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Quick Hits: Snell, Draft, Torkelson, Molina, Jefry

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It’s not quite a Cy Young Award, but Rays southpaw Blake Snell captured another unique honor by winning the MLB The Show Players League championship today.  (MLB.com’s Mandy Bell, Adam Berry, Do-Hyoung Park and Juan Toribio have the details.)  The tournament featured one player from each team competing in a round-robin regular season of games of MLB The Show, with the top performers advancing to the postseason.  Snell dominated play in both the regular season and playoffs, including a three-game sweep of Lucas Giolito in the best-of-five World Series.

Snell’s victory clinched an extra donation to the Boys & Girls Clubs of the Suncoast.  Each of the 30 players represented a different local Boys & Girls Club, with every Club receiving charitable donations from the league, the players’ union, and Sony Interactive Entertainment.  Full details on the tournament are available here.

Some more notes from around the non-virtual baseball world…

  • There seems to be an increasing expectation that the Tigers will take Arizona State first baseman Spencer Torkelson with the first overall pick in the amateur draft, according to both Lynn Henning of the Detroit News and Anthony Fenech of the Detroit Free Press.  While nothing will be certain until Torkelson’s name is called, the slugger is considered the top prospect available by many pundits, and is perhaps something of a safer pick.  Perfect Game national director Brian Sakowski tells Fenech that the lack of spring baseball created less opportunity for any prospect to showcase new skills or have a breakout performance, so while Vanderbilt’s Austin Martin may not necessarily be behind Torkelson on Detroit’s draft board, the lack of clarity about Martin’s future defensive position might inspire the Tigers to just go with Torkelson’s more obvious power potential.  Henning is even more straight-forward in his assessment, writing “the Tigers are all but certain to take Torkelson,” as he would immediate become the headline bat in a Detroit farm system that is rich in quality young arms but short on blue chip hitting prospects.
  • Yadier Molina raised some eyebrows by recently saying that he was open to play for another team besides the Cardinals when he reaches free agency, though Ben Frederickson of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch still feels Molina will ultimately remain with the Redbirds.  “The Cardinals need Molina more than any other team needs him, and no other team would appreciate him like the Cardinals do,” Frederickson writes, and a reunion should eventually happen “as long as sanity and reason remain at the heart of the conversation.”  That said, if another team could emerge as a potential suitor for the veteran catcher, Frederickson speculates the Angels could be a possibility, given Molina’s ties to Albert Pujols and Tony La Russa (who was hired in November as a special advisor to the Halos’ baseball operations department).
  • Jefry Rodriguez started eight of his 10 games with the Indians last season, though Cleveland.com’s Joe Noga feels the right-hander could be a swingman option for the Tribe if the 2020 season gets underway.  It was an open question as to whether or not Rodriguez would have made Cleveland’s Opening Day roster under normal circumstances, but his ability to work in multiple roles and pitch multiple innings could be helpful in a shortened season, given a compressed schedule and the likelihood that regular starters would be on a reduced workload.  The 26-year-old Rodriguez came to Cleveland from Washington as part of the Yan Gomes trade in November 2018, and he posted a 4.63 ERA, 6.4 K/9, and 1.57 K/BB rate over 46 2/3 innings last season.

Latest Tigers News & Notes

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Picking first in the upcoming draft won’t be quite as advantageous as usual, as the Tigers will only have between five and ten rounds to utilize their advantage. But it’s still an exciting opportunity to infuse big-time talent into an organization that has patiently awaited a return to competitiveness. The Tigers are sorting through a long list of possibilities; you can familiarize yourself with many of them by checking out Baseball America’s first top 500 draft prospect list.

Here’s the latest from the Detroit organization:

  • Tigers analytics chief Jay Sartori held an interesting chat with Cody Stavenhagen of The Athletic (subscription link) about the team’s efforts to construct an analytics department over the past several years. He now oversees a “robust staff,” he says, after an “incremental” building process that started from a mostly blank slate. Sartori came aboard in November of 2015, not long after Al Avila was hired as GM. So what are the Tigers focused on in this realm? Sartori says it’s the question of how to make “complicated concepts and data sets and pieces of information readily accessible to staff and players?”
  • Making analytics work for ballplayers is now a big part of the job for MLB coaches. Tigers hitting coach Joe Vavra acknowledged that, saying that he’s working on “challenging [hitters] to come out of their comfort zone a little bit” when it comes to data and advanced analysis, as Chris McCosky of the Detroit News reported recently. Applying analytics requires “baby steps” at the start, says Vavra, and the organization is trying to get its players to take as many as possible during the present hiatus. Otherwise, the team is handling all its players differently. For some, Vavra is helping to oversee “rather major adjustments to your mechanics and your swing;” for others, it’s mostly a matter of maintaining conditioning.
  • Detroit pitching coach Rick Anderson also just chatted with media, as Stavenhagen covers in a Twitter thread. Anderson says it was disappointing to see Spring Training halted because he wanted to see more of the team’s slate of prized upper-level pitching prospects. Even more worrying, perhaps, is the lack of anticipated minor-league competition. The organization doesn’t seem to have a clear idea yet as to how it’ll make up for the lost developmental opportunity, though obviously that’s an industry-wide issue.
  • Though the focus remains largely on the future, the Tigers did go out and make some notable potential improvements to the MLB infield mix. McCosky examines a unit that now includes anticipated regular veterans in most spots. C.J. Cron, Jonathan Schoop, and Austin Romine are slated to earn a combined $16.3MM — at least, in a full 2020 season. The shortstop position was due to feature Niko Goodrum and Jordy Mercer, with third base handled by Jeimer Candelario and/or other unproven players such as Dawel Lugo and Isaac Paredes. While most of the options on the left side of the infield will remain under team control beyond 2020, the new additions were all on one-year pacts. McCosky looks at the potential line of succession in all areas.

