As Tigers legend Lou Whitaker celebrates his 62nd birthday today, let’s look at some news from Motown…
- Trade rumors have swirled around Nicholas Castellanos for well over a year, and the outfielder admitted to Chris McCosky of the Detroit News that he has been left feeling “uneasy” from the constant speculation. The piece provides an interesting look into the mindset of a player who knows he is in something of a limbo state, no longer in the long term plans of the team with whom he has spent his entire pro career. “You do everything you can to not let it affect you. If I am going to say it doesn’t affect me, I’d be lying,” Castellanos said. “I’d be giving you a media answer. The only thing I can control is going out and handling my business for me and take each at-bat the best I can for me. And in doing that, I can help the team win.” Whereas Castellanos embraced a face-of-the-franchise type of responsibility as a public and private team leader last season, McCosky notes that Castellanos has somewhat stepped back from those duties in 2019. “He’s knows he’s a lame-duck right fielder, and as such no longer HAS the obligation or the right to play that role,” McCosky writes.
- Josh Harrison will return from the injured list prior to tomorrow’s game, as per a team announcement. The Tigers have already optioned Harold Castro back to Triple-A in order to create a 25-man roster spot. Harrison has spent two weeks on the IL recovering from a left shoulder contusion. The infielder signed a one-year, $2MM deal with Detroit over the winter and has often been mentioned as a possible deadline trade chip, though Harrison will first need to greatly improve on his .156/.212/.233 slash line from his first 99 PA in a Tigers uniform.
- The Tigers activated left-hander Blaine Hardy from the injured list on Saturday, though as Hardy told the Detroit News’ Chris McCosky and other media, he isn’t entirely recovered from the left flexor tendinitis that shelved him for over two weeks. “I have a feeling it’s something I’m going to have to learn to pitch through,” Hardy said. “It’s just at a point now where it’s not affecting my pitching….You have to be able to get through those times when you don’t feel 100 percent, whether it’s from sickness, minor injury or tendinitis. The majority of the guys up here have done it before and know how to deal with it.” Pitching through such an injury carries risk, of course, though Hardy said that “I don’t think, from what everybody’s telling me, that [surgery] is the route this is going.” The southpaw got off to a rocky start (5.54 ERA in 13 innings) this season, a year removed from posting from quality numbers as a swingman in Detroit’s pitching staff.
It’s really unfortunate the Tigers, who have been playing pretty admirably all considering so far this season, are going to wind up 90+ game losers by season’s end as they dump any and all contracts that can be dumped. Castellanos is going to vanish like a fart in the wind one day… they’ll settle for two marginal prospects who are lottery tickets at best. Gotta believe Boyd gets dealt as well.
As this alleged “rebuild” continues, you have got to scratch your head when you look at this team and try to identify the cornerstone players of the future. There aren’t any. It’s sad. It’ll be years and years before the Tigers field a team good enough to get into the playoffs.
You have 4 top 100 prospects to look forward to. They’ve done an alright job in trades aside from JDM who they got next to nothing for. Candelario hasn’t worked out that well thus far but getting him and paredes for Avila and Wilson was a win. There’s pitching prospects on the way up. Lots of them. I don’t think it’s a guarantee they dump Boyd. They could have a very strong rotation anchored by Boyd and the young guys soon. Or maybe they think this is Boyd’s ceiling and they package him for some positional prospects.
There isn’t enough offense in the pipeline. That is true. They’ll need to add lots of talent in the draft and FA. And you’ll probably have to deal with another season or two of placeholder types playing around the diamond. It sucks but the future isn’t completely bleak. The twins don’t strike me as a long term juggernaut and the Indians are set to lose Bauer and Kluber real soon. We all know Lindor has an expiration date in Cleveland as well.
The Rays, Astros, Phillies, Braves, were in a similar situation a few years ago.
The farm system is still improving a lot (even if it leans heavily towards pitchers). Casey Mize alone is worth being excited about; somehow he’s been even better than advertised. They could definitely stand to add more hitting prospects, but the Braves were in this same spot a few years ago and they turned out fine. The Tigers might be a few years away, but their future is still bright. And I’m an Indians fan.
“I’d be giving you a media answer” directly before giving the perfect media answer. Crash Davis would be proud.
They ruined Nick’s confidence this year… with no real hitting prospects coming up next year, getting rid of their best hitter and leader for the past two seasons is a mistake. At best we might be able to snag a top 100 prospect if he heats up. Signing him to a 3 year 30-33 million dollar deal is pretty damn reasonable but ik they won’t do it. If we trade Boyd it’ll be a big mistake, guy should be the leader of our staff and I would extend him as well. You need those veterans continuing to lead different groups of young players. The future is bright with pitching prospects and Jake Rogers manning behind the dish is a plus. Much easier to hand 5 year max contracts to hitters compared to a FA deal with a pitcher imo.
The problem is that Nick thinks he’s worth more than $10MM a year. Considering his low trade value, I’m sure the Tigers would offer that, but since Nick (and his new agent) wouldn’t consider it, he’ll have to suffer thru FA and learn reality first.
