First, I can see 3 major issues that are preventing this team from winning a World Series: poor defense, the bullpen, and lack of depth (both throughout the lineup and on the bench). Dave Dombrowski has employed his Stars & Scrubs approach to team building for several years, but it hasn't worked (predictably). The Stars Dombrowski has brought in have largely been big hitting/weak defending guys (Cabrera, Fielder, V-Mart) as well as some ace starting pitching. The Scrubs have been weak hitting/mediocre defending players, and a patchwork bullpen. How can we shake this up?
Well, possibly coming off the books are SP Max Scherzer ($15.5M), RF Torii Hunter ($14M), DH Victor Martinez ($12M), Joba Chamberlain ($3M)... and that's about everybody who matters. They are going to try to re-sign Victor, but it may take more $ and years than Dombrowski is willing to spend. If Torii Hunter doesn't retire, they'll probably re-sign him as well, although it might be best for everyone if he retired (more on that in a minute). Joba is gone, and Scherzer is most likely gone as well. For argument's sake, let's say all 4 of these guys are gone and the Tigers have roughly $50M in payroll to play with.
DEFENSE
Torii Hunter had long been an excellent defender in the outfield, playing CF for most of his career. The last 2 years with Detroit he's fallen off quite steeply, and in 2014 he was the worst defender of all the Tigers' regular position players. His bat will be missed, but not his glove. Nick Castellanos was the next worst defender, and the worst defensive regular 3B in baseball. With Torii as the worst RF and a poor defending LF situation as well, the Tigers featured the 26th-ranked defense out of all 30 teams.
Alex Avila and Ian Kinsler are actually excellent defenders (believe it or not, Miguel Cabrera is actually a decent defender at 1B and was a finalist for a gold glove), and Jose Iglesias should return to add more bat AND glove to the SS position. So that's good. Victor Martinez leaving (we assume!) takes away a REALLY good bat, but it affords some positional flexibility and would allow the Tigers to slide a good bat/bad glove into the DH spot. My candidate for that is Castellanos, who hasn't shown a good glove in the OF or at 3B. Hanley Ramirez is coming off a bit of a down year and is a SS who'll most likely convert to 3B for whoever his new team will be. He could replace Victor's bat in the lineup and provide a better glove at 3B. Chase Headley comes cheaper and brings a MUCH better glove (tops in the Majors), but a weaker bat. One of those guys should be available for $10M-$16M, so split the difference and say $13M.
Torii leaving should help the OF defense. The Tigers could either switch JD Martinez to RF (which he plays better than LF), or they could grab a guy like Nick Markakis or Nori Aoki to play RF. Melky Cabrera doesn't play a terrible RF either, and he'd be a better bat that Markakis or Aoki. Aoki would be the cheapest at around $5M/yr, Cabrera next at $8M-$10M, and Markakis is a $12M-$14M guy (the Orioles just declined a $17M option on him, so expect him to go for a bit less than that). The Tigers still need a CF, and not much is available there. Colby Rasmus is the best on the market and a decent defender, but he gets injured a lot and doesn't hit for average. After Rasmus is probably Nyjer Morgan, who couldn't crack Cleveland's deep OF last year. The last time he had anything like a full-time gig was 2012, and he played solid CF defense then but didn't hit very well. Rasmus could be had for $8M/yr, Morgan for $1M.
Best case, Detroit picks up Hanley Ramirez, Nori Aoki and Colby Rasmus for a total of $29M, leaving about $21M for a SP, 2 RPs, and a bench guy.
The Bullpen
Assume Detroit misses on the top 2 SPs not named Scherzer (Lester & Shields) and settles on someone like Volquez or Hammel at around $8M/yr, preferably Hammel. Their rotation is now Verlander, Price, Sanchez, Porcello, and Volquez/Hammel. That's not too bad. Now they have $13M to spend on a RP or 3, and to round out their bench. They need another lefty (so long, Coke!) and at least 1 other setup guy who can be relied on to GET OUTS.
