MLBTR Originals

Resolving This Player-Owner Dispute Should Be Easy

By Matt Swartz | June 15, 2020 at 10:41pm CDT

Dr. Matt Swartz is a Labor Economist who has researched and published on MLB labor markets for over a decade at websites including The Hardball Times, FanGraphs, and Baseball Prospectus, as well as at MLB Trade Rumors. Matt created the arbitration salary projection model for MLB Trade Rumors, and co-created the SIERA pitching statistic available at FanGraphs. He has consulted for a Major League team since 2013, in addition to working in his day job as an economist in the cable industry. This article reflects his own opinion and not that of any of his employers or clients.

The MLB Owners and MLB Players Association have been unable to reach an agreement for the financial terms of the 2020 season, and at this point they may not reach one at all. Both sides have focused publicly on the morality of their case, each believing they have the ethical upper hand. Neither has made proposals that reflect their actual negotiating position. That the arguments have primarily focused on morality is perhaps not surprising, but it doesn’t create fertile ground for an actual substantive negotiation. I studied bargaining theory, and I don’t remember anything about how to win a moral argument. The ethics are what they are, and any reasonable person could make either side’s case if they really tried. The union seems to be winning the PR war thus far, as fans seem to mostly blame owners, but supportive tweets from fans are not convertible into currency.

At its core, what we have is the following set up: The presumptive default position, if no agreement is reached, is that commissioner Rob Manfred will order a roughly 50-game season with full prorated salaries. If the sides do reach an agreement, they may play as many as 80 games, and be able to split the associated revenue. They also may be able to add revenue through other avenues like expanded playoffs, and they could split that revenue too. Those are the gains from a negotiated agreement. They can be split in a way to make both parties better off.

Both sides have accused the other of not bargaining in good faith, but neither side has offered the other side anything they would plausibly accept. Instead we have seen the owners repeatedly try to offer players only slightly more than the same salary total as they would with a 50-game season, effectively asking for all the gains that would accrue from a negotiated agreement while leaving the players to absorb greater output and greater risk (both from the usual risk of playing baseball and the additional risk attendant to the global pandemic). The players similarly have failed to offer the owners anything that would lead to more profit than they would accrue in the event of a 50-game season with unexpanded playoffs. It is not surprising negotiations have gone nowhere.

At this point, an agreement for a better, longer season in 2020 is doubtful. But 2021 is right around the corner, and there is no vaccine for COVID-19 yet. We may not see fans in the seats in 2021, or at least we may not see stadiums filled to capacity. So we may see a replay of this argument in 2021 as well. It’s imperative that both sides recognize their position and negotiate accordingly. This acknowledgement could easily flip the script and lead to an expedited deal for 2020 already.

Let’s start with what should be obvious and unarguable.

Unarguable Point A:

Any agreement should see the players earn substantially more than they would have in a 50-game season.

Unarguable Point B:

Any agreement should see owners make more profit than they would in a 50-game season.

Nothing floated publicly has even come close to meeting these simple criteria.

The starting point here is actually fairly simple. Forget about inching towards a middle ground when neither side is willing to budge. Instead, begin by figuring out just how much extra revenue is associated with 30 extra games and an expanded postseason. Then, split it in half. The players’ salary total is equal to that half plus their prorated salaries for 50 games. Both sides may try to argue for a bigger piece of the pie, but either side would be crazy to say no to half of this revenue—which is much more than the zero extra revenue they would see otherwise. The players don’t need the owners to open their books on any more than is necessary to estimate this amount. The owners don’t need to ask the players to sign any waivers or anything else that isn’t already negotiated. Anything on top of this baseline can be negotiated after setting the above in writing and shaking hands (but not actually).

Offers could get more complicated and cover more territory. This is especially true with the risk of no fans or fewer fans in 2021, and with the CBA expiring after 2021. But the essential 2020 issue can be resolved in a fairly simple manner that makes each side better off in the short term while limiting the long-term damage to the sport. In subsequent pieces, I’ll discuss the fundamentals of baseball’s free agent market and how players might want to approach the inequities that have arguably developed over the last couple years. But for now, let’s just agree that owners, players, and fans can all be made much better off very quickly. Get it done before dinnertime.

