Dave Cameron of Fangraphs has kicked off his always-interesting trade value series, starting with the players that landed just outside the top fifty and the first ten members of his list. The central divisions dominated the board at the back end of the first fifty, landing eight of the spots. Jose Quintana of the White Sox took the highest billing among the players that Cameron has ranked thus far, earning the nod at #41 based upon his sturdy production and cheap contract. He slotted just ahead of Twins youngster Byron Buxton and a pair of high-quality Indians (Jason Kipnis & Yan Gomes). You’ll want to check out the links for all the details.
Here are a few notes from the AL Central:
- Entering the All-Star break as a surprise contender, the Twins have some needs in the bullpen, writes Mike Berardino of the St. Paul Pioneer-Press. GM Terry Ryan rejected the idea that the team’s relief corps is burned out after half a season of play, despite middling results of late and some heavy usage on some arms. “The bullpen had carried us for quite a long time,” said Ryan. “We’re scuffling some. I think that’s fair. But you’re going to go through periods. It’s just a part of a 162-game schedule, in my opinion. The closer [Glen Perkins] hasn’t had any of those.” As Berardino notes, the club has generated plenty of rumors over recent weeks regarding its interest in pen arms, and it would not be surprising to see Minnesota add a few new options at the deadline.
- Tigers ace David Price said that he is not aware of any active talks between the team and his representatives regarding an extension, Bill Shaikin of the Los Angeles Times reports (via Twitter). It seems all but certain at this point that Price will hit the free agent market at the end of the year. Price also added that he does not expect to be dealt away from Detroit at the deadline. Needless to say, a move would be quite surprising, in spite of the team’s mediocre first half, given the comments of GM Dave Dombrowski earlier today.
Dombrowski needs to trade Price,Cespedes,Kinsler,V-Mart….then look forward to 2016…..
LOL
And then what will he have left? 4 rookies, Iggy and Miggy?
Don’t forget the contract formerly known as Justin Verlander!
The Verlander contract is one of the reasons why I respect Mike Ilitch so much.. Baseball has become such a what have you done for me lately sport that Verlander’s contract looks very bad.. But when Ilitch was negotiating Verlander’s new deal he took his past performance when he was working for extremely low wages and factored that into his new deal.. If you add up every year’s salary for Verlander before 2012 you don’t even get one year of his current contract.. He was instrumental in their AL championship runs and Ilitch didn’t hesitate to reward him for that..
With the luxury tax and revenue-sharing increasing each year, that contact he gave Verlander is eating up such a high percentage of the Tiger payroll that it cannot possibly be defended. Don’t get me wrong, I too believe Verlander should have been rewarded. But the man was working on a 5 year / $79M contract in 2013 – hardly “extremely low wages” at the time.
I don’t blame players agents for getting everything they can. But the majority of the long-term / $100M-plus contracts have not worked out well for the teams and their fans at all. (Like real estate prices in America in the late 90’s and early 2000’s, they’re based on expecting the bubble to continue.) As for Mr. Iitch – he’s morphing into a modern day Tom Yawkey (who was born in Detroit) – a great guy that all the players loved as he always made it a point to pay his players handsomely. At least Mr. Iitch gets into the post-season some (which may be due to it’s expansion).
Yeah, but its this logic that will ultimately undermine Illitch because it ties him to players regardless of their performance. Unless he wants to go crazy spending more money he’s heavily invested in players on the wrong side of their careers.
Come on now! Verlander has earned over $114 million to date for his services. He was paid quite handsomely for his efforts during those divisional title runs, not to mention the $162 million in guaranteed salary yet to come.
Tigers def. should make Price and Cespedes available. Lets be honest, they aren’t likely to contend. Stack up their system in this seller’s market and charge for 2016. Right now they’re on a path to become the Phillies in a few years
Describe how they are like the Phillies, other than the weak farm system. Some lame a$$ writer made the claim without any thought to it, and now its the trendy statement.