How The Reds Got Their 49-HR Man

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The Reds’ Eugenio Suarez has morphed into one of the majors’ most valuable third basemen over the past few years. Dating back to 2017, Suarez has accounted for 12.3 fWAR – the eighth-highest figure at his position and one that puts him in company with names like Kris Bryant and Josh Donaldson. At this point, it’s fair to call Suarez a cornerstone for the Reds, who signed him to a seven-year extension worth $66MM after his breakout effort in ’17. That now looks like a brilliant move from the team’s perspective, while acquiring him in the first place counts as one of former general manager Walt Jocketty’s shrewdest decisions atop their front office.

Let’s start with how Suarez got to this level after first joining the Tigers as a free agent out of Venezuela in 2008. Within five years, Suarez was regarded among the top five prospects in their system, though he didn’t wow anyone during his lone action in Detroit’s uniform. In his first season in the majors in 2014, Suarez played shortstop and batted .242/.316/.336 (86 wRC+) with 0.9 fWAR over 277 plate appearances and 85 games. The Tigers then shipped him and pitching prospect Jonathon Crawford to Cincinnati for right-hander Alfredo Simon heading into the 2015 season.

Simon was, of course, the headliner when the trade occurred. Then 33 years old, Simon was coming off an All-Star season in which he pitched to a 3.44 ERA/4.33 FIP over 196 1/3 innings. It was just the first season as a full-time starter for Simon, who functioned either as a reliever or a swingman in prior years. Unfortunately for Detroit, it would go down as his sole effective season from the rotation, though that wasn’t entirely surprising.

As MLBTR’s Jeff Todd wrote when the trade happened: “Of course, Simon comes with plenty of questions as to whether he can repeat his effort. ERA estimators were not nearly as high on his work last year. And his ERA ballooned to 4.52 in the second half of the season.”

The Tigers didn’t make the playoffs in 2015, which proved to be Simon’s lone year with the franchise, and he was only able to muster a 5.05 ERA/4.77 FIP in 187 frames along the way. Then-president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski, who acquired Simon, didn’t make it through the season. Simon went back to the Reds in free agency thereafter, but he also struggled in his return to Cincy and hasn’t been heard from since at the major league level.

So, buying one year of control over Simon clearly didn’t go as hoped for the Tigers. It gets worse when you consider what they gave up. Sure, Crawford – the Tigers’ first-round pick in 2013 – didn’t amount to anything in the majors. In fact, he never even advanced beyond the High-A level, where he last pitched in 2017. Conversely, Suarez can be counted as one who got away for the Tigers.

It took Suarez until 2017 to truly find his groove in a Reds uniform, but as mentioned, he has established himself as a highly valuable member of the team and someone who could help key their resurgence sometime soon. Now a prolific slugger, Suarez has combined for 130 home runs in the past four seasons. He hit a jaw-dropping 49 last year to finish second in the majors, trailing only Mets Rookie of the Year winner Pete Alonso. Additionally, Suarez managed a .271/.358/.572 line (good for a 133 wRC+), totaled a personal-high 4.5 fWAR and missed a mere three of the Reds’ 162 games.

Suarez, still just 28, is on track to stay a Red through at least 2024. He’ll make reasonable salaries ranging from $9.25MM to $11MM through then, and the Reds will have a decision to make on a club option come 2025 ($15MM guarantee versus $2MM buyout). By FanGraphs’ estimate, Suarez’s production in Cincinnati has already been worth around $116MM. All the Tigers got for parting with that was a disappointing season from Simon, and they still haven’t found a clear answer at third since moving on from Suarez.

Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.

Quick Hits: Cora, Mize, Minors, Cubs, Nats

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Former Red Sox skipper Alex Cora is suspended for all of the 2020 season as a result of the role he played as the Astros’ bench coach in their 2017 sign-stealing scandal, but it may not be long before he’s in a prominent position again. If the World Baseball Classic takes place in 2021, Cora may be in line to manage or perhaps serve as the GM of the Puerto Rican team. On potentially hiring Cora, president of the Puerto Rican Baseball Federation Jose Quiles told Primera Hora (via Chris Cotillo of MassLive.com): “Of course we would consider it. We already know the work he does. He would be considered as much for general manager as he would be for manager.” Cora was the GM of the 2017 Puerto Rican club that lost just one game – the championship round against the United States.