What Do The Cubs Owe Players After 2020?

By Jeff Todd | June 15, 2020 at 8:39am CDT

2020 salary terms still need to be hammered out. But what about what’s owed to players beyond that point? The near-term economic picture remains questionable at best. That’ll make teams all the more cautious with guaranteed future salaries.

Every organization has some amount of future cash committed to players, all of it done before the coronavirus pandemic swept the globe. There are several different ways to look at salaries; for instance, for purposes of calculating the luxury tax, the average annual value is the touchstone, with up-front bonuses spread over the life of the deal. For this exercise, we’ll focus on actual cash outlays that still have yet to be paid.

We’ll run through every team, with a big assist from the Cot’s Baseball Contracts database. Prior entries can be found here. Next up is the Cubs:

*Includes remaining bonus payments owed to Jason Heyward

*Includes buyout on club options in Kyle Hendricks, Craig Kimbrel, David Bote, Anthony Rizzo, and Daniel Descalso contracts

*Includes buyout on mutual option in Jon Lester contract

(click to expand/view detail list)

The Longest Flirtation In Baseball

By TC Zencka | June 13, 2020 at 12:14pm CDT

For those who love the will-they-won’t-they back-and-forth of a classic rom-com, Major League Baseball has a story for you. The Chicago White Sox and lefty hurler Gio Gonzalez are drawn to each other. There’s no denying the connection. They’re the Ross and Rachel of the MLB (or Jim and Pam, or whatever reference is relevant these days). Though they’ve never stayed together long, these would-be soulmates are on the verge of finally making it work. Should baseball return in 2020, their long-standing flirtation should finally consummate with Gonzalez in black-and-white, taking the hill in front of the Southside faithful.

Gonzalez, 34, has long been a productive pitcher in the bigs, but he hasn’t gotten the respect he deserves of late. Though Gonzalez is aging, he certainly pitched well enough to prove himself a viable rotation candidate. And yet, following the 2018 season, Gonzalez languished on the free-agent market. He eventually accepted a minor league deal with the Yankees, but he never made an appearance for their big-league team. He found his way back to Milwaukee where he went 3-2 with a 3.50 ERA/4.04 FIP across 87 1/3 innings (17 starts). Again, solid numbers for Gonzalez, but again there wasn’t much buzz around him as he returned to free agency.

Fear not, for an old friend came to the rescue. The White Sox signed Gonzalez to a $5MM guarantee just before Christmas with plans of slotting him into the rotation. The White Sox are a team on the rise with a young rotation in need of guaranteed, quality innings. Lucas Giolito and Dallas Keuchel are set to front the rotation with less proven assets like Reynaldo Lopez and Dylan Cease likely to follow. Gonzalez should help the young arms take their time and weather the storm, should there be one.

Regardless of fit, we know the White Sox like Gonzalez. This was, after all, the third time they’d acquired him. The White Sox first drafted Gonzalez 38th overall in the 2004 June Draft. But he didn’t last long in their system, as the Sox traded Gonzalez to the Phillies after the 2005 season (with Aaron Rowand and Daniel Haigwood) for Jim Thome.

Just a year later, Gonzalez found himself headed back to Chicago. The White Sox and Phillies connected on a new deal wherein the Phils acquired Freddy Garcia for Gonzalez and Gavin Floyd. Garcia made just 11 starts for the Phillies before leaving as a free agent after 2007. Floyd found his sea legs in Chicago after struggling to make good on his top draft pick status in Philly. He ended up playing seven seasons with the White Sox, going 63-65 with a 4.22 ERA/4.20 FIP in that time, settling in as a decent rotation piece.

Gonzalez’s second stint with the White Sox lasted barely longer than the first. He did, however, begin to flourish. Upon his return, Gonzalez quickly became a top arm in their system, topping out of as their number one ranked prospect by Baseball America in 2008 (#26 overall in the majors).

