Tigers executive Scott Reid is scouting Cubs outfielder Nate Schierholtz and infielder Darwin Barney, Bruce Levine of CBS Chicago reports. The Cubs would be looking for pitching in return. The Tigers have lost outfielder Andy Dirks and shortstop Jose Iglesias to serious injuries. Dirks was slated to form the left-handed side of a left-field platoon with Rajai Davis. The left-handed Scherholtz would seem to fit the bill as his replacement, even though he has mostly played right field in recent years.
Barney has played shortstop only sparingly since 2010, and the Tigers have no real need at second base, with Ian Kinsler in tow. Barney is a strong defensive second baseman, however, and he has played a bit of shortstop this spring with Starlin Castro dealing with a hamstring injury. Barney recently told the Chicago Tribune's Mark Gonzales that he would be fine playing shortstop. "Shortstop is my natural position," he said. "I feel very comfortable over there. The past three years at second base I've still taken balls at short almost every day as part of my workout to stretch my arm out. So I don't look at it as a transition." Barney hit poorly in 2013, with a line of .208/.266/.303 in 555 plate appearances, but he produced enough value with his defense to be above replacement level.
The Cubs will give YOU pitching to take Barney…he hits like one afterall.
That one stung! haha
Barney is not worthless.
He won a Gold Glove. The guy can flat out play defense.
Please don’t, Detroit. Barney with a .208 last year is a severe step back from Iglesias on offense, not to mention defense. Purpose of replacing him is not to get worse at the position.
Do you have any in house options or see any real candidates on other teams that teams are looking to trade that would be a better fill in then Barney? Yes, he is terrible with the bat, but he is amazing on D which makes up for part of his offense.
As of right now, Barney is a step back from Iglesias…if Iglesias wouldn’t be on the DL all year your statement would be true. Barney is a fine fill in until he comes back to your lineup next season, and is pretty cheap.
BTW, the question about better internal or external trade candidates was legitament, I havent heard much market. Do you think the Tigers are only looking to trade? Would you see them signing Drew on a 1 year deal?
Just don’t see Barney being the SS replacement they need. If this was 2nd base, possibly. I don’t see them signing Drew, his agents are looking for the contract. The internal vs. Barney question stands, but is it worth giving up a valuable pitching prospect? I see the dilemma Detroit has and the Cubs desiring someone like Alvarez or Ray.
Even with Barney’s natural position being SS? I think as it stands right now every other options whether internal or external trade candidate would be the equivalent of Barney on offense, but you get Barneys gold glove D. Again, I do not know a lot about Detroits farm. Any minor leaguer is a question mark coming up to play in the bigs. They coudl mash in AAA and play awful in the bigs. At least with Barney you know you get not so good offense (which is what you could probably expect from anyone you bring up) and questionable D.
Saying that Barney is a step back from Iglesias offensively really says something, because Iglesias hit way over his head last season with Boston.
I’d be very wary of trading for Scherholtz. Knowing the Cubs they are probably asking for an organization’s top 10 prospect in a trade and Scherholtz is a below average defender, with the exception of 2013 he has below average power, he doesn’t steal many bases and his OBP is far from spectacular.
Shierholtz is Dirks with more power.
Their career SLG are very similar .413 Dirks v .425 Scherholtz and Dirks actually has more HR/PA than Scherholtz (.08 v .06).
Against LHP
Dirks – .392 slugging/94 tOPS+
Schierholtz – .367 slugging/87 tOPS+
Pretty close, but in my opinion a significant difference.
Also worth noting that Schierholtz’s BABIP against LHP is higher than his BABIP against RHP, vice versa for Dirks.
Thus Schierholtz’s tOPS+ against LHP should regress downwards, and Dirk’s should regress towards the mean.
Isn’t it more relevant to compare how they do against RHP?
Shierholtz needs to be put in a platoon to be used right…he’s a 20 Hr bat that way
Looking for Robbie Ray or Jake Thompson in return? Let’s do this, Cubbies.