Here’s more from around the game…

  • High-end Tigers pitching prospect Casey Mize is holding out hope that he’ll make his major league debut in 2020, as Chris McCosky of the Detroit News writes. “It is very frustrating,” Mize told McCosky the coronavirus-forced shutdown. “This is the year I’d hoped to spend a lot of quality time in the big leagues and make my debut. And if there is a season, that is still my goal. That is still something I want to accomplish.” The 22-year-old Mize is keeping in shape by throwing five days a week, including a 40-pitch bullpen session every Wednesday. The No. 1 pick in the 2018 draft, Mize further proved himself as one of the best prospects in baseball last year when he threw 78 2/3 innings of 3.20 ERA ball during his Double-A debut.
  • Contraction of minor league teams seems to be on the way, but the Cubs won’t be among the franchises affected, Gordon Wittenmyer of NBC Sports Chicago details. They’re not in position to lose any of their affiliates, which Cubs senior director for player development Matt Dorey told Wittenmyer is “not surprising at all.” The Cubs have been impressed with the work that all of their lower level teams have put in, Dorey explained to Wittenmyer, and they believe those partnerships will continue. “It’s amazing how much investment in resources they’ve made to put our players in the best position to develop,” Dorey said.
  • Changes to the minor league setup may allow the St. Paul Saints of the independent American Association to become an affiliated team, J.J. Cooper of Baseball America reported earlier this week. But the Saints are content in their current position. They’ve “had very little to do with this other than our name being mentioned,’’ executive vice president and general manager Derek Sharrer told Jim Paulsen of the Star Tribune. Sharrer added: “We’re a member of an independent league, and we’re very happy with it. Our heritage, our DNA, is tied into being independent. We’ve had success both on and off the field. We provide a brand of entertainment with a certain renegade independent feel to it, but we’re certainly flattered to be in the discussion.”
  • The Nationals are the latest team that has committed to paying their non-player employees through the end of May, Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic tweets. They join most of the league’s other clubs in that regard.

Transaction Retrospection: The Rocky Colavito/Harvey Kuenn Blockbuster

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Pop quiz, who were the AL and NL batting champions last season?

If you didn’t immediately have the names of Tim Anderson (.335) and Christian Yelich (.329) at the tip of your tongue, don’t worry.  Given how modern statistics have lessened the importance of batting average in recent years, the batting title doesn’t carry nearly as much prestige in 2019 as it did for much of baseball’s history.  One could even make the case that the home run crown lost some its luster last year since so many players were suddenly clearing the fences — a record 6776 homers were hit during the 2019 season, with Pete Alonso (53) and Jorge Soler (48) leading the way in their respective leagues.

All this being said, you can imagine the furor that would have been generated this offseason if a Yelich-for-Alonso deal had been arranged between the Brewers and Mets, or if the White Sox and Royals decided to swap Soler and Anderson in a one-for-one deal.  Ultimately, any straight-up trade of star players is going to generate headlines, though the idea of a “home run champ for batting champ” trade makes for just as intriguing a concept today as it did 60 years ago yesterday, when the Indians dealt Rocky Colavito to the Tigers for Harvey Kuenn.

Both players were All-Stars in 1959, with Colavito finishing fourth in AL MVP voting and Kuenn in eighth place.  Colavito’s 42 home runs tied Harmon Killebrew for the American League lead, as “The Rock” managed to top his 41-homer performance from a season earlier.  Over four full seasons with the Tribe, Colavito has already hit 129 home runs and slashed .271/.364/.533 over 2166 plate appearances, making him an instant superstar to the Cleveland faithful.

However, Colavito hit “only” .257 in 1959, which led Indians GM Frank Lane to balk at Colavito’s demand for a raise for the 1960 season.  For younger fans used to today’s guaranteed contracts and arbitration structure, players in 1960 had to negotiate their salaries on a year-to-year basis, and since teams had total control over player movement due to the reserve clause, even some of the game’s biggest stars had little leverage in salary negotiations.  In fact, there was also some dispute between Kuenn and the Tigers in the batting champ’s own contract talks heading into the 1960 season.

Though Colavito and the Indians ultimately worked out a deal for 1960, Lane (known as “Trader Frank” for completing over 400 swaps during his two decades as a GM for five different teams) jumped at the opportunity to move the slugger for a player Lane felt was a better all-around talent.  While Kuenn’s reputation has been somewhat diminished by his decline after this trade, it should be noted that he was a very good ballplayer in his prime.  From 1953-59, Kuenn hit .314/.360/.426 with 53 home runs, while leading the league in hits four times, doubles three times, and once in batting average thanks to his career-best .353 mark in 1959.

As steady as Kuenn was, however, 1959 was by far his best offensive year, and it was still only somewhat better (141 OPS+, 145 wRC+) than Colavito’s production (133 OPS+, 130 wRC+) that same season.  Kuenn was also almost three years older than Colavito, and of course didn’t have Colavito’s folk hero status in Cleveland.  Indians fans were instantly enraged by the trade, while Lane was confident that he had made a shrewd move.  In an infamous quote that has gone down in Tribe lore, Lane told reporters that dealing Colavito for Kuenn was like trading hamburger for steak.

In 1960, it seemed like the Indians may have at least broken even on the deal.  Kuenn hit .308/.379/.416 over 537 PA, good for a 118 OPS+ and wRC+ through modern analytical eyes.  Colavito, meanwhile, far outpaced Kuenn in the power department by hitting 35 homers and collecting 87 RBI over 616 PA, but also batted .249/.317/.474 (107 wRC+, 108 OPS+) in his first season in Detroit.

It didn’t take long for Trader Frank to lose interest in Kuenn, however, as Kuenn was traded to the Giants in the 1960-61 offseason for left-hander Johnny Antonelli and outfielder Willie Kirkland.  Antonelli’s MLB career ended after the 1961 season, while Kirkland put up some decent power numbers along with a low average (ironically, making him something of the version of Colavito that Lane feared Colavito would become).  Kuenn played six more years in the big leagues and had a couple more productive seasons, though he never again approached his 1959 peak.

