A year ago in these pages, I wondered if the Tigers should extend Max Scherzer. When it came down to it, I thought they should let him walk unless he was willing to take a significant discount. He didn’t, they let him walk, and Max got a boatload of dough from the Nationals. My basic case against an extension for Max was pretty simple. He was going to get at least 6/$150M (and had a good chance at more) and pitchers in their 30s are rarely worth that kind of money. Now, I probably underestimated the salary inflation we saw over the last year so if I had known a little more about the future, I’d have been cool at $150M, but not cool at the price he wound up getting. Same basic premise.

Max was unlikely to live up to the cost he was likely to command. We now know his cost, and we’ll have to see if he earns it or not. But a year later, the Tigers find themselves in a very similar situation. David Price will be a Tiger for one more year and then he’ll be a free agent entering his age 30 season. Should they look to extend him?

Price is making $20 million in 2015 and is coming off a 6 WAR year. Prior to that, he had four straight seasons of around 4 WAR, so there’s a clear sense that he and Scherzer will be hitting the market with pretty similar resumes. Price has a slightly longer history of great performance, but that comes with more innings (and more wear and tear). If we assume Price has another 5 WAR kind of year, and I think we should, then he will arrive at free agency under very similar conditions. Although he’s a lefty, so maybe we’ll see a slight premium.

So let’s figure out what we think Price will cost on the open market and see if it makes sense for the Tigers to pay that. Let’s say he’s going to get 7 years. Scherzer just got $30 million per season, but some of that was deferred money, so it’s more like $26 million if you care about the value over 7 years. Lester got right around there per year for six years. Basic inflation probably bumps that up to $27 million or so starting next year.

That’s 7 years, $189 million. If he doesn’t do the Scherzer deferment thing, we can probably say 7 years, $180-$200 million is the contract he’ll sign with another Price-like season. There are some quality names on the market next year, but Scherzer had Shields and Lester as well.

If you think Price is better than Lester and Scherzer, use 7/$200M. If he’s on par, it’s 7/$185M. Let’s call it 7/$190M just for the sake of only using one number. That’s what Price will make if things go according to plan. While Price seems open to an extension, there’s no indication he’s in love with Detroit and would give a major discount to stay. However, let’s assume he would be willing to offset the risk of the 2015 season by giving the Tigers a chance to start this extension in 2015. In other words, Price will sign with the Tigers for 7/$190M starting this year while every other team would sign him for 7/$190M starting next year. That’s the “hometown” discount we’ll apply.

Alright, let’s see what we think.

The cost of a win on the free agent market is somewhere in the $7 million range right now, but it might easily be $7.5 million by the time 2016 rolls around. This value is an estimate, but it’s a pretty good one, and the reason we use it is because if the Tigers chose not to sign Price they would have a pile of money they could then use on the free agent market, and they could buy wins at that price, more or less. In general, it’s a good guide, but don’t take it as gospel.

So the Tigers are already on the hook for 1/$20M, meaning we care about Price’s age 30-35 seasons and a 6 year, $170 million contract.

To earn that deal at the market rate ($7.5M/WAR), Price needs to provide the Tigers with 23 WAR over the life of those 6 years. That comes out to 3.8 WAR per season, which doesn’t seem like a lot. After all, Price has five straight seasons at that mark. But we have to assume that Price is going to get worse into his 30s because almost every pitcher does. It probably won’t be a cliff, but he will not continue to be an ace indefinitely.

Let’s try this a few ways. Let’s assume Price is a 6 WAR pitcher for 2015. That’s his starting point. A typical aging curve for a 30+ pitcher subtracts half a win per year. So that means over 2016-2021, Price would be worth 25.5 WAR! So if you believe in him as a 6 WAR starter right now and you believe in normal aging, this is a deal that can totally work for the Tigers.