My pick would be Andrew Miller, who would fit the lefty need AND the reliable setup guy need. He'd be expensive, but he's not a closer (yet, although that could change) so he should run in the $7M range. It appears that Detroit is bringing back Soria (I'm ok with that), and unless they work a trade they're stuck with Nathan (I'm actually ok with that as well, as long as Ausmus doesn't get locked in with him as the closer like he did this year). With Nathan, Soria, and Miller at the back end and Hardy, Rondon (hopefully), and Albuquerque filling out the 'pen, it looks better.
There's a lot of competition for Miller though, so Detroit may need to go in another direction. There are actually several closers available, at varying degrees of affordability and... A-bility. The Tigers may want to go with one of them and slide Nathan into a setup role. This is not a move I would endorse (mainly due to cost). If anything, they should slide Soria into the closer role and Nathan into the setup role, but lets cover the "spring for another closer" option. The top 3 closers available are David Robertson (who should be REALLY expensive at over $15.3M per year), Francisco Rodriguez, and Rafael Soriano. Robertson is new to the role and handled it pretty well, so the Yankees will do their best to re-sign him. Plus, he's going to be too expensive. Rodriguez would be great if we could get him at the $3.3M he got last year, but that isn't happening. The only issue I have with him is he gives up a TON of HR. If he could be had for $8M/yr or less, I'd be ok with that. Soriano was ok last year, except for his 7 blown saves (for reference, Nathan blew the same number of saves with 3 more attempts, although his other numbers were worse). Soriano is also going to be too expensive, falling in the $12M-$14M range.
More reasonable options might be Sergio Romo ($7M-$8M, part-time closer, great stuff), Pat Neshek ($1M-$3M, great setup guy), Luke Gregerson ($5M-$6M, solid setup guy), or Zach Duke ($1M-$3M, lefty, lots of swings & misses). I really like Luke Hochevar as well, only that would put 2 guys in Detroit's bullpen who are recovering from a missed season due to Tommy John surgery. That rules him out. Jason Frasor is a fair-to-middlin' pitcher who could be had for a bargain $1M-$3M, and Casey Janssen & Jason Grilli are both committee closers who could be had for $4M-$6M. I like Zach Duke, Romo and Neshek best, so I'd take any combination of 2 out of those 3, if Miller is off the table and K-Rod can't be had.
We'll call it Romo and Zach Duke for a total of $9M, leaving $5M to round out the bench and putting the 7-man 'pen at Nathan, Soria, Romo, Duke, Rondon, Hardy, Albuquerque, and whichever youngster makes it out of the Reed/Krol/Knebel/Lobstein pack if they want to go with 8. I like it so far.
Lack of Depth
Losing V-Mart and Hunter hurt the offense (but help the defense), but adding Hanley at 3B, Rasmus at CF and Aoki at either RF or LF spreads that offense around a little more. Hanley would provide protection for Cabrera, Aoki would either leadoff or bat 2nd, and Rasmus would most likely bat 6th or 7th, behind either JD Martinez or Castellanos (who is now playing DH). Both Aoki and Rasmus provide left-handed bats, adding some stability to the lineup. Jose Iglesias is an upgrade at SS, both offensively and defensively, and Rajai Davis moves to the 4th OF position, spelling either Aoki, Rasmus or JD Martinez as needed, as well as providing insurance against an injury to Rasmus.
That doesn't exactly SOLVE the depth problem, but the lineup should be deeper and moving Davis to the bench adds depth there. $5M adds a LOT of bench depth, probably too much. Well, we don't need to spend it all. Bring up Collins as a 5th OF (adds speed, pop, and solif LF defense), and pick up a guy like Geovany Soto to backup Avila at C. We all know Don Kelly is going to be the 5th OF and INF backup, but let's pretend he's not. The lineup is now:
- 2B Ian Kinsler (R)
- RF Nori Aoki (L)
- 1B Miguel Cabrera (R)
- 3B Hanley Ramirez (R)
- LF JD Martinez (R)
- CF Colby Rasmus (L)
- DH Nick Castellanos (R)
- C Alex Avila (L)
- SS Jose Iglesias (R)
- Justin Verlander (R)
- David Price (L)
- Anibal Sanchez (R)
- Rick Porcello (R)
- Jason Hammel (R)
If the key players stay healthy and play to expectations, that team is worth 95 wins.
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