My favorites of this last came courtesy of Lynn Henning and Tom Gage of The Detroit News. Henning, never reliable for objective, fact-based reporting, conjectured that a healthy Bruce Rondon would've gotten the Tigers a World Series title. Bruce. Rondon. This guy. Other than a REALLY hot fastball, this guy was the definition of average as a reliever in 2013. A mediocre WHIP and ERA, some outings where he dominated and some where he was wildly disappointing. Ok, I'd have taken him over Joba and Coke (sounds like a cocktail in the Mos Eisley cantina), no doubt... But Henning is saying a setup guy with less than 30 innings of MLB experience would have been the difference between 0 playoff wins and 11 playoff wins is CRAZY.
Tom Gage exhibited a different version of crazy, namely saying that "all is well" and Dombrowski should basically bring the same group of players back, minus Soria and Chamberlain and Ezeqiel Carrera, adding Austin Jackson back to the mix, and paying Scherzer, Victor Martinez, and Donny Kelly Baby raises to stick around. He actually suggests offering Scherzer $27 million per year over 6 years, which is INSANE. Scherzer made $15M in 2014 and they offered $144M over 6 years (a $24M/yr average), which he declined. The way Detroit's payroll is set up, Miguel is roughly getting $22M, Verlander is getting $20M, and in 2014 they had 6 other players making $10M or more. They would need to pay Victor at least $16-$18M to get him to stick, which is a $4-$6M raise. They can't afford to pay Scherzer $10M more than he's making right now, and there's no need to do it! They've got 3 VERY good pitchers under contract, Porcello is decent, and they can get a solid 4th or 5th starter for something like $6-$10M without hurting the World Series odds too much.
The Tigers needs are bullpen, CF, bench depth, bullpen, defense, bullpen, and bullpen. Walkoff Woodward put it pretty well: FIX THE BULLPEN! Assuming Scherzer walks, the Tigers could make a run at drawing James Shields away from KC, but that would take $18-$20M. Or they could try to get someone slightly cheaper like Jason Hammel, Edinson Volquez or Kyle Kendrick, or they could take a flyer on a guy recovering from an injury like Josh Johnson or Wandy Rodriguez. This would save something like $10-$15M over reupping with Scherzer, money which would be better spent on the bullpen and their CF situation. The big name CFs going into free agency are Rasmus, Young and Aoki, all of whom are better defensive CFs than anyone Detroit had in 2014. Cheaper options out there are Nyjer Morgan or Franklin Gutierrez. I like Morgan. He's a speed demon, pretty good defensively, and he handled the bat well with limited opportunities in 2014.
The big problem is the bullpen. Joe Nathan is most likely coming back, for better or worse. Joba is gone, Soria is probably gone, and Phil Coke is 50/50. The best relievers under contract are probably Albuquerque, Rondon, and Hardy in some order. Rondon would be the setup guy if healthy. The Tigers could do what they did last year, swing for the fences with a couple of big name, high priced closers, or they could go after 2 or 3 solid arms. Luke Gregerson is available, with an ok strikeout rate, a pretty good walk rate, and 4 straight years of sub-3.00 ERAs. Scott Downs is getting old but still gets lefties out and would be a good replacement for Phil Coke (who doesn't). Former Tiger Andrew Miller (a lefty who gets out everybody), should be Dombrowski's #1 target for the 'pen. He had a fabulous season (great WHIP & ERA, crazy K-rate, etc.), and followed it up with a great post-season as well:
That's 7 and 1/3 innings, 1 hit allowed, 1 walk yielded, and 8 strikeouts. I know, small sample size, but Miller was that guy all season and last year and, to some extent, the year before. Ausmus did a pretty bad job of managing his bullpen, so some of the mess that resulted in the Divisional Series sweep, but he didn't really have a shut down guy like Miller in his 'pen either (not that Ausmus would've used Miller anyway - Al Albuquerque was probably the Tigers' 2nd or 3rd best arm in the 'pen, didn't pitch at all in October).
If the Tigers are going to make some noise in October next year, they need a couple solid relievers after the closer (I didn't like Nathan closing games last year & would have rather had Soria, but Dombrowski is probably keeping Nathan on & ditching Soria), Ausmus needs to manage his 'pen better (probably the hardest thing for a new manager to figure out), the defense needs to improve (getting Iglesias back at SS and signing a quality CF will help a lot, although Castellanos is still a butcher at 3B), and the bench needs to get deeper.
I thought Aumus's rookie season as a manager was a mixed bag. He did some interesting things on offense, which was a little more varied than when Leyland was in charge, but he was way too committed to a shaky back end of the bullpen. It was almost like he was obstinately ignoring Joba's performance at the end of the season (ERA climbed from 2.40 on 7/23 to 3.57 on 9/28), and the fact that Nathan was the worst closer in baseball who still held that role. Hopefully he's learned a lot, but he may give us another Alan Trammell performance from the dugout.
No comments:
Post a Comment