Why I’m Disappointed The Tigers Didn’t Sign Drew
Given the responses I’ve had on Twitter today, and in the past when I’ve discussed the topic, I figured I’d use more than 140 characters to explain my view. It’s moot, now that Stephen Drew is going back to Boston on a one year deal, but it’s worth putting a bow on.
The Tigers window is now. Cabrera is going to get worse. Verlander is going to get worse. Scherzer is probably leaving. This core is never going to be in a better position to win a title. You have a few franchise caliber players, plus other good players like Martinez, Jackson, Kinsler, Sanchez, and Porcello. You have Avila and Castellanos. The division isn’t good. The time to strike is now. They’ve won three straight divisions and came up short in October three times.
Iglesias is out for the year, almost certainly. Currently, the Tigers are playing Andrew Romine and Danny Worth. Collectively, Tigers shortstops have a 29 wRC+. That’s the worst offense from SS since 2002, at least. Bringing in Drew isn’t just a small upgrade over a below average player. Bringing in Drew installs a slightly above average shortstop in place of the worst shortstop tandem in baseball.
Over the course of the regular season, the Tigers probably don’t need Drew. They probably win the division without him. Probably. But this isn’t about winning a division title, it’s about fielding the best possible team in October. The postseason is a crapshoot, but the 1927 Yankees beat the 2009 Twins most of the time in a short series. The best team doesn’t always win, but you’d still rather be the better team.
Ideally, the Tigers probably would have preferred to hold down the fort until after the draft and get him for only the salary and not the draft pick. If they were going to give up the draft pick, they would have done it in March when they could have gotten Drew on the field for a full season.
So the choice was this:
- Sign Drew in March, $14 million/Draft Pick
- Sign Drew in June, $8 million
- Do something else
The variables are this:
- Salary
- Value of Draft Pick
- Drew’s value
- Replacement’s value
The salary is pretty well understood, so we don’t have to argue about that. The value of the pick is probably in the $7-10 million range. Drew is somewhere between 2.5 and 3 wins over a full season. Romine and Worth are probably 0.5 WAR if we’re being generous. So the Tigers are buying two wins for about $20 million in condition #1. In condition #2, you’re getting one win for $8 million. In condition #3, you’re getting 0.5 wins for $1 million. Obviously, #2 is the best option. You want his value during a half season and October for only a few million. The question is about paying the premium or doing nothing.
Of course going with the replacements is a better value, but not everything is about good value. I don’t care if the Tigers are getting the best bang for their buck. I care if they win more than the rest of the league and that the dollars they spend now don’t cost them and keep them from making upgrades in the future. You don’t win a title for having the best $/WAR. Having a good $/WAR helps you win a title. You can’t be a slave to every million.
Drew makes them better, period. Drew is more expensive than Romine/Worth, period. It’s a question of how much you care about the wins today compared to the wins you care about four years from now. I don’t know if the Tigers are going to be good four years from now, but I’m positive that they are good right now. The draft pick is an asset, but the draft pick isn’t a blue chip, can’t miss prospect. The average 23rd pick usually doesn’t have a big major league impact. Drew could push the Tigers over the top this year.
He’s a very good player and they are currently using very bad shortstops. It would be costly to upgrade, but the cost isn’t that crazy. You’re probably paying $9 to $10 million per win if you sign Drew, compared to the current league average of $6-7 million. So what? That improvement from Romine to Drew could be the difference between a championship and another October disappointment. We can’t predict the future very well, but I’d rather not play the A’s in the ALCS with an automatic out in the lineup just because we didn’t want to lose a draft pick.
Young players are important, but the Tigers don’t have an awesome history developing their own talent. Either the players fade or they trade them for big league talent. That’s what this is. You’re trading a prospect you’ve never met for an upgrade right now.
I understand the other side of the argument. You shouldn’t ignore the long term costs of your decisions. I just think this is a good time to weigh the present more heavily than the future. Maybe Suarez comes up and makes up the difference. Maybe they make a clever trade. Not trading for Drew isn’t a mistake in and of itself. The mistake would be to do nothing at all. I’m perfectly fine with trading a mid-level prospect for Jimmy Rollins. But you can’t play Romine for 450 at bats, and especially not in October. Drew was the easiest way to upgrade a position that needs to be upgraded. Now is the time to go for it.