As for Colavito, he rebounded from his 1960 down year to become one of the game’s most fearsome bats of the 1960’s, hitting .266/.362/.470 with 210 home runs from 1961-68 despite playing in a notoriously pitcher-friendly era.  This included a second stint in Cleveland in 1965-67, as the Indians (with Lane no longer in the organization) reacquired Colavito for a return visit.

Cleveland fans may already be cringing at any recollection of “The Curse Of Rocky Colavito,” which was the title of a 1994 book by longtime Cleveland sportswriter Terry Pluto.  After dealing Colavito, the Indians didn’t reach the postseason again until the 1995 season, and the club had only six winning seasons between 1960-1993.  The Colavito trade was hardly the only reason for the Indians’ long slide, of course, and it arguably wasn’t even the starting point of the team’s downfall — nor was it even the most damaging trade the Indians made with the Tigers that same week.  Just five days prior to the Colavito deal, Cleveland sent Norm Cash to Detroit for infielder Steve Demeter, who went on to appear in just four games for the Tribe and never again played in the majors after the 1960 season.  Cash, meanwhile, proceeded to rip up American League pitching for the next 15 years in a Tigers uniform.

Still, the Cash trade never seemed to loom as large in the minds of Tribe supporters, perhaps since Cash never actually played a game in a Cleveland uniform.  (The Indians acquired Cash from the White Sox as part of a seven-player deal that saw Minnie Minoso head back to Chicago earlier in the 1959-60 offseason.)  Colavito had already become a fan favorite at the time of the deal, and continued to remain a presence in Cleveland for years afterwards, both in his return stint as a player and then as a coach and broadcaster for the Indians.

Trading one star player for another was as relatively unusual in 1960 and it would be today, though in some ways, the story of Colavito-for-Kuenn has a lot of parallels to modern-day front office moves.  Money was naturally a factor, as both Colavito and Kuenn were coming off rather contentious contract negotiations, and it seemed as though Lane had misgivings about continuing to pay top dollar for what he felt was a power-only type of ballplayer.

In today’s game, you might see a front office just non-tender an arbitration-eligible slugger rather than work out a trade — just ask Chris Carter or C.J. Cron.  Likewise, many a current GM would undoubtedly prefer more of a well-rounded hitter than a power-only type, though of course Lane was far off the mark both in evaluating Colavito as a one-dimensional hitter, and in betting that Kuenn would continue his 1959 form.

Losing Colavito was a tough beat for Indians fans, though since the Tribe have been regular postseason participants since Pluto’s book was published, maybe the “curse” is technically no more.  Of course, Cleveland also hasn’t won a World Series since 1948 (the longest streak of any team in baseball), so maybe the baseball gods have more of an issue with the Tribe than just the Colavito deal.  Maybe fate simply prefers hamburger to steak.

A Missed Opportunity For The Tigers?

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It was just a few years ago that Tigers right-hander Michael Fulmer looked like one of the most valuable pitchers in baseball. Fulmer burst on the scene in 2016 – one year after the Tigers acquired him from the Mets in the teams’ Yoenis Cespedes trade – parlaying a 95 mph fastball into 159 innings of 3.06 ERA ball en route to American League Rookie of the Year honors. Unfortunately, though, Fulmer’s career has gone in the wrong direction since then.

While Fulmer did turn in another fine season in 2017, an All-Star campaign, injuries began to cut him down then. Dating back to that season, Fulmer has undergone three surgeries – one for ulnar nerve transposition, another on his knee and most recently a Tommy John procedure. TJS wiped out all of 2019 for Fulmer, which came after he slumped to an unspectacular 4.69 ERA across 132 1/3 innings during the previous year.

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Considering that Fulmer’s still just 27 years old and under team control through 2022, it would be unwise to throw dirt on his career just yet. Fulmer may well turn back into a significant asset for the Tigers when he’s ready to return (which should be sometime this season, if there is one), though it’s also worth wondering if the club and general manager Al Avila should have sold high on him when they had the chance. Fulmer was involved in a bevy of trade rumors during his healthier days, but the Tigers were unwilling to move him for anything other than a massive return when his value was at its zenith. They’ve since gone into a full rebuild and may not even return to contention during Fulmer’s remaining years of control.

In fairness to the Tigers, you can’t necessarily blame them for their reluctance to part with Fulmer. After all, it’s not every day you find a young, hard-throwing starter with front-line potential. That said, plenty of teams tried to pry him out of Detroit, which could have benefited from moving him.

Going back in the MLBTR archives since 2017, the Braves, Astros, Athletics, Dodgers, Phillies, Yankees, Padres, Cubs and Rangers are among teams that have at least kicked the tires on Fulmer. The juiciest Fulmer-related rumor came out last summer and went back to 2017, when Houston and Chicago reportedly offered Detroit one now-superstar apiece for the hurler.

The Cubs were apparently willing to give up Javier Baez, while the Astros would have surrendered Alex Bregman for Fulmer and reliever Justin Wilson. The Tigers turned down those offers. At that point, Baez was a solid player – not the true standout middle infielder he has morphed into over the past couple years. Bregman, though, was just two years removed from going No. 2 in the draft and has been among the most valuable third basemen in the game over the past few seasons. As for Wilson (now a Met), the Tigers did end up trading him to the Cubs that year for third baseman Jeimer Candelario and shortstop Isaac Paredes. Candelario was a quality prospect at the time, but he hasn’t made a great impact in the majors yet, while Paredes is still promising. Bregman helped the Astros to a World Series title (albeit one that many regard as tainted) in 2017, however, and Baez has been irreplaceable to the Cubs.

