A day after the biggest mistake of his Tigers tenure, Dave Dombrowski went out and signed that “proven closer” he’s been looking for since the dawn of time. Joe Nathan will join the Tigers for 2 years and (about) $20 million.

While the notion of a “proven closer” is nonsense and the use of a save-situation only relief ace is silly, Joe Nathan is a good reliever and having good relievers on your team is important. And aside from missing all of 2010 and some of 2011, Nathan has been an extremely durable relief pitcher for many years. Nathan is 39, but has been an excellent reliever in every season since 2003 except for the two injury affected ones mentioned above.

He threw more than 60 innings per season from ’03-’09 and ’12-’13 and was below 2.0 fWAR in only two of those nine seasons. Nathan is a great reliever across the board and looks healthy enough to continue for another year or two. Relievers are fragile, but the risk right now is based on health rather than forgetting how to get batters out.

Nathan will settle the angst many feel about the 9th inning, even if that angst is silly. You don’t need closer experience to succeed in the 9th inning and the entire idea of a 9th inning specialist is wrongheaded, but having Nathan on the team makes the Tigers better. If Ausmus came out today and told us he was going to use Nathan as a relief ace in high leverage situations, this would be a great deal. In the absence of this, it’s a good one. 

You’re probably paying Nathan a little more that he’s worth, but the market for free agent relievers is crazy and paying a little extra for the best free agent at the position is fine if you’re the Tigers. The Tigers need to upgrade their bullpen and Nathan is simply a slightly better version of Benoit for a slightly higher price tag. It’s a step up, but there’s more work left to be done, especially now that Smyly will be in the rotation for good. This doesn’t solve any problems from 2013, it just keeps them from getting worse.

The offseason picture for the Tigers is confusing, but this deal was easy to see coming. The Tigers have wanted a closer for a long time, and they finally found one on the market. It’s unclear how much of this move was predicated on the Fielder and Fister trades or if it would have happened anyway. Dombrowski got high marks for the Fielder deal and terrible marks for the Fister swap. The Nathan deal works, but it doesn’t really tell us much about the overall strategy. If the Tigers are planning to go all in for 2014, the Fister trade makes no sense. If they’re reloading for the future, the Nathan trade makes no sense. Time will tell, but for now, the goals and motivations are unclear. The Tigers are paying Joe Nathan more money than they would have paid Doug Fister in 2014 and probably about what they would have paid him in 2015. There really isn’t a way to make sense of that no matter how hard you try.

While we all love that a high school student, Chris Cotillo, has beaten Heyman and Rosenthal to most of the big news this winter, he didn’t bring us good news on this night. Cotillo reported Monday evening that the Tigers traded Doug Fister to the Nationals in exchange for UTIL Steve Lombardozzi, LHP Ian Krol, and LHP Robbie Ray.

There was a good chance we’d see a Tigers starter get traded this offseason due to Dombrowski’s desire to get Smyly into the rotation and Scherzer, Porcello, and Fister were all rumored to be candidates to head elsewhere. Fister seemed the least likely to move because he is cheaper and under control for longer than Scherzer while being better than Porcello (despite being older). It isn’t crazy to move at starter when you have six good ones, but trading a 4 win pitcher in his prime to the Nationals for a package that doesn’t do much for the 2014 Tigers seems pretty strange.

Fister has been the 9th best pitcher in the league since 2011 and figures to remain more valuable than his salary for the next two seasons. He has tremendous command and an excellent ground ball rate to go along with his improving strikeout rate entering his age 30 season and Nats fans are going to love watching him work. Fister might not be an “ace,” but he’s just outside that group of pitchers. He’s an absolute star.

The package the Tigers got back is the kind of package you get back in a salary dump. Lombardozzi is useful bench player, Krol is bullpen lefty, and Ray has a good fastball but needs a lot of work on his secondary stuff. Combined, there is simply no way they’re equal to Fister in 2014 without a serious injury. This unquestionably makes the 2014 Tigers worse.

In looking at this deal in conjunction with the Fielder move, it’s starting to look like the Tigers are thinking about reloading for the future. Which is pretty strange given how close they’ve come during each of the last three seasons. The Fielder deal worked in order to clear money to make other moves, but this deal is a salary dump that might pay off in three years. Maybe. And the worst part about it is that someone would have paid way more for Fister. Fister is great. Fister is almost an ace with two years left. He’s practically David Price for less money. The Tigers got a better Don Kelly and some bullpen depth so that they could save something like $6 million.

This isn’t a good deal unless Ray turns into a star, and even if he does that isn’t going to be while Verlander, Scherzer, and Cabrera are at their peaks. It’s possible this is some weird prelude to signing Robinson Cano, but other than that this looks absolutely terrible. The Tigers picked up very little for a star player on an affordable deal. And they could have gotten more.

You won’t often hear this, but Dave Dombrowski just got hosed in a trade. The 2014 World Series is looking a little bit farther away tonight. Worst of all, Doug Fister is moving to Washington, which means I won’t be able to watch a single one of his starts due to MLB’s Blackout Policy.

Anytime you can sign the best player on the planet to a 1 year, $1 million deal, you have to do it. And while some argue that Trout is a superior player, Don Kelly is right there with him. Certainly, by this point you recognize that the preceding sentence was written tongue-in-cheek, but my feelings remain the same. Don Kelly is awesome.

The Tigers re-upped with Kelly for another year at $1 million, which is about $500,000 above the league minimum, or essentially nothing. The Tigers signed Kelly to the opportunity cost of a roster spot. He’s going to be the 25th man on the roster for the 5th straight season.

This is a smart baseball deal because Kelly serves a very useful purpose. Generally, speaking he’s a replacement level player, but he’s a replacement level player at five positions. Kelly can play all four corners well and centerfield sufficiently enough to allow the rest of the Tigers roster to come together less rigidly. He’s not someone you want to offer 500 PA, but he’s the perfect bridge player. If a player is hurt for a day or two, Kelly is the perfect substitute. He’s also being paid like a replacement player, so it’s not like the Tigers are paying a premium for this kind of available skill. Kelly is a good defender who can take a walk and brings a lot of versatility to the club.

And beyond that, he’s a super nice dude and it’s satisfying to root for someone like that. Kelly enjoys the game and knows his place in it. Regular readers know I have an affinity for utility players and champion them at every turn. After a strong first half (110 wRC+) last year, I jumped at the chance to tell everyone how great Kelly was. It’s cool when Miguel Cabrera succeeds, but in my opinion, it’s much, much, much more fun when Don Kelly succeeds.

Talent and performance are most important with respect to winning, but in terms of fan enjoyment, every team needs a Don Kelly or two. Good guys with good attitude are good for moral. There isn’t a whole lot to analyze about this deal other than to say it’s a cheap way to fill a useful position and it comes with the added benefit of involving and athlete you can feel good about and having him around doesn’t stop the Tigers from making other upgrades. Don Kelly isn’t a great major league player, but Don Kelly is a player I enjoy having on the team.