But now let’s say he’s a 5 WAR starter in 2015. Then Price comes out at 19.5 WAR. If he’s a 4 WAR starter in 2015, he comes out at 13.5 WAR. Now we’re getting dicey. If he’s a 6 WAR starter now, he’s worth $180 million during this $170 million deal. Awesome. If he’s a 5 WAR starter, he’s worth $146 million. If he’s a 4 WAR starter he’s worth $101 million.

So one important factor here is determining how good you think Price is right now. That’s a projection question and an open question. There is evidence that supports a range of outcomes between 4-6 WAR and I can’t fault a team for taking either end of the spectrum. Evaluating pitchers is tough.

But now let’s say the Tigers are very motivated to keep Price because he can keep them contending at a higher level that they can without him. Let’s say they are very committed to going for it every year and can afford to pay more than average for Price because they think he’s truly the best available pitcher whom they could sign for those 6 years. That’s not an approach I would take when deciding to sign Price, but it’s a valid approach. So let’s say the Tigers are willing to pay $9 million per win. They are all in and their owner is old. Anything above $9 million starts to get a little silly because they’re actively ignoring a cheaper version of the same wins, but $1.5 million above market price seems like a good enough margin of error.

Let’s walk through those values again (cost of $170 million, assume $9M/WAR)

• 6 WAR pitcher, Tigers value at $230 million
• 5 WAR pitcher, Tigers value at $175 million
• 4 WAR pitcher, Tigers value at $120 million

At the market rate, you have to buy Price as a 6 WAR pitcher to want to sign him. If the Tigers really don’t care about efficiency, you can sign him at 5 WAR. There’s plenty of margin for error on these estimates, but not enough to like any of the other options.

So should the Tigers do it?

I cautiously recommend that they should. It’s not going to be a good value, but there’s a pretty decent chance it winds up working out fine. It’s not unreasonable to think he might currently be a 6 WAR pitcher and if he is, this contract can work out just fine. If you think he’s a 5 WAR pitcher, it doesn’t take much to smear the numbers into looking just fine. The Tigers aren’t afraid to spend a little extra money for sexy names (something I often chastise), but for a small premium, it’s not a big deal.

But if you think he’s a 4 WAR pitcher, this isn’t going to work out well. There’s no scenario in which the Tigers aren’t wasting a huge sum of money.

So what’s the difference between Scherzer and Price? Why did I recommend no on Max and yes on David? Three really important things happened between last December and today.

First, the Tigers extended Miguel Cabrera. The deal was way too much to pay for Cabrera, not because he isn’t good, but because no one was going to pay more when he hit FA. But that deal signaled the Tigers have no real interest in being a cost effective team and they also care way more about the short term future than they do about the long term future.

The Victor Martinez contract said the same thing. The Tigers want 2015-2016 wins really badly and damn the 2019-2020 team.

But we kind of knew this about the Tigers already. The kicker was when they traded Rick Porcello, because my entire Scherzer philosophy was predicated on the team extending Porcello. If the Tigers had Verlander-Sanchez-Porcello locked up, I wouldn’t be so keen on investing in a Price (or a Scherzer). But without Porcello, the Tigers have a serious long term hole in the rotation. Sanchez is good and cost effective, but he’s not a model of health. Verlander could still be great, but the signs are starting to point toward just being solid. Shane Greene has potential, but with no top end pitching talent on the farm, there’s a vacancy or two.

If the Tigers want to really contend for the next few seasons, they need another top level starting pitcher. It can be someone from outside the organization or it can be Price. Either is fine, I’m not partial to “guys we know,” but I don’t see an obvious way to acquire an elite pitcher via trade given the club’s circumstances. Never count out Dave on that front, but acquiring a great arm under team control is hard.

So it’s Price or a free agent, and there’s no reason to adore a particular free agent over Price…except maybe for Strasburg, who would be around a year too late. Greinke, Cueto, and Zimmermann are all very good, but none of them are a tier above Price.

Which is why I’d support a Price extension. I don’t think it’s a necessity. I don’t think he’s too good to let walk. But the Tigers need a pitcher of his caliber into the future and he’s going to come at a discount, however small.