How Was The Game? (May 19, 2014)
Pretty reasonable, considering the woke up in Boston.
Indians 5, Tigers 4
It wasn’t Drew Smyly’s (6 GS, 38.1 IP, 3.05 ERA, 3.80 FIP, 0.6 fWAR) night, but the runaway train had to come to a stop eventually. He labored his way through five innings of three run baseball in which he walked five and struck out six. Kluber gave up a bomb to VMart early, but looked like he was going to cruise to victory until the Tigers got to him for two runs in the 7th courtesy of hits by Castellanos, Avila, and Davis. While it looked like fate was on their side for their seventh straight win, Phil Coke, pitching in a critical situation due to the recent workload of the pen allowed a run in his second inning of work to allow the Indians to get back in control. That wouldn’t last long as JD Martinez swatted a pinch hit home run to tie it in the 9th but Brantley took Al-Al deep to end it in the 10th. The loss drops the Tigers to 27-13 at the 40 game mark, leaving the club looking to even the series Tuesday night with Justin Verlander (9 GS, 60 IP, 3.15 ERA, 3.14 FIP, 1.6 fWAR) on the mound.
The Moment: JD Martinez launches a pinch hit, game tying bomb in the 9th
One Quick Thing: Alburquerque’s Walk Rate Plummets!
This post isn’t going to require much context. It’s going to short and to the point because it doesn’t require a lot of fancy “words” to grab your attention. This is Al Alburquerque’s 2014 season in three graphs.
First, his walk rate by year.
Then, his walk rate with men on base.
Then his percentage of pitches in the zone with men on base, using the Baseball Savant classification. Note: Same pattern holds using other definitions of the zone.
Alburquerque hasn’t walked anyone with men on base this year! He’s throwing more strikes when he gets into trouble and it’s working. You’d much rather allow a batter to make contact than issue a walk and Al-Al is doing just that when he has men on base behind. Given how good his stuff is, challenging hitters is probably a good idea. You don’t have to be that cute when your slider moves like his does. With relievers it’s always small sample size, but this is at the pitch level, so it’s not useless. If he isn’t done posting walk rates in the 15% range, he’s going to be nails.
How Was The Game? (May 18, 2014)
A much cleaner sweep.
Tigers 6, Red Sox 2
Anibal Sanchez (6 GS, 28 IP, 2.89 ERA, 2.65 FIP, 0.8 fWAR) returned to the rotation on Sunday in Boston and allowed two runs in five innings as the Tigers cruised to another series sweep. The Tigers scored three in the 3rd on a Cabrera single and VMart bomb and then tacked on a few more on a Cabrera sac fly, Avila single, and Hunter bomb while they faced only one serious threat. In the 5th, the Sox loaded the bases but only scored one run before Sanchez escaped by fielding his position and firing a bullet to Kelly at third to complete the double play. The win pushes the Tigers to 27-12 on the young season and sets them up to go for the rare, perfect road trip with three in Cleveland this week. Drew Smyly (5 GS, 33.1 IP, 2.70 ERA, 3.83 FIP, 0.5 fWAR) will be first in line to get the ball on Monday night.
The Moment: Sanchez snares a liner and fires to Kelly to escape the 5th.
It’s Time To Extend Victor Martinez
It’s amazing that just a year ago, people were ready to abandon Victor Martinez. On May 19, 2013 he was hitting .209/.269/.297. The Tigers were playing Miguel Cabrera out of position to accommodate Prince Fielder at first. They needed the DH slot to come open soon and Martinez did not seem to be himself after missing all of 2012 with an ACL tear.
