The Tigers and the Marlins completed the first blockbuster trade of the hot-stove today. The Marlins sent star slugger Miguel Cabrera and starter Dontrelle Willis to the Tigers for a package of six prospects, including starter Andrew Miller and Cameron Maybin.
For the Marlins, the deal seems to work out pretty well, for their purposes.
They dumped their two most expensive salaries, which should bring their payroll down to about $8 million, allowing them to stay in Florida for the time being sans a fan base or a stadium. They are the new Expos. They do get two quality prospects in the deal, though they probably could have gotten at least as good of a package for just Willis a year ago.
The deal is a good one for the Tigers, but Detroit fans shouldn’t start booking their World Series tickets just yet.
Miguel Cabrera seals this deal. Right now, he’s one of the top five hitters in the game, and he’s still developing. It’s like getting Manny Ramirez at 25. He is moving to the American League and out of a pitchers ballpark. He should be a guaranteed .300 40HR 120 RBI .950+ OPS guy for the next 8-10 years.
The only problem is his defense. They should swap him at first with Carlos Guillen to put Miguel out of his misery, but his poor defense won’t kill them for one season before he finds his eventual home at DH. If they can keep him out of Coney Island and within 30lbs of his listed weight of 210, he should enter Cooperstown wearing an old English D.
The Willis acquisition is a little more questionable. He has never really found his consistency over his career, at times being both brilliant and woeful.
The only thing that has been consistent is his overall decline the past three years.
2005 - 22-10, 2.63 ERA, 236.1 IP, 170K - 55BB, 1.13 WHIP, 11 HR
2006 - 12-12, 3.87 ERA, 223.1 IP, 160K - 83BB, 1.42 WHIP, 21 HR
2007 - 10-15, 5.17 ERA, 205.1 IP, 146K - 87BB, 1.60 WHIP, 29 HR
He’s only going to be 26 at the start of the season, so a physical decline shouldn’t be an issue. The question should be whether or not his early success was merely a product of his kookie delivery and people are starting to figure him out.
He’s had a linear decline statistically the past three years in every pitching category. The move to the American League and out of the pitchers’ ballpark is probably not going to help his numbers. Perhaps he gets rejuvenated with a new and winning environment and it works out, but he could also end up being a complete disaster. However, the opportunity to get Cabrera was certainly worth risking a rotation place on Willis.
Despite the ESPN hyperbole, this doesn’t catapult the Tigers over Boston.
The Tigers’ lineup sounds a lot better than it actually is.
C - Ivan Rodriguez - Hall of Famer (Pending Mitchell Report), 38 Years Old, .294 OBP last season
1B - CARlos GuiLEN! - .300. 20 HR guy, fine
2B - Placido Polanco - Most overrated player in baseball not named David Eckstein, Should be decent but won’t hit .346 again
SS - Edgar Renteria - Great year last year, but his OPS was .100 higher than his career average, he probably comes back down to earth
3B - Miguel Cabrera - Beast
LF - Marcus Thames - Power, .285 OBP, durability an issue (Jacque Jones - 5HR last season)
CF - Curtis Granderson - Great Player
RF - Magglio Ordonez - .136 above his career OPS, 34, going to fall back down to earth
DH - Gary Sheffield - 39 years old, durability/decline concerns
It’s a potentially great lineup, assuming that the older guys can stave off the inevitable for another season and players like Ordonez, Polanco, and Renteria replicate career years. But, even if that happens. They aren’t a great team at grinding out at bats and getting on base. They have a lot of mediocre power guys but Cabrera is the only one who can be counted on to really be a consistent power threat. They also leave themselves vulnerable as they are predominately right handed.
What they truly needed to address was the pitching staff, which is a giant question mark. Verlander was great last season. The rest of the staff…not so much. Robertson had a 4.76 ERA and Bonderman was up over five. Kenny Rogers was out most of last season and will be 42 years old. They also don’t know what they are going to get with Willis.
The bullpen also has some question marks with Todd-o-matic Jones returning to close out games and Zumaya perhaps not being able to pitch again. After that the Bullpen doesn’t exactly inspire confidence. When compared to the Red Sox who, even without Santana, have the best top to bottom staff in the game, the Tigers’ staff pales.
Even in their division, one could probably argue that the Tigers’ only have the fourth best staff (assuming the Twins keep Santana).
For a team whose success hinged on pitching in 2006, this should be of grave concern.
