

              Avila and Nathan are, evidently, part of the bold master plan for 2015, Win Now v5.0. Huh.

    2. Poor Little Ricky…now a Red Sox…what’s next, him rooming with Kevin Youkilis???

      Perhaps the Tigers must have some rapidly emerging plans to keep their pitching intact…perhaps $200M to keep Mad Max in Motown? Opps….too late, Alfredo Simon, come on down!

    1. …for the record, and if DD would have checked with me – I’d have signed Melky Cabrera and hung on to Porcello… instead of getting a 1-yr rental on Cespedes

      …but whatta I know?

      1. But you’d be stuck with Melky for a few years. That and his suboptimal OF defense argue against this. He’s a bopper. The Tigers have an ample supply of boppers.

        All Cespedes has to be is as good as Hunter, really. A one-year look-see is perfect. Maybe they’ll resign him and rethink the outfield plan, or maybe he’ll be gone by the deadline next year. Too bad it took Porcello to get him, but Cespedes is an exciting player. I’m sort of hoping he’ll do well and stick around.

        1. I agree, Melky Cabrera is a sub-par defensive OF, but the guy has always hit…and DET will see him 18-19 times each year now (playing in CWS).

          The rub w/Cespedes (and the Porcello trade) is that if Cespedes has a bad year (his past two seasons saw declining offensive numbers) DET won’t want him back, BUT if he has a great (.300, 30, 100) year, DET will be outbid next offseason AND his contract precludes DET from making a “qualifying offer”, which means DET will not get a draft pick from whoever signs him as a FA

          1. One good year from Cespedes would be just dandy. Kinda the way I felt about Scherzer going into 2014.

  6. To Kevin in Dallas: I was in Texas during New Years and while there happened to watch the weekly Texas Parks and Wildlife show. During a segment on Eisenhower Park at Denison Dam, a guy named Kevin, wearing a home Detroit Tiger cap and from the DFW area was interviewed. He had taken some Boy Scouts up there to camp. By any chance was that you? Happy 2015 to all!

    1. Amazing. No, not me. Not old enough yet (or didn’t get going early enough) to have kids that old. My kids just run around like maniacs all day, they don’t help the elderly and clean up parks.

      Happy New Year friends! I don’t have spring training fever yet, but I do smell something in the air.

  7. Ok…I saw Kevin in Plano! Yeah, let’s get this NFL stuff over and start thinking about Spring Trng. Also can we raise some more bucks for Mad Max?

    1. I have been wondering about that too… can we afford to not sign Max? On another note, saw Kate Upton in her movie debut, Justin needs to pitch back to his Cy days, she will NOT be able to support him with an acting career!

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