Tigers Acquire Aubrey Huff

solid move, huff provides some comfort

About a year too late. Should have moved him last year when they had the chance. Would have saved the club $8m.

Loopy, they only get the pick if they offered arbitration to Huff and he declined. And with the season he was having and the deterrent effect that giving up draft picks for mediocre Type A free agents has on their free agent value, Huff was almost certain to accept arb if it was offered.

Are you kidding me? As of a week ago, Huff was still on pace to be a type A, meaning a first and a supplemental pick if he left. At worst, a 2nd round pick - which is likely better than this Jacobson kid. His Hi-A stats are less than impressive.

Shoulda kept him, or held out for a better offer.

Posted by: Loopy | August 17, 2009 at 03:01 PM

Loopy-
Huff has declined as a player rapidly, and if offered arbitration would certainly have accepted the 8M+ vs. the 1.5 or 2M he would have gotten on the open market. By dealing him now the O's get a young arm when they would have gotten nothing, as they couldn't risk offering him arbitration.

In other words, I would've offered him arb, and been ok with him accepting it. The Orioles payroll entering the season was 8th lowest in MLB ($67,101,666). He is making less than Melvin-freaking-Mora, whose contract is up this offseason. I thought they could've just used that money for Huff.

But the point is, why give him arbitration and pay him 8M? The Tigers aren't going to offer him arb, so if you like him so much you can sign him as a FA after the season to a 1 year, 2M deal. Bam, saved 6M bucks to go after a pitcher.

Exactly... coming off a down season with no hope for a big contract, Huff would take the arb offer and the O's would be looking at $9MM+ next season, at which point you have to wonder if he even maintains Type B status. Even then, you've got the arb situation all over again.

Getting a Top 10 prospect out of someone's organization is a solid move. Jacobson's not a top-flight prospect, but he's putting up decent numbers at High-A after a lights out 2008 in Low-A.

They could've tried for a better offer or better prospect, but shedding Huff's remaining $3MM or so and getting back an arm with some promise and upside isn't a bad move for the O's.

He's also on a stretch of 13.2 scoreless innings with 13 Ks in that span and just 14 baserunners allowed.

I hear everyone - I'm just frustrated cause I like Huff and we don't really have any other 1st baseman on the roster or prospects ready to come up. I guess Wigginton and/or Scott will cover.

They definitely would have gotten more for Huff from the Mets way earlier in the season when Delgado first went down.

I get the feeling Baltimore didn't want to offer arb and didn't want to pay him anymore for this season.

It's an interesting deal although I'm not sure it tips the balance in the AL Central.

I expect Chicago to be on top when it's all said and done.

I just remembered too that they got Rhyne Hughes for Zaun - he may come up as a fill-in.

I just don't think that the Orioles
could possibly offer him arbitration, and it wasn't a good idea to hold onto him last year considering how unlikely it was that he would repeat those numbers.

Now they had to overpay him for a good deal of this season, and just because you have someone even more overpaid than Huff in Mora coming off the books, that's not a good reason to overpay Huff again.

At least they got Jacobson for him though.

im jus wondering if the pitcher they got from detroit is as good as the pitcher they could have got from san francisco . the pitcher the indians got for gasko..

now if we can just get sumthing for mora !!

them ol players are like ol stale bread get rid of em!!

Good move for the Tigers. Don't know how high the Tigers have Jacobson ranked, but they draft a ton of pitching every year.

He does give the Tigers another bat, and another guy to block Maggs on the depth chart.

Huff at DH, Guillen in left field or at third base, and Thames, Thomas and Raburn fighting for time against righthanders in right field. Letting Ordonez's option exercise just isn't a good idea. The Tigers are already wasting so much money.

Solid move for the Tigers; now use this to bench Magglio.

O's clear salary and get at least something for an aging DH who would've accepted arbitration if offered.

As others have pointed out - Huff isn't that bad. Offering arbitration is bad.

Bring him back if you need a 1st baseman - just at a significantly reduced rate. I would think $2-4m on a one year deal would make a lot of sense.

Trading him last year would have saved the organization $8m - that's a lot of money to put towards the other problems the club faces. At the end of the day Huff has been a negative from a WAR perspective in 2009. You could have swapped him out with an replacement level player and not had your team impacted from a wins/loss perspective.

decent move for both sides-The tigers have a ton of relief prospects with satterwhite, green, perry & weinhardt all young and talented. Meanwhile the O's get a solid arm and move Huff to make room for younger guys.