Earlier tonight, the Tigers announced the signing of catcher Jarrod Saltalamacchia to a one-year deal for the MLB minimum. Before he put pen to paper with Detroit, however, Salty’s camp was in talks with “six or seven clubs,” according to a baseball source who spoke with MLBTR.  The backstop drew varying levels of interest from the White Sox, Royals, Rays, Orioles (prior to Matt Wieters accepting his QO), Phillies, Angels, and the incumbent D’Backs.
The Tigers have landed themselves a veteran who can be a reliable presence behind starter James McCann.  Saltalamacchia also could get some opportunities as DH and first base as he moves back to the American League.  The former first round pick looked strong in his 70 game run for the D’Backs in 2015 and he’ll attempt to build off of that with Detroit in the New Year.
Yet none of them could offer more than one year at the minimum huh? Offseasons are weird.
He only got the minimum for one year contract because the Miami Marlins owe him 8million. Pretty weird right?
He wouldn’t wanna come back to catch Grienke?
Dbacks are just another pitcher and two middle infielders away from contention. They should sign Wei-Yin Chen or Yovanni Gallardo, as well as Howie Kendrick. Then trade Drury/Lamb/Owings and Bradley/Shipley/Blair for someone like Jake Odorizzi
There are a lot of teams that are only THREE players from contention.
80% of the teams in baseball are a pitcher and two bats away from contention.
*whispers*
Rays
Well you should just submit an application to be the gm.
dbacks are starting to look strong on paper.
Sooo give up three draft picks (on top of the one given up for Greinke), trade three prospects for a CHANCE at contending lol. This, sir, is why you are not a GM.
Was this 6 or 7 major league teams/organizations, or where these teams in the independent Atlantic League. Or perhaps twilight baseball teams? Nothing against Salty, but rather questioning of sources if he ended up with one year at the minimum with half a dozen teams interested.
i think the minimum thing is because the marlins are still paying him from the 2-year contract he signed with them a year ago. he’s making $8M from them, minus the minimum he’s making from the tigers
so he probably chose what he felt like was the best situation
Zack–can you clarify why it had to be for the MLB minimum (presumably because of the extant Marlin contract) and why he didn’t look for (or was offered) a multi-year deal, with the second/third years at a closer-to-value contract?
I believe the issue is he is already under contract for $8MM that the Marlins must pay. Now if another team picks him up, they pay part of that $8MM. So the new team needs to only pay league min. (about 500K )while the Marlins are still on the hook for the rest.
Tigers are dominating the offseason. This is a really good fit!
1. They need a left handed power bat badly. He has averaged 20HRs/yr over his career. Even last year he had 9 in 79 games. Pretty much on pace.
2. His OPS is very good for a low batting average guy.
3. He is a switch hitter that is perfect pinch hitter for the light hitting part of Detroit’s line up (could come in for Gose, Maybin, maybe Iglesias and of course McCann).
4. Excellent insurance for VMART in case he is not at 100% for the full year as a DH.
I do not think he role will be just back up catcher. I see them keeping a 3rd catcher and giving Salty 40 starts with 65 other appearances (pinch hitter, maybe a few games at first and DH). He is just too valuable as a bench bat to only come in a catcher swap.
I’m not going to pick this apart, but he has hit 20 HR’s once in his life.
White Sox made a mistake on this one…rather have Salty than Tubo Navarro…
Dioner Navarro is a better fit with the White Sox than Jarrod Saltalamacchia, especially after they signed Alex Avila earlier.
Avila hits left-handed, while both Navarro and “Salty” are switch-hitters. The advantage of an Avila/Navarro platoon is significantly better than an Avila/Saltalamacchia one. Navarro slashes .270/.336/.439 versus left-handed pitching while “Salty” has a poor .212/.274/.347 line against southpaws.
Navarro is only about a year older than “Salty”. His defense is much better according to the dWAR metric and he has a significantly higher CS% (29-22).
Throughout their MLB careers, Navarro has hit for a better BA while “Salty” has more HR power. Navarro, however, has been the better offensive player over the last 4 seasons.
It took me a couple of days to figure out Al Avila’s genius with Pelfrey, but now I am very happy with ALL his moves:
1. Maybin will be an excellent defender in left (which is needed in Comerica) and offer some competition to Gose in center. Love the flexible defense/offense configurations in the outfield now. (Choose offense with Collins and Maybin/Gose or defense with Maybin and Gose).
2. Zimmermann’s was by far the best deal of for a starting pitcher in the offseason. He will likely go back to being a top 35 pitcher in baseball. Perfect for a #2. He was a bargain because of TJ surgery worries and his off year last year. He did not really have that bad a year and he did not “lose his stuff”. It is just that his other years were that much better. More bad luck than anything in my analysis. And he is several years removed from TJ surgery, projected to be just fine through most if not all of the contract in terms of risk.
3. Pelfrey is Rick Porcello with a “60% off” price. With the Tigers well above average defense (especially if they put in Romine for Castellanos in games that he pitches), Pelfrey should get his FIP below 4 and his ERA perhaps as low as 3.5 with a good defense. FIP actually is influenced by defense because when a pitcher extends innings, the additional batters can make that number go up. Also FIP is influenced by Ks with is not really Pelfrey’s game.
4. Letting Al Al go seemed odd. But it makes sense now. They will upgrade that spot, possibly this weekend.
5. Salty is perfect for this lineup. They need a lefty power bat. Amazing that he can catch too! To me that is just a bonus. Keep that 3rd catcher and Salty can back up C, 1st and DH. Romine can take care of 2nd, SS and 3rd and there are already 4 outfielders. Perfect!
Since he is league minimum, this move actually frees up payroll too!
Tigers are still trash
I doubt you are right this time.
Wow, you’re the first person I’ve seen who actually liked the Pelfrey trade. Most people panned it immediately because they don’t want another Alfredo Simon quality year and they think the options coming up (Norris, Boyd, Fulmer) are good enough to fill out the back of the rotation.
Al-Al’s slider is gone, and he’s lost his fastball command. They don’t think it’s coming back.
Simon and Pelfrey are similar in that they have up/down starts.
Both had 10 or more starts last year in which they gave up 0 or 1 earned run last year. That is not far behind Price and Scherzer in terms of the number of those types of starts.
Both had the problems on the flip side with horrible starts.
Pelfrey will likely benefit from having an above average defense at every position (if Romine plays 3rd during his starts). He does not give up HRs. His problem is he has to rely on his defense, MN did not have it, Detroit does.
Pelfrey had a FIP of 4.00 last year. Jeff Samardzija had a FIP of 4.23.
If Pelfrey fades away because a young guy takes his spot, so be it. But you cannot have enough pitching.
Salty is worth more than $500k. Hopefully there are bonuses involved.
He’s getting $8 million from the Marlins as well.
So they replace Alex Avila with a Switch Hitting version of Alex Avila interesting
The Phillies were interested? Why? Gotta be a typo…