Stymee, where have you seen what Nick is asking? I don’t recall any stories mentioning what he thought he was worth, but I am interested.
Usually you wouldn’t just look at a player’s agent and say, “yeah, this guy overvalues himself.”
However, he went out and hired Scott Boras, and Boras is an extreme high/low guy in terms of pay out potential for his clients. He either gets his guys way more money than they’re worth in free agency, or he bullies GM’s into overpaying for his clients and they end up having to sign deals with bad teams or teams out of contention to rebuild their value.
Castellanos is a good hitter, but he’s an extreme budget version of JD Martinez. Doesn’t hit for as much contact, power or have as much patience at the plate, and he’s much like Jose Martinez in that he can’t play a viable defensive position. If teams have to go out and trade for an impact bat with mediocre defense they’ll turn to the Cardinals for Martinez before they even sniff in Castellanos direction.
Statcast’s Outs Above Average has Castellanos at a +2 and Jose Martinez at a -4. Nick has developed into an above average defender in RF. As his hitting heats up and the trade deadline approaches his market will heat up.
Maybe you don’t know what price Nick values himself, if the Tigers would offer $10m, if Nick would accept it even if so, or if he’ll ‘suffer’ through free agency. Just maybe.
I have heard rumors from people close to
GM Al Avila that’s the tigers plan to offer Castellanos a QO after the season if he is not traded so they would have him for 1 more season after this(or letting him test free agency and him not getting what he wants and coming back on a 1 year deal late in the offseason) but there eyes are all over giving Mookie Betts a Manny Machado like deal after the 2020 season and have him in RF instead of Castellanos. And at that point Betts massive contract would only overlap with Miggys for 1-2 years
If the Tigers are planning on giving 17+ million to Nick Castellanos, I’m not sure there’s any hope for them as a franchise right now…
If my memory serves me, the last year or two, the Tigers did try to negotiate with Nick Castellanos for an extension but he declined. Nick has helped himself by improving his defense but his offense is down. It seems he’s blaming the Tigers for that now too.
DET may take longer to develop a competing team than the rest of the division. Their MiLB has been ignored for many years while the task of breaking down the MLB team is still not complete. Ultimately, I suspect the Tigers are being prepped for sale.
Just because MIN and CLE are competitive now, it doesn’t mean they will need to tear down and rebuild. They haven’t sacrificed their respective MiLB system to win. They have players in their system. I see CHI as a wild card because they will mix in high profile FA for the coming seasons.
My opinion only: When the pitchers now in Lexington (A) start to fill the roster, KCR will likely be the class of the division. They look like they already have a good position team which will only improve with competition.
The twins have a lot of temporary production. I could see them taking a major step back next season honestly. And I like the twins a lot this year but that’s just how I see it. They’re going to be faced w very tough decisions this offseason. 4/5 of their rotation will be FA’s. Odo, Perez, Gibson, and Pineda. Except Pineda they’ve all boosted their stock and will likely be looking for multi year pacts. That’s a slippery slope for MiN. You definitely don’t want to have pitchers who have been historically up and down on multi year deals. They’ll also lose Cruz and Schoop via FA. Now they’ll have gobs of cash to spend as they have very little on the books and made some savvy extensions to their young players this offseason but Falvey and Levine will have to essentially re think their ML team again. That’s the downside to all these ST pacts. When the signings work you wish you could have them back at that bargain rate….
The Twins have good players moving through their MiLB, especially pitching. I think they’ll be better next season. They won’t need to acquire as many free agents.
That’s 4/5 of a rotation. They don’t have 4 starters in AA or AAA who are going to step in and perform. Offensively they’re stocked pretty well but they will absolutely need to sign or resign at minimum 2 starters.
No doubt, the Twins will need FA next season. My point is that they won’t need as many. The Twins look they have at least one starter in MiLB; just watch a few more months..
Gary, I’ve read several accounts where Nick said the team never made any offers or tried to extend him.
The Detroit Free Press reported that the Tigers approached his camp twice and were rebuffed. The first time was in 2016 when Mike Illich was in charge.
Castellanos camp refused any extension but they did sign a contract only for his final two arbitration years. Al Avila said he approached his camp again just before the 2017 Winter Meetings but, no meeting ever happened after Castellanos camp restated their stance from the previous year. I can’t quote other sources because I’m going by memory. It may have been radio or even this site.
I don’t blame people for not paying attention to the tigers farm system, but there is A LOT of young arms that look like legit major league starters. And I think the mid season prospect rankings are going to reflect that they had more than initially thought at the beginning of the year.
There are no impact bats, but quality middle roatation arms can be flipped for anything, and they appear to have more of them in the minors than spots on a big league roster, as well as a 2/3 legit front end starters, along with a young and talented rotation already in the majors. They’ve be decimated by injuries this year, but there is obvious hope in the future for anyone paying attention.
Ain’t no Hall if Sweet Lou aint in – Deoin Sanders
Seriously Alan Trammel AND me in? – Jack Morris
I mean sure the guy could hit, but could he wear a jersey from a local sports supply store in an All-Star game? – Homer Simpson
Happy Birthday Sweet Lou!