Latest On Michael Fulmer’s Rehab Progress
Tigers righty Michael Fulmer appears to be making nice progress in his attempt to rehabilitate following Tommy John surgery. As Chris McCosky of the Detroit News reports, the team finds itself trying to hold him back.
Fulmer is working out at the team’s Florida complex, so it’s not implausible that he could face live hitters. But pitching coach Rick Anderson says there’s “no chance” of that at the moment.
Though it seems Fulmer is fully on track from a physical perspective, the team understandably wishes to proceed in a measured and cautious manner. Anderson suggests that the team would like to build Fulmer up slowly from live bullpen sessions into sim game action.
It’s tempting to think that moving ahead now could set Fulmer up to be ready at the start of the season. But the team is understandably concerned with unleashing Fulmer without full oversight and structure in place. The 27-year-old was once and could again be a key asset for a Detroit organization that is firmly in rebuilding mode at present.
[RELATED: A Missed Opportunity For The Tigers?]
Fulmer is controllable through the 2022 season, so the team is wisely taking the long view. That’s probably best for him as well. Fulmer battled knee and other health issues even before blowing out his ulnar collateral ligament. If he’s to return to the quality pitching he provided in 2016-17, Fulmer will need to return to and remain at full health.
Jordan Zimmermann Discusses Future
Righty Jordan Zimmermann is entering the final season of his contract with the Tigers. While his time in Detroit is coming to a close, the 33-year-old says he won’t hang up his spikes when the deal expires, as Chris McCosky of the Detroit News writes.
Zimmermann says he’s “not thinking about retirement now” and intends to “just take it one year at a time.” Instead, he’s focus on finding solutions on the mound — in particular, polishing the sinker that he increasingly utilized in 2019.
“Yeah, I thought about retiring a few years ago, but coming into spring training this year, I felt really good,” Zimmermann tells McCosky. “I haven’t had any issues. I still have the drive and I still love the game.”
Zimmermann has always put in the effort but hasn’t had the results since moving to Detroit. He gave the Nationals over a thousand frames of 3.32 ERA ball, setting the stage for a $110MM deal with the Tigers. But Zimmermann has struggled with injuries and has limped to a brutal 5.61 ERA in his 508 2/3 innings over the past four seasons.
Zimmermann is owed $25MM for the 2020 campaign, though he’s likely to earn only a portion of that due to the shortened season. He no longer has full no-trade rights — he can block deals to all but ten teams — so it’s possible he could be moved during the season if he’s able to bounce back.
Quick Hits: Snell, Draft, Torkelson, Molina, Jefry
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
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
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
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
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?
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.
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
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.
What If Max Scherzer Stayed A Tiger?
The Tigers were unable to get a contract extension done with ace righty Max Scherzer before the 2014 season. What if they had ponied up the cash? Jeff Todd explores that alternate universe in today’s video.