The Tigers have a way of doing things. Sometimes it drives me crazy and sometimes it’s great. They eschew depth and cost controlled talent and it bites them pretty often. But they’re not afraid to spend money and don’t let a few million get in the way of a player they like. I can’t really see a justification for not seriously pursuing a Porcello extension over the last two years, but I also know they aren’t going to get down to the final hour of a negotiation and walk away from the table because of pennies.

The Tigers and I don’t always like the same kind of players, but when they like a player, I love the way they pursue them.

I don’t need “David Price” in a rotation, but the Tigers need his level of production. If they like him, they should go ahead and keep him.

As a rule, I don’t think you should meet your heroes. Or, in general, you shouldn’t meet famous people that you like or admire. Most of the time, the reality of who they are would disappoint you. They’re regular people with regular people flaws and they just happen to excel at the one or two things that made them famous. It might be cool to see an actor in person, but being a good actor and being an interesting and/or decent person are unrelated things. The same is true for athletes, maybe even more often.

We don’t talk about it a lot anymore, but if our laws worked the way they ought to, Miguel Cabrera would be wrapping up a prison sentence right now instead of a Hall of Fame peak. There’s a pretty good chance a few guys on the team are mean to waiters and tip poorly. Some are probably disloyal to their friends. There’s probably a racist, a homophobe, and a misogynist or two. I’m not accusing anyone specifically or saying this with any specific knowledge. I’m just saying based on the number of guys in the room, there’s a good chance some of them are lousy people.

For that reason, I generally like to keep the image I have of the players separate from who they actually are. As long as no one’s committing violent crimes or doing anything unsavory in public, I just assume the players are only who we see on the screen. Put another way, I don’t spend a lot of time wondering what Nick Castellanos is like when he’s off the clock. It’s just not relevant to my life or my livelihood.

I remember one time, maybe it was during an in game interview or after he posted something on Twitter, but my wife looked at me and said, “I don’t think you and Justin [Verlander] would be friends in real life.” That’s probably true. Our only real area of overlap is baseball and Verlander cares about the game in a very traditional, competitive way that differs from the way I care about the game.

This is a really long way of saying that there are always exceptions. I care about a player’s public image because that’s the version of them that I see, so when a player says something stupid or disrespectful, I think less of them. Or when they carry themselves well, I think more of them. It’s part of the package, but I often don’t want to know what’s really behind the veneer.

I mean, imagine if you found out that Alex Avila was a jerk. Wouldn’t that suck? Avila’s probably a very nice guy but you’re only setting yourself up for disappointment if you try to find out.

I don’t expect anything from athletes except that they give an honest effort. I don’t get upset when they strikeout and it doesn’t bother me if they don’t give interesting interviews. You can keep to yourself and suck and I’ll probably still be a fan if I think you’re giving it your best.

But there are exceptions. Don Kelly is one of them.

Part of me appreciates Kelly because he’s a utility player (and not a great one) and I just happen to like utility players. I latch on to the versatile players. But Kelly transcends that. Kelly was a fan favorite because Kelly gets it in a way that virtually no professional athlete gets it.

I think Kelly gets a lot of love because he’s a genuinely nice guy and everyone can tell after talking to him or listening to him for thirty seconds. But I think the halo around Kelly is that he absolutely loves every second of being a professional baseball player and recognizes how insane it is that he’s even there in the first place. It’s almost as if he hasn’t been corrupted by something that always corrupts.

Put another way, after enough time in the show, every players starts to feel like being an MLB player is normal. That’s true in all parts of life. It’s human nature. When I first started writing about the game, it was surreal when people I admired would share and comment on my work. But after enough time, it stopped being a big deal when I got a job offer or a hat tip from someone with real credibility. That happens to all of us. The shine wears off given a long enough timeline.