Still, they traded him – again – this time to the Oakland Athletics (along with Fautino De Los Santos and Ryan Sweeney) in exchange for Nick Swisher. Swisher was a personality match with the White Sox, a spiritual successor to Rowand and other hard-nosed dirt dogs to play on the grass in Chicago – but he only lasted one season (.219/.332/.410 with 24 home runs).

Gonzalez became the gem of that deal for Oakland, making his debut in 2008 as a 22-year-old. It took Gonzalez a couple seasons to find his footing, but by the end of 2011, Gonzalez was an established pro. He put together back-to-back 200-inning seasons for the A’s, amassing 8.3 rWAR/6.5 fWAR across 2010 and 2011 before Oakland shipped him to Washington.

At this point, Gonzalez was entering his age-26 season with some runway to finally settle in after being traded four times already. Gonzalez became a rotation stalwart for the Nationals from 2012 to 2018, a two-time All-Star, and a 124-game winner.

His best season was his first in Washington. The 26-year-old Gonzalez led the league in wins going 21-8 with a 2.89 ERA/2.82 FIP across 199 1/3 innings. As the Nats’ nominal ace, Gonzalez led them to their first-ever postseason appearance. Of course, this was the season the Nationals famously withheld Stephen Strasburg from the playoffs to ensure his long-term health. An undercurrent of that story, however, was Gonzalez, whose dominance that year made such a bold move possible. Gio started games one and five of the NLDS, pitching well but lasting just five innings in both outings – a common thread for Gonzalez. The Nats went 1-1 in those games but ultimately lost the series to the Cardinals.

Gonzalez never put up another season quite like his 2012, but he nonetheless gave the Nats solid work for 6+ seasons. Regardless, there wasn’t a ton of interest when the Nats shopped him during the 2018 season. Gonzalez was eventually traded to the Brewers, for whom he pitched well in five late-season starts. He even got a pair of postseason starts, though he went just two innings in the first outing and left due to injury one inning into his second.

Eight seasons after arriving in Washington and 16 years after Chicago selected him in the first round, Gonzalez may finally have the opportunity to pitch for the White Sox. Of course, a lot stands in the way of Gonzalez making his debut in Chicago, but that’s nothing new. Now in his third stint in the organization, the White Sox hope Gonzalez will help lead this young team.

Of course, if they don’t make the leap many expect, Chicago could embark on one last selloff of veterans before making a run at contention again in 2021. If that happens, Gonzalez could find his name in the trade papers once again. But for now, as before, Gio Gonzalez is a member of the Chicago White Sox.

Nats’ Convoluted Pitching Contracts Make Up Most Of Future Payroll Cost

By Jeff Todd | June 12, 2020 at 8:07pm CDT

We’ll run through every team, with a big assist from the Cot’s Baseball Contracts database. Prior entries can be found here. Next up is the Nationals:

*Includes deferred salary and interest in Stephen Strasburg contract

*Includes deferred salary in Max Scherzer and Patrick Corbin contracts

*Includes buyouts on club options over Howie Kendrick, Anibal Sanchez, Adam Eaton, and Eric Thames

(click to expand/view detail list)

The 2015 Top 10: A Superstar Is Born

By Connor Byrne | June 12, 2020 at 2:15pm CDT

We’ve already reviewed the top 10 picks from the 2008, 2010, 2012 and 2013 drafts. Let’s now take a look at the 2015 class. A half-decade later, one player stands miles above the rest.

1.) Dansby Swanson, SS, Diamondbacks:

Swanson never appeared in a game for Arizona, which made the widely panned decision to trade him in a package for then-Braves righty Shelby Miller in the same year it drafted him. As MLBTR’s George Miller wrote several weeks, the Braves have indeed gotten far more value from the trade than the D-backs. For his part, the light-hitting Swanson hasn’t been great. However, he has been a passable, inexpensive regular. Not a ringing endorsement, but it’s at least more than can be said for some other No. 1 picks.