If either the Astros or the Cubs had successfully pulled off a Fulmer trade, it’s interesting to ponder how they’d look nowadays. Would the Astros have ended up acquiring ace Justin Verlander, Fulmer’s ex-teammate, from the Tigers in August 2017? If not, would they have won the World Series that year or the AL pennant without his Cy Young contributions last season? Would the Cubs have sent outfielder Eloy Jimenez and righty Dylan Cease to the crosstown-rival White Sox for starter Jose Quintana in 2017? Those are just some of the intriguing scenarios to consider in the case of a Fulmer non-trade.

If we’re to believe the Astros/Cubs rumors, it seems fair to say the Tigers’ refusal to trade Fulmer three years ago has had an enormous effect on them and the league as a whole. While it’s not the Tigers’ fault that injuries have derailed Fulmer of late, they might be a lot closer to escaping their rebuild had they traded him to Houston, Chicago or one of the several other teams that pursued him. Now, they’re left to hope that he’ll begin a career renaissance when he takes the mound again.

Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.

Revisiting The Nats’ “Steal” Of A Deal

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Back in the 2013-14 offseason, the Tigers were looking to move a veteran starter … but not because they were in a rebuild. The club had taken three consecutive AL Central titles (and would add another in the ensuing campaign).

The issue was quite the opposite: with Justin Verlander, Max Scherzer, Doug Fister, Rick Porcello, Anibal Sanchez, and Drew Smyly all on the staff, the Detroit organization felt it had depth to spare. Looking ahead at the cost to retain the team’s stars — they ultimately failed to reach a deal with Scherzer but inked a monster extension with Miguel Cabrera later that offseason — the decision was made to trim some costs where possible and bring back some long-range talent.

Meanwhile, the Nationals were in search of a quality arm to plug into would land Fister in a swap that sent a largely underwhelming three-player package back to the Tigers. Utilityman Steve Lombardozzi and lefty reliever Ian Krol were each young players with MLB experience but little in the way of apparent ceiling. The Tigers hoped that they’d be affordable contributors, but neither carved out a career in Detroit. The most interesting long-term piece was a notable but not overly heralded lefty pitching prospect by the name of Robbie Ray.

This wasn’t quite how the Tigers wanted talks to play out. The club reportedly wanted a different young hurler to headline the deal: Taylor Jordan, who had emerged out of obscurity in 2013. Jordan utilized his decidedly Fister-esque skillset to compile 51 2/3 innings of 3.66 ERA work in 2013, averaging just 5.1 K/9 but limiting the walks (1.9 BB/9) and homers (0.52 HR/9) while generating lots of groundballs (57.5%). It seemed Jordan might well be a long-term rotation piece, even if it was unlikely he’d ever really dominate.

Ray, a 22-year-old former 12th-round pick, hadn’t yet reached the highest level of the minors, let alone the bigs. But he was perhaps a higher-ceiling young hurler than Jordan. In 2013, Ray worked to a 3.68 cumulative ERA over 142 frames at the High-A and Double-A levels while racking up 10.1 K/9 against 3.9 BB/9.

For good reason, the Nationals were widely lauded for their acquisition. I characterized the deal as a value-laden, well-timed strike. Dave Cameron of Fangraphs said the Nats had paid “a shockingly low price, considering that Fister is one of the game’s most underrated pitchers.” While anything but flashy, the tall right-hander had a nice track record of high-quality rotation work — over 800 frames of 3.53 ERA ball — and came with two seasons of remaining arbitration control. The thievery metaphor was popular, beginning with the title of Cameron’s post. Plenty of people termed the swap a “steal,” especially after Fister turned in an outstanding 2014 campaign.

There’s no discounting Fister’s excellence in his first year in D.C. Though he missed some action, he still managed to spin 164 innings of 2.41 ERA ball. But as it turned out, that would be the last truly productive campaign of his career. Fister struggled with a lat injury at the start of the ensuing campaign and never really got going. He did manage a useful 4.19 ERA in 103 frames in 2015, so it was hardly a minimal contribution, but the peripherals didn’t support the results and the output didn’t account for his final arbitration salary of $11.4MM. Any thoughts of recouping draft compensation by issuing a qualifying offer went right out the window.

On the other side of the swap … well, the Tigers didn’t quite get what they hoped for either, but they only had their own ensuing actions to blame. After watching Ray struggle in a brief 2014 debut, Detroit ended up sending him out in a memorable three-team trade that really didn’t work out for the Motown side. That deal, which also cost the Tigers a decent infield prospect in Domingo Leyba, returned righty Shane Greene. While he had his moments in Detroit, they came after he transitioned to a relief role. Greene was swapped out last summer. The arrangement would have gone better had the Tigers simply taken shortstop Didi Gregorius, who ended up with the Yankees.

By that point, Ray was ready for a full test at the MLB level. He turned in a very strong debut in 2015. And while the results have taken a bit of a rollercoaster ride since, he has produced huge strikeout numbers and generally fared well in the eyes of advanced metrics. Ray has contributed 762 innings of 3.96 ERA ball in Arizona while racking up 11.3 K/9 against 4.1 BB/9. The long ball has been an issue, but it hasn’t stopped him from compiling 10 rWAR and a dozen fWAR — well over twice what Fister ended up providing to the Nats (4.5 rWAR / 1.7 fWAR) — in advance of his final season of arbitration eligibility.