A year later, Fielder is gone, Cabrera is back at first and Victor Martinez is the best hitter in the Tigers lineup. Go back to May 19, 2013 and bring it up through Sunday morning and Martinez is hitting .331/.382/.499. That’s a 138 wRC+ in 657 PA. And it’s only gotten better from there. Start from June 22, 2013 and it’s .352/.404/.534 with a 154 wRC+ in 532 PA. This season, in 159 PA, he’s hitting .336/.384/.587, good for a 158 wRC+. He’s having the best season of his career immediately after a torrid second half of 2013.
And unlike most early season leaders, Martinez isn’t doing it with a high BABIP (which could indicate luck). He’s at a cool .305, which is actually 10 points lower than his career average. He’s always been a good, consistent hitter. He’s been somewhere between 20 and 30 percent better than league average using wRC+ in almost every season of his career. Now he’s getting better and it’s time to lock him up.
Two things jump out about Martinez this year. First, he’s not striking out. His strikeout rate is down to 5.7%, which is easily the lowest of his career, while he’s running his highest walk rate as a Tiger. Martinez isn’t really swinging at fewer pitches, he’s simply making more and better contact. When you put the ball in the strikezone, he hits it, but he’s also been continuing a trend in which he’s also getting better at making good contact on pitches outside the zone. Pretty much, you can’t get the ball by him.
Second, Martinez is hitting for more power. He’s hit 9 HR so far this year and is on pace to shatter his career high of 25. He’s also running the best slugging percentage of his career by 82 points. And despite his two stolen bases, it’s not like he’s padding his slugging percentage by going to third on a few doubles.
Martinez is getting better when most hitters should be getting worse. He’s 35. But it’s also true that Martinez is getting better at two skills that age well: discipline and power. He’s not a better runner or fielder than he used to be, but he doesn’t have to be. I’m not really buying Martinez as a true talent 160 wRC+, but the fact that he’s been doing this for an entire calendar year suggests that whatever problem he had in early 2013 is gone. My personal take was that it was really bad luck, and the well hit ball data supports that. But even if it was an issue with his knee recovery, those problems can be put to rest.
He’s be 36 next year, so you probably want to avoid a 10 year deal, but a contract extension is in order. They should worry about keeping Porcello first and foremost, but the two aren’t mutually exclusive. The Tigers are currently paying Martinez $12 million a season, so a little bump up to $15 million probably works on a yearly basis. That kind of money will buy you a 2-3 win player on the free agent market, which is probably a fair projection for Martinez. Hitting like this, he’s a 4 win player at DH. Hitting like 2011 Martinez makes him a 2-3 win guy. On a short term deal, that’s a fine bet.
Two years at $15 million a piece would be great if Victor is willing to go for it. Carlos Beltran’s 3/$45M deal with the Yankees could also be a model (same age at FA, both all bat right now). Maybe two years and an option? Something like that should work for both sides. Martinez is a DH who can play solid first base in a backup role, meaning that his market is somewhat limited to AL teams with that specific need. It’s hard to imagine he gets another 4 year deal, but something in the 2-3 range makes sense. The Tigers won’t be paying Hunter, presumably, in 2015 and it seems like it’s going to be Ray instead of Scherzer, so the money is easily there if they want to give Victor a couple million raise to keep him in a Tigers uniform.
Martinez might not be this good, but he doesn’t have to be for an extension to be the right call. There’s no reason to think he’ll age in an unusual way, and you’re only asking him to DH, so mobility isn’t really a concern. Dave Dombrowski doesn’t usually extend players midseason – I can’t think of any examples of that – but it’s probably time to have the talk with Martinez. He’s having a great year and the Tigers are going to need a bat like his in the middle of the order in 2015 and 2016 if they hope to contend. Given the sparsity of the free agent market during this extension heavy era, locking Victor up is basically a necessity.
Plus, that gets us closer to the day that Little Victor can sign a pro contract and we all want that.
How Was The Game? (May 17, 2014)
Another feather in his cap.