2.) Alex Bregman, 3B/SS, Astros:

The Astros were only in position to select Bregman because they received a compensatory pick for failing to sign Brady Aiken, the No. 1 pick in the 2014 draft. What a break. Bregman made his debut just over a year after the Astros drafted him and has since evolved into one of the game’s elite players. The 26-year-old is now coming off his second straight MVP-level season, in which he batted .296/.423/.592 (168 wRC+), swatted 41 home runs, drew 119 unintentional walks against 83 strikeouts, and piled up 8.5 fWAR.

3.) Brendan Rodgers, 2B/SS, Rockies:

Rodgers’ first taste of big league action didn’t go well in 2019, when he took 81 trips to the plate and batted .224/.272/.250 (25 wRC+) without a home run before undergoing season-ending shoulder surgery in July. None of that sounds good, but there remains plenty to like about Rodgers. He’s still just 23, still a high-end prospect (MLB.com ranks him No. 29), and coming off a year in which he destroyed Triple-A pitching. In 160 plate appearances at that level, Rodgers slashed .350/.412/.622 with nine homers. Even in the offensively charged Pacific Coast League, that line amounted to a wRC+ of 147.

4.) Dillon Tate, RHP, Rangers:

Tate, 26, made his major league debut in 2019 with 21 innings of 6.43 ERA ball, but not before being part of two notable trades in preceding years. The Rangers sent Tate to the Yankees in a 2016 deal for Carlos Beltran, and then New York sent the hurler to Baltimore in 2018 to acquire Zack Britton.

5.) Kyle Tucker, OF, Astros:

Tucker hasn’t gotten much of a chance in Houston (he totaled 72 plate appearances in each of the previous two seasons), but he remains a touted 23-year-old whom the franchise has been loath to surrender in a trade. If a 2020 season does happen, Tucker could get a better opportunity to establish himself. It should at least come by 2021, as Houston’s entire starting outfield of George Springer, Michael Brantley and Josh Reddick are all due to become free agents during the upcoming winter.

6.) Tyler Jay, LHP, Twins:

Injuries have helped cut down Jay’s career so far. Jay never pitched for the Twins, who traded the 26-year-old to the Reds last season, nor has he reached the majors. He spent most of 2018-19 as a reliever in Double-A, where he has logged a 4.22 ERA with 7.9 K/9 and 3.9 BB/9 in 136 1/3 frames.

7.) Andrew Benintendi, OF, Red Sox:

By measure of wRC+, Benintendi has only been a league-average hitter in two of his three full seasons; nonetheless, he has been a productive piece for Boston, and is clearly one of the most successful members of his draft class.

8.) Carson Fulmer, RHP, White Sox:

As MLBTR’s Steve Adams recently noted, Fulmer was regarded as a sure bet to succeed in the majors during his time as a prospect. Unfortunately, though, he has been a flop in the bigs. The 26-year-old owns a 6.56 ERA/6.44 FIP with 7.89 K/9 and 6.08 BB/9 across 94 2/3 innings (44 appearances, 15 starts). He ran up a 6.00-plus ERA last season, mostly from Chicago’s bullpen.

9.) Ian Happ, INF/OF, Cubs:

Happ has given the Cubs plenty of versatility in the field while chipping in above-average offense in each of the three years he has appeared in the majors. Strikeouts were a major problem for Happ during his first two years, but he made enormous strides in that area a season ago, slashing his K rate from 36.1 percent in 2018 to 25 percent. That drastic cut helped Happ to a career-best line of .264/.333/.564 (127 wRC+), though he started 2019 in Triple-A after a miserable spring training and only appeared in 58 of Chicago’s games.

10.) Cornelius Randolph, OF, Phillies:

The 23-year-old Randolph hasn’t played above Double-A, where he hit .247/.324/.399 with 10 homers in 389 plate appearances last season. Randolph failed to earn a ranking from Baseball America, FanGraphs or MLB.com in any of their most recent Phillies prospects lists.

—

Combined fWAR of this bunch: 36.5. Bregman has clearly been the rising tide lifting the other boats…

1.) Bregman: 20.5
2.) Benintendi: 9.0
3.) Happ: 4.8
4.) Swanson: 3.9
5.) Tate: 0.0
6.) Tucker: minus-0.2
7.) Rodgers: minus-0.6
8.) Fulmer: minus-0.9

Left off: Jay and Randolph, who haven’t played in the league.