Photos courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.

Wilmer’s Tears: The Butterfly Effects Of A Collapsed Trade

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Wilmer Flores cried. It was the eighth inning, and the Mets were trailing the Padres by five runs. The non-waiver trade deadline was 36 hours away, and the only organization he’d ever known had agreed to trade him and teammate Zack Wheeler to the Brewers in exchange for two-time All-Star Carlos Gomez. The 23-year-old Flores learned of the reported agreement between innings … but he was left in the game to hit in the seventh inning … and to return to the field to play second base in the top half of the eighth.

In a whirlwind span of 15 to 30 minutes, Flores went from being traded to staying put among friends and teammates; the Mets had backed out of the reportedly agreed-upon trade once talks progressed to medical reviews. Tom Haudricourt of the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel reported that an issue with Gomez’s hip and perhaps some hesitance over Wheeler, who was on the mend from Tommy John surgery at the time, had torpedoed the deal.

Two nights later, with the deadline behind him, Flores pumped his fist as he rounded first base and thumped the Mets logo across his chest as he approached home plate after hitting one of the most emotional walk-off home runs in recent memory. It was the last standing ovation in a day that saw Mets fans rise to their feet to embrace Flores on multiple other occasions. Flores went on to have a fine Mets career, calling Citi Field home up through the 2018 season. He’ll always hold a special place in the hearts of most Mets fans.

The memory of that unusual and emotional scene, however, is only the surface of a much more layered “what if” scenario. If the Mets had gone through with that trade, the ripple effects would’ve radically altered the future of several teams and — in a more roundabout way — perhaps the very fabric of the game.

How so? Let’s examine:

The Mets

Imagine a world where the Mets weren’t issuing statements to the press about their highest-paid position player being injured in a freak wild boar accident. If the Mets had gone through with the Brewers trade, it’s quite possible that Yoenis Cespedes never would’ve played a game for them. The deal bringing Cespedes to Queens was a buzzer-beater just seconds before the deadline — not 48 hours after Flores’ outpouring forever endeared him to the Mets’ fanbase.

Cespedes was an absolute juggernaut for the Amazins down the stretch, fueling their torrid finish to the season with an outstanding .287/.337/.604 with 17 home runs in just 57 regular-season games. Mets fans clamored for the then-Sandy-Alderson-led front office to re-sign the slugger. While he initially looked to be outside their price range, Cespedes didn’t see his market develop the way he’d hoped and ultimately opted for a compromise deal that promised him $75MM over three years but came with opt-outs after years one and two. Following a terrific 2016 season, Cespedes indeed opted out, and the two sides brokered a more concrete four-year, $110MM pact covering the 2017-20 seasons.

But what if the club had acquired Gomez on July 30? Curtis Granderson was productive in right field. Juan Lagares was a world-beating defensive center fielder even if his bat was characteristically flimsy. Michael Cuddyer was still on the roster, and a top prospect named Michael Conforto had made his MLB debut just days earlier, on July 24. With Gomez added to that bunch, would the Mets have gone through with Cespedes trade? You can argue there was still room — put Gomez in center, Cespedes in left and use Lagares off the bench — but the urgency obviously would’ve been lessened and the Mets surely would’ve been more protective of their prospect assets. And without that magical stretch run erased from history and Gomez signed through 2016, the Mets’ motivation to sign Cespedes would’ve likely been wiped out.

Furthermore, with Cespedes then sure to have been traded elsewhere, might the pitcher they traded to Detroit have instead won a Rookie of the Year Award in New York? It’s impossible to say, but dropping Michael Fulmer into the mix of quality Mets arms in place of Wheeler would’ve maintained their enviable stash of arms for a longer time. Fulmer, Jacob deGrom, Matt Harvey (prior to his regression), Noah Syndergaard and Steven Matz is clearly a talented enough group on which to build a contending staff. And the “what ifs” only continue if you stop to wonder what precise course Fulmer’s career would’ve taken a different setting.

The Tigers

Speaking of Fulmer, well, Tigers fans wouldn’t be left to wonder whether the club should’ve traded him prior to all of his injury troubles. Fulmer had a masterful rookie season but has since undergone an ulnar nerve transposition procedure, Tommy John surgery and knee surgery. They could’ve pulled the trigger on a trade for him early in his big league tenure, but doing so would’ve meant trading four-plus years of control over the right-hander. Tigers fans can voice frustration with the benefit of hindsight, but trades of quality, established starters with that much club control remaining are of the utmost rarity.

Michael Fulmer

It’s likely that Cespedes would’ve been moved elsewhere. The Astros, Orioles, Giants and Pirates were among the teams on the hunt for outfield upgrades that trade deadline, and then-Detroit GM Dave Dombrowski was committed to a rare sell-off, evidenced not only by the Cespedes swap but the David Price blockbuster with the Blue Jays. If you want to get truly hypothetical, though, let’s say no Cespedes trade materializes. …Would late owner Mike Ilitch still have moved on from Dombrowski shortly after the trade deadline? Would Dombrowski ever have ended up in Boston?