Uhm, not a chance to either.
Detroit is essentially looking for two full-year starters (or at least platoons)…they’re going to have to pay up, unless they trade for Rollins and take on most of the salary.
Then they would pass on both since they are marginal talents and the two names you mentioned are two of their premiere pitching prospects.
Both guys the tigers are acquiring are non-tender guys after this year.
Think tigers 25thish best spec
We are talking about the team that gave away Doug Fister to fill roster needs with marginally talented players. I wouldn’t put it past them.
Their scouts are big on Robbie Ray (yes, more than some other scouts) and Ian Kroll has a possible good future as a relief pitcher. I think it was more about replacing Fister (who had few years left in Detroit) with someone with as high of a ceiling (#3 starter), allowing Smyly to finally move into the rotation and getting and a few other pieces to go along with it. Lombardozzi is the actual marginal talent but is still a cheaper, younger, and faster replacement to Santiago. No idea how to evaluate the trade now but if the players pan out to the Tigers expectations, it’s a logical trade.
Ask for Jose Alvarez, Ramon Cabrera and someone else for both. I’d take that deal any day for the Cubs.
Given how big a nightmare Detroit’s offseason has been, the coup de grace would be trading for Cubs.
There is also Norichika Aoki, if KC is willing to trade him after just acquiring him themselves over the winter. I’d rather have him over Schierholtz anyway, who the Cubs will be trying to trade for a 1 year wonder season that still just produced a .300 .OBP season and Aoki just drew back a middle reliever in return.
That should set the bar (plus a little) on the limits for all Schierholtz’s worth and as said.. I’d prefer the speedier, OB guy Aoki anyway who has gap power and will still have as many XBH if the Tigers could go that way. He’s as good as Dirk’s, even when Dirks is healthy, if not better and the acquisition cost could be very little.
Royals are expected to compete this year. Especially since they don’t have anyone to really replace him in the lead-off spot, I highly doubt Aoki gets traded.
Not really. They just think they can compete.
Then why would they trade Aoki then…?
Please explain WHY the Royals would trade one of their top three offseason acquisitions to their main competitor for the division crown…before they’d even played a single regular season game?!
The type of player. There are others who would be better options than Schierhotz and wouldn’t cost as much that wouldn’t be trading for that 1 miracle season that wasn’t even as good if you look at it, even quite poor in fact.
AZ may move Cody Ross, you never know, though he was injured last year and his numbers suffered. Mike Carp if Boston changes their minds again and takes both Sizemore and JBJ on the 25 man roster. Ross can play all 3 OF positions, Carp 1b and both corners and Carp was decent both last year and 2011, just was pretty bad in 2012 when he was hurt. There are others. TB could be persuaded into moving Joyce perhaps.
Barney gets dealt before opening day and Bonifacio takes his place on the 40 man and starts at second for Cubs.
Bonifacio will be a utility guy for them, not an everyday starter at any one position. Versatility like his is extremely valuable, especially if Mike Olt wins the third base job, even if Barney is dealt, the Murphy/Valbuena platoon will man 2B the majority of the time, and Bonifacio will bounce around the field while leading off whenever he plays, which will be more often than not.
Olt hasn’t even played third yet this spring. Theres a chance he doesn’t even make the team so he can get some work in in AAA
Olt has always been known to already have a pretty good glove. Now I think there is a chance he doesn’t play some 3rd base in the last week of ST he might have to start at AAA, but I think he wins the 3rd base job
That’s why I said IF Olt wins the 3rd base job
Think Valbuena might have a decent shot at starting in that case perhaps Murphy in a platoon. Assuming Olt grabs the 3B job.
Barney was insanely unlucky last year. He posted a .222 BABIP against a .317 xBABIP . While certainly not a good hitter, he is much better than last year indicates.
What is xBABIP?