The 2013 Top 10: An MVP And The Rest

By Connor Byrne | June 11, 2020 at 7:02pm CDT

With draft season in full swing, we’ve recently been looking back at how recent top 10s have panned out thus far. Having examined 2008, 2010 and 2012, let’s turn our attention to 2013 – certainly a top 10 that has produced more letdowns than success stories.

1.) Mark Appel, RHP, Astros:

One of the few No. 1 overall picks to never appear in the majors, Appel stepped away from the game in February 2018 after a difficult run in the minors. Appel was then a member of the Phillies, who acquired him from the Astros in a 2015 trade that also delivered righty Vince Velasquez, among others, to Philly. Meanwhile, Houston got reliever Ken Giles, who was up and down in its uniform from 2016-18 before it sent him to Toronto for current closer Roberto Osuna.

2.) Kris Bryant, 3B/OF, Cubs:

Hands down the best member of this top 10, Bryant’s a lifetime .284/.385/.516 hitter with 138 home runs and 27.8 fWAR. The 28-year-old’s also a three-time All-Star, a former Rookie of the Year (2015) and a past NL MVP (2016). Oh, and the same year he won the MVP, Bryant helped the Cubs to their first World Series title in 108 years.

3.) Jon Gray, RHP, Rockies:

Everyone knows it’s especially difficult to prevent runs as a member of the Rockies. Gray has nonetheless enjoyed a fine career so far, though, having tossed 641 1/3 innings of 4.46 ERA/3.77 FIP ball with 9.4 K/9, 2.96 BB/9 and a 47.1 percent groundball rate. He logged a personal-best average fastball velocity of 96.1 mph last year.

4.) Kohl Stewart, RHP, Twins:

Still just 25, Stewart’s not a sure bet to return to a major league roster after totaling 62 innings and recording a 4.79 ERA/4.80 FIP with a paltry 4.94 K/9 as a Twin from 2018-19. The team outrighted Stewart last winter, and he then ended up with the Orioles on a split contract.

5.) Clint Frazier, OF, Indians:

Frazier never played for Cleveland, which traded the then-highly ranked prospect to the Yankees in a deal for reliever Andrew Miller in 2016. The Indians got plenty from Miller over parts of three seasons, while the Yankees are still waiting for Frazier to establish himself in the majors. The 25-year-old hasn’t been able to carve out a regular role yet, having hit a mediocre .254/.308/.463 over 429 plate appearances while struggling as an outfielder.

6.) Colin Moran, 3B, Marlins:

Like Frazier, Moran didn’t suit up for the team that drafted him. Miami instead traded him to the Astros in 2014. Moran appeared briefly with the Astros in 2016-17 before they sent him to Pittsburgh in a blockbuster for ace Gerrit Cole. That worked out very well for the Astros, whereas Moran hasn’t made a sizable impact as a Pirate. Overall, the 27-year-old is a .274/.328/.417 hitter in 1,005 PA.

7.) Trey Ball, LHP, Red Sox:

Ball never advanced past Double-A ball with Boston, and he hasn’t pitched professionally since 2018.

8.) Hunter Dozier, 3B, Royals:

It probably took longer than the Royals wanted it to, but Dozier finally came into his own last season. After struggling mightily in 2018, his first extensive look in the majors, the 28-year-old slashed .279/.348/.522 with 26 homers and 3.0 fWAR in 2019.

9.) Austin Meadows, OF, Pirates:

Notably, the Pirates were only in position to draft Meadows because they received a compensatory pick for failing to sign Appel, their No. 1 selection the previous year. But Meadows didn’t see much time with the Pirates, who moved him and pitchers Tyler Glasnow and Shane Baz to the Rays in 2018 for righty Chris Archer. We don’t need to rehash what an overall nightmare that trade has turned into for the Pirates, though it’s still worth mentioning that the 25-year-old Meadows was a .291/.364/.558 batter with 33 HRs and 4.0 fWAR in 2019.