The Brewers

Sayonara, Josh Hader. In this hypothetical world, you were never a Brewer, because Gomez was traded for Wheeler and Flores. Corey Knebel and Jeremy Jeffress surely could’ve formed a potent back-of-the-pen duo while their peaks overlapped, but the three-headed monster that propelled the team to the 2018 NLCS would never have come to be. Hader would’ve been dominating in Houston or elsewhere, depending on whether the Astros traded him. Could a Wheeler-fronted rotation have made up for his absence?

The ripple effect doesn’t stop there. Also coming to Milwaukee in the Astros swap that did happen were Brett Phillips, Domingo Santana and Adrian Houser. Phillips was flipped for Mike Moustakas in 2018, so without his presence in Milwaukee, who knows whether Moose would’ve been acquired via trade or subsequently re-signed in the winter? Santana’s 30-dinger season in 2017 doesn’t happen, nor do the Brewers eventually trade him for Ben Gamel. Houser, meanwhile, doesn’t show promise of a late-blooming breakout with the ’19 Brewers, for whom he turned in 111 1/3 innings of 3.72 ERA/3.88 FIP ball with 9.5 K/9, 3.0 BB/9, 53.4% grounder rate. The Brewers’ 2020 rotation is short another arm in that instance, as Wheeler still would’ve been a free agent, barring an extension.

Of course, the Brew Crew would’ve enjoyed Wheeler’s renaissance since he reemerged from arm troubles. And that brings us to…

The Astros

The craziest part of this entire butterfly effect isn’t that Josh Hader might’ve been closing out games for Houston. In fact, it doesn’t involve Hader or Gomez at all. It’s that the other player traded to the Astros alongside Gomez in exchange for Hader, Phillips, Santana and Houser was none other than right-hander Mike Fiers. Fiers joined the Houston rotation, promptly threw a no-hitter in his fourth outing, made 67 starts for the ’Stros over the next two and a half seasons … and ultimately proved to be the whistleblower who outed a sign-stealing scandal that led to the firing of manager A.J. Hinch and president of baseball operations Jeff Luhnow.

Perhaps the Astros were enamored of Fiers enough that they’d have found a way to acquire him from Milwaukee in a different swap. But it’s eminently plausible that had the Wheeler/Flores/Gomez trade between Milwaukee and New York gone through, we’d still have no firm knowledge of the Astros’ nefarious scheme. True, we might’ve had some inkling of wrongdoing; Jeff Passan, after all, reported for Yahoo back in 2017 that two players told him they believed Houston had banged on a trash can to convey signs. Athletics GM David Forst has acknowledged asking the league to investigate the Astros for improper use of technology. But without the smoking gun that was Fiers’ testimony, the league was either unable or unmotivated to bring the scandal to public light.

Peeling the onion back further — imagine if Hader had become every bit as dominant in Houston as he did in Milwaukee. Would the Astros have ever acquired Roberto Osuna to shut down games? Would since-fired assistant GM Brandon Taubman’s belligerent locker room taunting ever have led to his dismissal? Would the Astros have libeled Sports Illustrated’s Stephanie Apstein, calling her report of Taubman’s actions “misleading and completely irresponsible” before accusing her of attempting to “fabricate a story where one does not exist”?

To be clear: the Astros’ scandals reflect the indefensible choices of many individuals associated with the organization, for which they’re fully responsible collectively and individually. But the counter-factual scenarios do at least suggest that these matters might have occurred and/or been brought to light in quite different ways.

The Red Sox

Depending on the previous Dombrowski question I raised, who knows what state the front office would be in? We do know, definitively, that without the Astros’ sign-stealing scandal coming to light last fall, Alex Cora would not have been fired as the team’s manager. Ron Roenicke would still be his bench coach.

All that brings us back to…

The Mets

Carlos Beltran’s debut as the Mets’ manager would’ve been delayed by the COVID-19 pandemic, but it wouldn’t have been outright wiped out of existence by virtue of his own involvement in the Astros scandal. Luis Rojas would be a quality control coach and not a big league manager.

Whether the Mets would’ve been better off in the long run with Gomez and Fulmer in the organization as opposed to Wheeler, Flores and Cespedes is debatable. Cespedes was again their best hitter in 2016 when the club secured a Wild Card postseason berth, but they were unable to advance beyond that initial round, falling to the Giants. The subsequent four-year deal has been a disaster. Cespedes has been extremely productive when on the field, but he of course hasn’t been on the field much. He’s played 119 games through the first three seasons of that deal and agreed to have his contract restructured this winter after the surreal wild boar injury.

Wheeler didn’t pitch again until 2017 and wasn’t very good that year. But his 2018-19 seasons were strong, as he posted a combined 3.65 ERA in 377 1/3 innings with a strikeout per frame and a total of roughly eight wins above replacement. The Mets didn’t make the postseason either year, though, and they’re left with a draft pick to show for their decision to hang onto him.

Flores hit .272/.317/.409 after the trade-that-wasn’t, taking another 1275 plate appearances as a Met before signing with the D-backs in free agency in the 2018-19 offseason and then inking a two-year deal with the Giant this past winter.

Carlos Gomez

Adding Gomez in 2015 probably wouldn’t have cost the Mets the division — they won the NL East by seven games — but it’d have made things much closer. He’d already seen his 2013-14 All-Star form begin to fade, and his production worsened following his eventual trade to Houston. In 2016, Gomez played so poorly with the Astros that they simply released him in mid-August. A late surge with the Rangers served to remind that Gomez was still talented, so perhaps had he never gone to Houston in the first place, he could’ve remained a solid bat — but he was never going to hit at Cespedes’ level.