Its expected BABIP and is computed based on a hitter’s ratio of FB:GB:Line Drives. Problem is there is little to no correlation between xBABIP and BABIP so it has little to no predictive value.
If it has little to no predictive value, it’s kind of useless then IMO.
Speaking of predicting, I don’t know why people still say FIP (a stat I absolutely hate) predicts future ERA. I’m not going to waste my time doing so, but I bet I can look at a great number of pitchers and see their FIP’s and ERA’s vary year by year.
Thats precisely why xBABIP never caught on. Fangraphs started computing it in 2009 and then realized that there was no real correlation between xBABIP and BABIP so I hadn’t heard of it for a while. I don’t know if fangraphs still computes it or not.
FIP/ERA have a stronger correlation than xBABIP/BABIP. FIP is far from a perfect stat but it does help determine the benefit that pitchers get from having a defender like Simmons vs some like Jeter behind them. ERA has some real problems, mainly from not addressing park, defense or when a reliever is brought in with runners on base. Plus if you don’t like FIP you cant use fWAR because fWAR is computed using FIP.
“FIP is far from a perfect stat but it does help determine the benefit that pitchers get from having a defender like Simmons vs some like Jeter behind them”
But I’m not sure why people think it’s a good stat to predict a pitcher’s real or future ERA. Also some may forget that defensive outs are actually factored in because innings pitched is used , and obviously defensive outs add to a pitcher’s Innings Pitched. Just saying.
FIP has much smaller standard deviation from year to year than ERA does making it a more useful predictive stat than ERA. However FIP is not necessarily a good way to predict next years ERA because ERA still fluctuates based on park, defense ect. FIP is better at predicting what a pitcher FIP will be next year than ERA is at predicting what a pitchers ERA will be next year. That is why people think of it as a good predictive stat.
FIP is a much better tool than ERA. xFIP is even better.
I disagree completely. To each his own though. No stat is a perfect stat.
Well, players tend to maintain their contact rates.
It certainly has strong predictive values….
Barney isn’t going to drastically change his contact rates next year. He is clearly a better hitter than he was last year.
xBABIP isn’t based on contact rate it uses the type of contact a players makes (Line Drive, Fly Ball and Ground Ball) to try and determine what his BABIP should be. It is essentially an attempt to mathematically explain the fact that line drive hitters can sustain a higher BABIP than other players can. Problem is it does a bad job and doesn’t predict a players BABIP so it is pretty much useless.
Expected Batting Average on Balls In Play. Basically what percentage of his batted balls should have been hits. Barney was below expected norms across the board, including a very low .538BABIP on line drives. While no offensive threat, he is an excellent “buy low” candidate.
Notin wins.
Good post
I’d agree that he’s better than last years numbers indicate. But if he put up career bests, that still would have made him the worst 2B last year (OPS wise) of all qualified 2B.
How about Robert Andino, I was always a big fan. Honestly, he was one of my favorite Orioles. He might step up in Detroit, whereas there might not be a spot in Pittsburgh for him.
What do Tigers fans realistically see giving up for those 2? I think the Cubs are fine with keeping both, but I also do not think they will ask for a huge overpay, given what they have produced the past few years. Although I believe Barneys D is amazing and that should be rewarded with something decent in return.
Barney’s a SS?
He can play both. He was a SS in college and most of his time in the minors. Moved to 2nd because of Castro
Yeah, the position he played pretty much his entire minor league career.
Gregorius from Arizona is on the block, and most of the Pirates OF is on the block. I’m a Cubs fan and would love to acquire a few mid-level prospects for these two guys, but there are definitely other options out there.
I would love to get my hands on someone like Drew Smyly (us Cubs fans can dream), but if we can get a couple decent arms with upside in the 11-20 organization range, I’d do it in a heartbeat.
Jose Valdez, Drew VerHagen, or Kevin Ziomek.
How about Casey Crosby?
Would have to either take Thompson or Porcello IMO.
I agree, Cubs should take a chance with Porcello. I think he would do pretty good out of the American League