No farm system.. Several very high priced declining veterans.. Where they differ is their management.. The Tigers have 5 players soaking up close to $100 million for the next several years and most of them have zero trade..
Other than Verlander, who is declining? Every team has someone get injured every year. This is Miggy’s first time on the DL, ever. Please don’t act like it is a trend. Most players who sign long term contracts have little to no trade value. Until there is a salary cap, how much they are paying their players doesn’t guarantee future actions. I’m not that worried about their future because the Tiger have already rebuilt, AS they were contending. The Tigers already have young players in place at C, SS, 3B, CF and RF, two of which the players selected to the All Star Game. The Phillies have Franco and who else? I’m more worried about losing Dombrowski, who is also a FA at years end. If there comes a time to move the Large Contracts, he is one GM with experience at it from his time in Florida.
Are you sure this is Cabrera’s first DL trip? I had him in a fantasy league either last season or the one prior and he missed time with a hip or groin injury. If he didn’t DL he was at least not playing. OK..went and checked it out…it was the ankle that hampered him last season.
The Phillies have JP Crawford at SS, Aaron Nola SP, a few solid pieces in the low minors and a nice draft to couple with the likely returns they’ll get dealing Papelbon & Hamels. As far as system restock they are a little ahead of Detroit. But Detroit is trying to win now.
I think it’s an exaggeration to say they don’t have trade value. Those players would be hot commodities should Detroit decide to do that. Cabrera? Martinez?
Yeah Philly won a World Series during their window and run for a title.
You are correct. It’s kind of a lazy intellectual argument to compare the Tigers with the Phillies. I mean, the first difference is that the Phils actually won a championship before handing out God awful, payroll suffocating contracts. Secondly, based on how these things are objectively measured, it seems Philedelphia may have a decent farm system with some organizational depth. Lastly, the Phils are emerging from the Dark Ages as the Tigers are heading there at max velocity.
In defense of Philly they were trying to sustain their window by keeping their core which Detroit attempted to do. But Philly’s mistake in my opinion was trading away the farm to add too it or mortgaging away their future like some call it.
To me one of their biggest mistakes was trading for Lee the second time. It is widely known that Philly didn’t even approach Lee about an extension which at one pointed he indicated but also said he wanted to stay in Philly which is evidenced by the fact he signed with them and not the Yankees or Texas.
Just asking: Who did Philly trade away from their farm that became something? I don’t know this answer.
Yeah, they have to eat money on kinsler and vmart for anything useful though.
That’s a little much. Price, yes; Soria too if they can find a taker. Kinsler’s too expensive to trade, and even if they do he won’t bring back much value. I like Cespedes in the lineup and would like them to re-sign him, but if they can get a nice piece for him, fine.
Victor stays though… this lineup is dreadful without him. They are scoring more runs with him and no Cabrera than they did when he was out but Cabby still around.
Tigers since opening day 2013 (their ALCS appearance year only 2+ years ago):
C: NEW McCann (basically a platoon with Avila in terms of ABs)
1st: NEW Miggy moved from 3rd
2nd: NEW Kinsler
3rd: NEW Castellanos
SS: NEW Iglesias
LF: NEW Cespedes
CF: NEW Gose/Davis platoon
RF: NEW JD Martinez
Out of 8 position players they are ALL NEW in some form (one moved, one in a platoon. That is it!). The fact is that they have rebuilt their team on the fly and have still remained competitive.
Counting Miggy’s position switch (BACK to 1b) is kind of disingenuous, as is cherry-picking McCann when it’s pretty clear the Tigers regard Avila as #1 on the depth chart still. You’ve still got a point, but there’s no need to stretch it.
Also, it’s not just about new players, it’s about age, money, and future contribution. The Phillies big millstones are Howard/Utley… Cabrera/Kinsler are both better, but both also signed to big money through ages where they could decline. The fact that you’re plugging in new players around them means nothing. The problem with the Phillies is they can’t afford players to supplement their big contracts (like the Tigers) and haven’t produced mlb-level talent in-house (also like the Tigers… it’s way too early to say McCann, Gose, and Castellanos are all locks to be consistently productive major leaguers, even Iggy).