Fulmer, meanwhile, would still be controlled by the Mets through at least 2022 — if not 2023 (depending on when they promoted him). Virtually every prominent Mets starter has had Tommy John surgery in recent years (all of deGrom, Harvey, Wheeler, Matz and now Syndergaard), and it’s likely that Fulmer would’ve still eventually required his own surgery. But the other injuries that have dogged him and the timing of the procedure can’t be known. Marcus Stroman, acquired last July as an advance means of “replacing” Wheeler once it was clear an extension wasn’t happening, might not be a Met. Anthony Kay, traded in that deal, could be projected in the 2020 rotation.

The exact manner in which rosters would’ve been impacted can be speculated upon ad nauseam, but will never be known to any real degree of confidence. It doesn’t seem like the Mets cost themselves any playoff opportunities, but the effects of that near-trade were extremely broad reaching — and it seems certain that without Fiers being traded to Houston, we’d still be lauding the 2017 Astros as the most dominant team in recent history (at least until the shocking news emerged in some other manner).

Photos courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.

Flashback: The Spring 2014 Contract Spat Between Max Scherzer & The Tigers

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In the 2013-14 offseason, the Tigers were still riding high. Despite some postseason disappointments, the organization had run off three-straight AL Central titles and seemed poised for more. It also had a slate of big-time veterans coming ever closer to free agency.

The top priority, it seemed, was emergent ace Max Scherzer. He had seemingly supplanted Justin Verlander as the top dog on one of the best rotations in recent memory. But free agency beckoned at the end of 2014, Scherzer’s age-29 season.

You may recall that the Tigers ended up making a major long-term deal … but not with Scherzer. (No doubt we’ll write more on that one at some point soon.) Instead, club and player ended up engaging in a somewhat terse exchange of statements to the press at the end of camp, setting the stage for Scherzer’s ultimate departure.

After showing so much tantalizing ability over the years, the former first-round draft pick finally put it all together in 2013. Scherzer spun 214 1/3 innings of 2.90 ERA ball, racking up 10.1 K/9 against 2.4 BB/9 and leading the league with a 0.970 WHIP. Scherzer not only nabbed his first All-Star appearance, but secured his first Cy Young Award.

The Tigers spent big and went for it under long-time owner Mike Ilitch, with veteran exec Dave Dombrowski swinging deals from the GM seat. Pursuit of an extension with Scherzer was inevitable.

Trouble was, Scherzer had taken his time turning into a complete pitcher. By the time the team was ready to place its bet on his future, he had ample leverage. And he had the game’s foremost lever puller running his negotiations: super-agent Scott Boras, long known for bringing his top clients to the open market.

Early-offseason moves freed some payroll availability; Dombrowski told MLBTR’s Zach Links the flexibility would make a Scherzer extension “more possible.” The sides were able to line up on a record-setting arbitration raise, which seemed generally promising. Scherzer indicated that he’d like to reach agreement on a deal to stay in Detroit for the long run.

And then came … a truly bizarre, late-spring exchange. We’ve occasionally seen teams issue statements when negotiations with a superstar fail to culminate in an agreement. But rarely are they so transparently salty as the one the Tigers unfurled …

“The Detroit Tigers have made a substantial, long-term contract extension offer to Max Scherzer that would have placed him among the highest paid pitchers in baseball, and the offer was rejected. As we have reiterated, it has been the organization’s intent to extend Max’s contract and keep him in a Tigers uniform well beyond the 2014 season. While this offer would have accomplished that, the ballclub’s focus remains on the start of the upcoming season, and competing for a World Championship. Moving forward there will be no further in-season negotiation and the organization will refrain from commenting on this matter.”

Well, then! Boras, naturally, responded. He wasn’t quite so spiteful, but certainly landed his own well-placed shot that left no doubt as to his views on the equal standing of the bargaining parties:

“Max Scherzer made a substantial long-term contract extension offer to the Detroit Tigers that would have placed him among the highest-paid pitchers in baseball, and the offer was rejected by Detroit. Max is very happy with the city of Detroit, the fans and his teammates, and we will continue negotiating with the Tigers at season’s end.”

So it seemed both sides had made their offers; neither proved amenable to further compromise. It emerged that the Tigers’ best offer was a match of the extant comparable of record: the six-year, $144MM Cole Hamels extension with the Phillies. The warring statements drew mixed reactions from the pundit class, but the consensus was that this number was never particularly likely to budge Boras and Scherzer.

Rather than bowing to worry over the season separating him from free agency, Scherzer took out an insurance policy. He was nearly as good in 2014 as he was in the season prior, landing a fifth-place Cy Young finish, obviating the need for that policy, and setting the stage for a proper bidding war. While there was indication at times that the Tigers remained involved, the team showed tepid interest and was not a finalist when push came to shove.

Scherzer, of course, signed a huge contract with the Nationals. Though the face value of $210MM didn’t account for deferrals, it handily topped the prior Tigers offer. Perhaps it was just as well for the Detroit organization. While the club was successful again in Scherzer’s final year, it crumbled in 2015, with Dombrowski stunningly departing after the trade deadline. Then again, Scherzer’s ongoing dominance made even that monster contract a relative bargain. Had the Tigers gone higher in their extension offer and managed to secure his services for the long haul, Scherzer would’ve been a nice trade chip to cash in and jump-start the rebuild.

Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.

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