But you watch Kelly play baseball and it hasn’t. That sense of joy and disbelief is what draws us to Don because it’s how we imagine we’d feel if we were suddenly given a chance to play ball for our favorite team. Kelly seems grateful and overjoyed for the chance to play and never seemed dissatisfied with his opportunity. He may have wanted to play better at times, but he never seemed like someone who was unhappy because he wasn’t getting more playing time or a more prestigious lineup spot.

Pro athletes won the genetic lottery. They worked hard to make it, but if not for an accident of birth, they’re selling insurance or bagging groceries. It’s not their fault they were blessed with the talent and they shouldn’t feel bad about it, but when you’ve always been gifted it’s hard to remember that you’ve lived a charmed life.

I don’t know if I’m making it up because I want to believe it, but I don’t think Kelly ever lost touch with the idea that it’s ridiculous that he plays baseball for his job. I don’t think the players owe it it to us to do that or anything, but I think the magnetism of Kelly is that he acts like what we think we would act like if we were somehow put into that situation.

He gets how amazing his life is and seems perfectly content to be the backup plan at every position.

It’s just a minor league deal with an invite to Spring Training, but losing Kelly like this is the end of a weird, beautiful era in Detroit. Kelly was certainly not a good player, but it’s impossible not to love him for the way he carried himself all these years.

Jim Leyland once said that Donnie Kelly is everything that’s good about baseball. Regular readers know that Jim and I don’t always agree, but on this, we certainly do.

The day the Tigers traded for Max Scherzer was a sad one. It would turn out to be a huge coup for the franchise, but at the time, losing the beloved Curtis Granderson two months after the most crushing sports moment of my life was a lot to handle. If I remember it correctly, it was the day I discovered that MLB Trade Rumors existed. Granderson was such a big part of who the Tigers were, and Jackson, Scherzer, Coke, and Schlereth were just some guys with some potential.

That would all change. Five years later, it’s Scherzer’s departure that hits home. More than 1,000 innings. 22.9 WAR. Four playoff appearances. A Cy Young. Max leaves Detroit at the pinnacle of the sport, signing a massive deal with the Nationals for 7 years. It’s like hearing your best friend got their dream job halfway across the country. You’re heartbroken to lose them, but they’re making the choice that’s right for them and their family.

Personally, it’s been an absolutely joy to watch Scherzer grow into the ace he’s become. When he got to Detroit he was the classic example of the great-stuff-no-feel guys that scouts love, but I so often pan. The pitches were there, but the delivery and the command weren’t. For Scherzer to become a star, he had to come a long way and most guys never make it that far.

Max did.

It took two and half years for that moment to arrive, but in the summer of 2012, in the shadow of tremendous personal tragedy, Max Scherzer turned a corner and never looked back. He got his delivery together, found his curveball, and became one of the most frightening assignments for AL hitters.

But it wasn’t just that Max turned into a star. Regular readers here know that you don’t have to be good for me to love you (see Kelly, Don; Raburn, Ryan; Inge, Brandon). Max also understood the game and was open to the modern way of evaluating it. He was smart, well-spoken, and thoughtful. He and his brother had phone conversations about the financial crisis in Greece. He tweeted about the origins of a centuries old dispute in the cradle of civilization. He knew about FIP. My god, the man knew about FIP and cared about FIP.

There were a lot of moments over these last five years. Great players tend to have a lot of great moments. You may have your own personal favorite, but this one has to be right at the top of the list. Scherzer in relief, getting three huge outs to save the date, and helping the Tigers advance.

The Tigers made a good faith offer to Max in the spring and he was right to turn it down. Other clubs could afford to offer more and he was right to take it. I’m sad to see him leave, but we knew this day was coming. This day was always coming.

When you’re a kid and one of your favorite players signs with another team, it feels like they’re turning their back on you. When your GM trades away a player you love, it feels like they don’t care about you. But there’s a point in your life where you get to an age when you realize that being a fan of team and working for one are totally different things. If this had happened when I was ten, Scherzer might have seemed like an enemy because $144 million is a lot of money, but Max gave the Tigers his years and some terrific memories. It was a happy marriage, but that’s sort of the problem with being a fan. You’re married to the team and the players just work there. Max is making a smart decision and I’m happy for him, no matter how much it sucks to see him go.