10.) Phil Bickford, RHP, Blue Jays:

Toronto couldn’t sign Bickford, so it landed the ninth pick in the next draft as compensation. The Blue Jays used that choice on righty Jeff Hoffman, whom they traded to the Rockies in a 2015 deal for shortstop Troy Tulowitzki.

—

Combined fWAR of this 10-player group: 50.4, though approximately 80 percent of that total has come from Bryant and Gray. Here’s how they rank in that category:

1.) Bryant: 27.8
2.) Gray: 13.1
3.) Meadows: 4.2
4.) Dozier: 2.1
5.) Moran: 0.7
5.) Stewart: 0.2
6.) Appel/Ball/Bickford: 0.0
7.) Frazier: minus-0.3

Adding Up The Braves Future Salary Obligations

By Jeff Todd | June 11, 2020 at 2:21pm CDT

We’ll run through every team, with a big assist from the Cot’s Baseball Contracts database. Prior entries can be found here. Next up is the Braves:

*Includes buyouts of club options over Ozzie Albies, Will Smith, Ender Inciarte, and Darren O’Day

(click to expand/view detail list)

Baseball’s Most Interesting Upcoming Free Agent?

By Jeff Todd | June 11, 2020 at 12:33pm CDT

This post is about Angels shortstop Andrelton Simmons. But really, it’s about how teams value and conceive of defense in the game of baseball … and what his upcoming free agency could tell us about it.

On the one hand, it’s rather straightforward: preventing runs is as good as creating them. It’s an oversimplification, but for the most part the name of the game is simply to turn would-be baserunners into outs.

Things get quite a bit more complicated when you wade into an attempt at valuing a given player’s impact on a team’s ability to make outs and prevent runs. Avoiding miscues is obviously a big part of the picture, but that hardly provides the full picture of a defender. (Past a diving Jeter, anyone?) Range — the ability to get to more balls — is obviously of critical importance. And there are a host of subtle skills to consider … catcher framing, perhaps, being the most susceptible of statistical precision. But how do you value a tagging maestro, for example? And how do we account for contemporary baseball’s ceaseless shifting, particularly given that much of it is engineered by analysts rather than players’ gut instincts on positioning?

While it’s pretty easy to get a sense of a hitter’s profile and productivity from a glance at a stat sheet, it’s obvious that truly understanding defensive value requires more. Even the most sophisticated analytical systems have struggled to reach anything like the kind of precision that we’d need to make fine distinctions. Ultimate Zone Rating, Defensive Runs Saved, and the more recent Statcast-based Outs Above Average all have their merits and aid in the understanding of a ballplayer. But it’d be a stretch to say that you could look at the numbers they produce and use them to determine that player A is superior to player B at fielding his position.

All that said … shouldn’t we listen when all the stats, and all the scouts, and all that we see with our own eyes tell us that one particular player is in his own particular category when it comes to defensive play? On a rate basis, no infielder comes particularly close to Simmons in UZR. To understand how that translates to value when estimating runs saved and tabulating wins above replacement … well, just look how many more innings it took guys like J.J. Hardy and Jimmy Rollins to accrue similar total value above replacement at the shortstop position. And it’s not just UZR. Far from it. By measure of DRS, Simmons has been outlandishly superior to the rest of the shortstop field. Statcast, at least, shows some competition over the past three seasons from Nick Ahmed, but it too agrees that Simmons is an exceptional performer. (It’s also less than clear that Statcast is as useful for infielders as it is for outfielders.)

It doesn’t seem wild to presume, for purposes of this post at least, that Simmons is a historically amazing defensive performer. Teams no doubt have their own ways of translating fielding performance to value, but it’s generally reasonable to believe they’ll put a high price on run prevention. Even if you’d rather market a slugger than a glove-first shortstop, there’s no general reason to prefer the former to the latter from a competitive standpoint.