That’s not even touching on the other (bigger) Phillies-Tigers parallel… rotation. The Tigers followed that big 3 approach and now are approaching a similar reckoning. The Phils lost Halladay, Lee is on the DL, and only Hamels is hanging on. Similarly the Tigers are losing Price/Scherzer, and only one of Anibal/JV ever seems effective at a given moment. There’s no way to repair that when you have so much tied up in a few vets unless you strike gold in a trade, which DD managed with Fister, but Washburn, Ray, Greene, and Simon raise some real questions about whether the Tigers can cobble together enough talented pitching to prop up those aging stars.
I guess we first have to agree on a specific time line. If McCann is cherry picked as a #1,that is true only for 2015. Avila is your cherry pick since he is a FA and can not be included in a “future comparisons” with the Phillies.
When talking about age, money and future contributions,you sneak in the words “could decline” which is a guess and not a fact. Plus you can’t infer “could decline” to some but then say “too early to say” regarding the youngsters. Stating “it is way too early….are all locks to be consistently productive Major Leaguers…” is true for all 30 teams that are young like Detroit.
Money is not a big issue since management is willing to spend and they have $60mill coming off the books this winter.
Pitching is always a concern, and Detroit needs to have some kids to step up. But to say ..”prop up aging stars.. makes me laugh. Only Cabrera (age32/8yrs left),Verlander(age 32/4yrs left) and Victor Martinez(36/3yrs left) have 3 or more years on their contracts. McCann,Iglesias, Gose,and Castellanos are all 25 or younger.J.D. Martinez is 27, so that’s 5 starters with team control. Kinsler (33) and Sanchez(31) have 2 years left(with buyouts). Cespedes at 29,Simon at 34,and Soria at 31 are FA.
Tigers do not have to rebuild, but rather retool and look nothing like the Phillies.
The Tigers win totals since 2013 have been 93(2013) to 90(2014) to 81(projected 2015). Even scarier is if you look at pythagorean win totals; 99(2013) to 86(2014) to 78(projected 2015). The Tigers five highest paid players for next year combine to make $105m and will be aged 37, 34, 33, 33 and 32. Their top 2 SP, closer and LF this year are all free agents after the season. They also have what is considered by most experts to be the worst farm system in MLB. You may have changed the players, but it doesn’t mean you’ve improved or even stayed the same. The future doesn’t look that great in Detroit.
I don’t believe the future looks great, but only because that’s the cyclical nature of the game. I would say all is not lost yet, though… If Dombrowski gets creative and also hits on so FA signings they should be competitive and be able to avoid a total crash.
Their pitching staff is bad, and if Price leaves it will be awful.
Lots of IF’s on the pitching staff, but I think it would not take a lot to fix it for the second half. Being a Tigers FAN, I like Price, Sanchez and Verlander for the first 3 in the rotation. They need a reliable #4, and a return of Lobstein for #5. He was consistant before his injury. Wilson needs to take over the 8th for now, until Rondon shows consistency. They need a LH reliever. Kroll is not the answer. If they add a #4 starter and a LH reliever, I think the staff will work.
I think they’re after Koehler in Miami
I see Price hitting free agency and going to either the Cubs or Nats.
Really? You think the Nats will hand out an even bigger contract than what they gave Scherzer? That’s what its gonna take to sign him.
I think Price is already trying on Cubs caps while he’s alone in his hotel room on the road.
Price to Twins ftw
Trade value doesn’t always rqual tradeable value. Young players under control are highly valuable to their own organization. If their moved, its for more even less proven control. If the scenario is hottest available commodity.. Then just rank Trout #1. Quintana isn’t likely going anywhere….the Sox don’t need to deal him when they have some other pieces that have value.