There still might be a way for Max Scherzer to start on Opening Day while wearing an Old English D, but we can probably agree it’s not the likeliest of outcomes. More likely, we’ll see Scherzer in St. Louis or New York or somewhere else and David Price will get the ball to open the 2015 season for the Tigers.

I’m comfortably among those who sing the praises of Anibal Sanchez, but my sense is that the Tigers view Price as their ace rather than the Maestro. Barring a shakeup, Price goes on Opening Day which makes sense because Price is famous and because Price is very good. But it’s worth talking a little bit about how good David Price is and how good he will be.

There’s no question that Price has been durable and excellent during his career. We’re not hear to argue about whether Price is good, we’re going to talk about Price being very good compared to elite because it’s January and nothing else is happening.

Price was good in a cup of coffee in 2008 and good-not-great in 23 starts in 2009. When 2010 came around, Price elevated his game and became 4-5 win pitcher for the next four seasons. From 2010-2013, Price sat between 3.9 and 4.8 fWAR with a little extra love from RA9-WAR. He was very good.

But in 2014, he performed significantly better. He maintained his 2013 walk rate (it had plummeted) and then he found more strikeouts than ever before. During his age 28 season, Price made the leap from 4 win pitcher (a good #2) to 6 win pitcher (an ace). I’m not going to focus on the semantics of the definition, but it was a sizable step up and we’re going to care a lot about whether Price is the 2010-2013 version or the 2014 version in 2015.

We’ve now seen 400+ innings of a sub 4% walk rate and his home run rate and BABIP weren’t lucky or strange in 2014. The story of Price in 2014 was a really low walk rate and a career best strikeout rate. A good way to look at things is with his K%-BB%, which beat his career best by nearly 6% last year. If you strikeout 27% and walk 4%, it’s a virtual lock that you’ve had a great year.

Price threw more changeups in 2014 than we’ve seen before, and overall batters swung a little more and made a little less contact. That’s always a good sign and a good indicator that the strikeout rate wasn’t happenstance. It might not be sustainable, but it wasn’t dumb luck.

A couple of things grabbed my attention, as well. First, Price has slowed down significantly over the last couple of years, adding three or four seconds between pitches on average in 2013 and 2014 relative to his previous times between pitches. There’s clearly something happening that’s leading Price to take more time and you imagine it will continue given the results. He’s working slower, perhaps because it helps him make better pitches but also perhaps because it gives him time to plan the right pitch. There’s no doubt his stuff is great, but if he’s thinking through his options more thoroughly, that’s likely helping him out.

We’ve also seen him get better against RHH more so than against lefties, especially in the strikeout department. You’re going to face more RHH in general, and especially if you’re a good lefty, so his ability to punch out 28% of the RHH he saw last year was huge.

There isn’t a magic explanation for his success, I don’t think. He’s throwing more strikes and he’s not walking batters, and that’s given him a chance to put away righties more effectively when he gets two strikes. The added changeups have helped, but it’s one of those things where you add a little command to an already impressive arsenal and it’s hard to beat.

You never want to bet on someone repeating their career year, but I actually do think the improvements from Price are sustainable because they’re the kind of changes you might expect to see from a pitcher as they age. He didn’t start throwing harder, he started throwing smarter pitches in better spots and it slashed the walks and beefed up the strikeouts against RHH. It’s a good combination, obviously.

If I’m being honest with you, this is a “no red flags” analysis. There’s nothing in Price’s process or results that makes you worry. Regression is always around the corner, but this isn’t a case of really low BABIP or funny results against certain teams. Heck, remember his numbers were this good with that weird start against the Yankees.

Price had a 6 win season and it was the kind of season that didn’t come with a lot of smoke and mirrors. I’m always more likely to buy a lot of “little things” than one big thing because a lot of little things don’t all fall apart at once. Price has established a nice baseline, and you like the odds that he’s made a bit of a jump forward.