Indeed, there’s an argument to be made that a truly elite defender is all the more valuable to a team — especially in this day and age. Positioning defenders to account not only for hitters, but defenders, has long been a part of the sport. But it’s now done with much greater sophistication and frequency. The Reds just signed Mike Moustakas to play second base after watching the Brewers try him there despite a career spent at third. For creative ballclubs looking for ways to shoehorn every advantage into a lineup, the ability to deploy a human vacuum/cannon on the left side of the infield could convey even greater value than that player’s directly attributable individual contribution.

It’s truly fascinating to imagine what teams might envision doing with Simmons … and wondering how much they’ll be willing to pay. (Setting aside the likely market-skewing impact of the coronavirus-shortened season, anyway.) The Diamondbacks just made a fairly significant outlay to Ahmed, despite the fact he has never really come close to league-average offensive productivity over a full season and was still a year from free agency. Even if you believe Ahmed has approached Simmons in defensive capabilities, he hasn’t done it as long. And Simmons has a far superior overall track record at the plate, with a lifetime batting output that’s about the same as Ahmed’s single-season peak. Supposing Simmons is in typical form in 2020 — unparalleled glovework and league-average-ish offense — he ought to fetch a fair sight more on the open market … particularly if big-market teams get involved with big ideas about how to squeeze value from such a unique player.

Did The Tigers Make The Right Choice At 1-1?

By Jeff Todd | June 11, 2020 at 10:22am CDT

We polled MLBTR’s readers last night about the biggest surprises on the first day of the 2020 MLB draft. Thus far, the Red Sox’ decision to choose Nick Yorke in the first round has drawn the most votes.

Before Yorke’s name was called, the Tigers had first crack at every single player available. The rebuilding ballclub went with Arizona State’s Spencer Torkelson, an advanced player with an unassailable offensive track record, effectively making him the heir apparent to legendary slugger Miguel Cabrera. The two could well overlap in the middle of the Detroit order for a few years, supposing Torkelson develops as hopes and Cabrera can rebound.

Easy enough, right? There weren’t any gasps of disbelief when Torkelson’s name was called. Then again … the Tigers did have other options.

Pundits have long debated whether Torkelson or Vanderbilt’s Austin Martin was a better selection at the top of the board. The latter has a much broader toolset and could potentially have fit into the long-term picture in Detroit in any number of ways. There’s a reason the Blue Jays were thrilled to see him somehow still available with the fifth overall selection. Perhaps the Tigers would’ve been wiser to roll with a player of this sort, particularly given the club’s complicated recent history with defensively limited slugger types. (While the Tigers have thrived with big bats, they’ve also whiffed on big money to Cabrera and Victor Martinez and ran into difficulty maximizing their control rights over J.D. Martinez and Nicholas Castellanos.)

As the Orioles showed us, that wasn’t the only alternative. The Baltimore organization decided to cut a deal with another highly valued prospect, Heston Kjerstad, in order to (presumably) allocate some of the bonus pool funds from their lofty draft pick to day-two selections. Given the limitations of this year’s draft, that strategy could open the door to some high-ceiling talent and spread the team’s draft resources over multiple players. As the debate over Torkelson and Martin shows, neither of the two was considered an especially compelling 1-1 candidate when viewed against those taken at the top in past years. The Tigers, like the O’s, certainly need a volume of players and could conceivably have taken this path as well.

There was at least one other possible approach for the Detroit brass to bat around: taking top collegiate hurler Asa Lacy of Texas A&M. The club reportedly dabbled with that idea ahead of time, due in part to the fact that they’ll now have to negotiate with agent Scott Boras over terms on Torkelson. (Boras also reps Martin.) Taking Lacy would’ve put another advanced arm into a system that’s already loaded with them. And that would’ve fit as part of a legitimate plan to pump arms into the system. There’s a reason we’ve all heard the phrases, “you can never have enough pitching” and “there is no such thing as a pitching prospect.” There’s risk and upside and need all at once. Had the Tigers ended up with an over-abundance of MLB-ready arms … well, they’d likely have little trouble finding innings and/or swapping some hurlers out for whatever bats they might need at the time. Lacy might not have been such an under-slot play as the O’s pulled, but perhaps there’d have been some leftover coin to work with in that scenario as well.

So … how do you view the Tigers’ decision? (Poll link for app users.)