At this particular website, we don’t put up with any of the anti-Avila nonsense you sometimes here out in the world. Avila, despite his imperfections, is a really solid major league catcher. Buster Posey he is not, but he’s a good player and a vital part of the organization. Really, if you think Avila’s subpar, it’s because you care about batting average and that’s a silly thing about which to care.

But Avila’s overall quality is worth putting in the context of his strengths and weaknesses. Avila’s a really good defender. He works well with his pitching staff. He has great discipline and nice power. We also know that he’s really, really terrible at doing the part of baseball that requires you to run between the bases. And of course, he struggles against southpaws.

And the difficulties with lefties is actually worth talking about. I don’t care what his batting average is, but there is a real gap between his performance against RHP and LHP to the point at which you wonder if the team might benefit from running a full on platoon with James McCann next season. The Tigers kind of toyed with it in 2014, but it wasn’t anything official or permanent. Let’s see if we can find any hope for Avila against lefties or if we just ought to assume it’s a lost cause.

We can probably ignore the first two seasons due to LHP sample size, but if we look into 2011 and beyond it’s something in the 60 to 130 points of wOBA range for a platoon split which is considerably more than average. Clearly 2011 is the Avila outlier season and he’s probably more of a .260 hitter against lefties and something like .330 to .340 against righties.

He strikes out more, walks less, has lower BABIPs, and less power against lefties. It’s everywhere. Generally, this should be about sliders. If you get killed by same side pitchers it’s usually about breaking balls.

Using Baseball-Savant, we find no extra base hits off lefty sliders in 2014. He saw 92 lefty sliders in total. Here’s what happened:

• 45 balls
• 16 called strikes
• 8 fouls
• 6 in ground outs
• One single
• Missed bunt
• 15 whiffs

Let’s recap. He took about half of them for balls and among the rest, he got exactly one to the outfield. That’s not very encouraging. And this image seems particularly relevant.

Avila is a very solid performer against righties, but against lefties, he lets them get away with this. It’s a 16.3% swinging strike rate and a 52% contact rate against lefty sliders. Maybe you can forgive him for the ones in the zone because, well, what are you going to do.

So let’s just talk about the 69 lefty sliders outside the zone. 45 balls, 9 called strikes, 2 fouls, ground out, single, missed bunt, 10 whiffs. A 14.5% swinging strike rate and a 33.3% contact rate.

Avila saw 460 pitches from lefties and about 20% were classified as sliders. He took 263 total pitches and swung and missed at 68. That’s a 65.5% contact rate against left-handed pitchers overall. Translate that to a 68.2% contact rate against lefties not throwing a slider, or a 16% gap between his contact rate versus lefty sliders and lefty everything else.

Of course this is just a single season, but it’s not like 2014 came out of nowhere in terms of his numbers versus left-handed pitches. Realistically, if Avila can’t learn to do anything at all against the slider, he’s probably not going to be worth much against left-handed tossers.

Thankfully he has other virtues and James McCann looks more than capable of handling the weak half of a platoon. We know Avila’s not going to get 500 PA in a season at catcher ever again, so it’s probably reasonable to consistently sit hit against lefties, or at least lefties with competent breaking stuff.

This isn’t a horribly groundbreaking thought, but it’s important to note that the Tigers’ backup catcher needs to be selected for his ability to handle left-handed pitchers, rather than the defensive side of the game. You can’t put out a zero behind the plate, but if you’re not getting a real hitter, you’re not getting an advantage. If you can take 80-100 PA of .260 wOBA and plug in a catcher who can run a .320 wOBA, you’re taking about half a win over the course of a season. In order for that not to make sense, you have to think McCann is something like 30 runs worse than Avila on defense over a full season, which he’s not.

The only reason not to jump in with both feet on a platoon is if the pitchers really hate throwing to someone other than Avila, and despite what Brad Ausmus might have you think, McCann is a perfectly capable receiver. And he’s very likely in line for plenty of 2015 plate appearances.