Tigers 6, Red Sox 1
Rick Porcello (8 GS, 52.1 IP, 2.92 ERA, 3.21 FIP, 1.2 fWAR), if he were in some sort of rap battle or singing competition, would have dropped the mic when this one ended. He dominated the Red Sox and did it in style, allowing just a single run across eight innings of work in which he punched out four and walked one. He got himself into one jam in the 5th and escaped, and then barreled through the 6-7-8th innings en route to one of the most impressive outings of his career. Ausmus didn’t flinch, even, sending him out for the 8th at 100 pitches to face the top of the order a fourth time. Sure the Tigers did some things that scored runs – Cabrera homered, VMart and Avila beat the shift – but this one belongs to Rick. After it, he’s pretty clearly cemented himself as bona fide #2 starter or better, even if he is on a team of #1s. The Tigers will look to sweep on Sunday night with returning ace Anibal Sanchez (5 GS, 23 IP, 3.13 ERA, 2.43 FIP, 0.7 fWAR) on the mound.
The Moment: Porcello gets Ortiz to complete 8 masterful innings.
Don’t Sleep On Austin Jackson
Entering the year, I made the case that this was going to be a critical season for Austin Jackson. We know he can hack it in an MLB lineup but he’s been floating around between solid regular and star and how he performed in 2014 was going to tell us a lot about who he’s going to be. Jackson’s a good defender in center field, he’s a good baserunner, and he’s bounced around between good enough hitter and excellent hitter. We know what he is on the bases and in the field. His bat is the difference maker. We know this.
Jackson started hot, but cooled off to the point where he’s no longer setting the world on fire – yet there’s something really encouraging about an underlying factor you might not have noticed despite the cool down. First, let’s talk about his performance.
| Date | PA | AVG | OBP | SLG | wOBA | wRC+ |
| 3/31 to 4/30 | 92 | 0.307 | 0.391 | 0.507 | 0.389 | 147 |
| 5/2 to present | 55 | 0.216 | 0.255 | 0.255 | 0.230 | 37 |
| Full | 147 | 0.270 | 0.340 | 0.413 | 0.329 | 106 |
I don’t want to make too much of a 55 PA sample. Overall, Jackson is having a solid season and we’re measuring his offense at it’s lowest point. He’s walking as much as ever and he’s striking out way less than ever – more than 5 percentage points – before.
What’s also interesting is that Jackson is running the lowest BABIP of his career at .302. Jackson has been notorious for running high BABIPs in his time in the majors with a career mark in the .350s. Even if you are skeptical of that number, he’s definitely a guy who is capable of producing a higher than average BABIP. This year, he’s right about average. This is encouraging because some of those balls are going to start to fall. Not all of them, mind you, because Jackson is hitting more fly balls, but he should start grabbing a few extra hits.
It seems as if Jackson is adjusting his approach now that he’s been moved into the middle of the order. He’s trying to hit for more power and it was working big time for the first month. Of course he’s slumping now, but he won’t slump forever. Why? Jackson is developing a better eye.
Let’s dig a little deeper and consider his plate discipline numbers:
| Season | O-Swing% | Z-Swing% | Swing% | O-Contact% | Z-Contact% | Contact% |
| 2010 | 28.6 % | 61.9 % | 46.1 % | 67.9 % | 84.3 % | 79.5 % |
| 2011 | 26.8 % | 60.8 % | 44.0 % | 60.2 % | 84.7 % | 77.4 % |
| 2012 | 25.3 % | 57.1 % | 41.9 % | 63.8 % | 87.2 % | 80.4 % |
| 2013 | 25.4 % | 60.1 % | 43.9 % | 59.4 % | 88.6 % | 80.7 % |
| 2014 | 20.5 % | 60.1 % | 40.9 % | 63.3 % | 93.1 % | 85.8 % |
I’ll call your attention specifically to O-Swing%. Jackson is swinging at far fewer pitches outside of the zone than he used to, and if you slide over to Z-Swing% you see that he’s not laying off pitches inside the zone to the same degree. He’s getting more selective, but he’s getting more selective against only those pitches which are outside the zone.
Extend this even further and you’ll notice he’s making more contact in and out of the zone to the point at which he’s running, by far, the highest Contact% of his career. The drop in strikeout rate is real. This isn’t random fluctuation, it’s a meaningful difference in his game. All else equal, a ball in play is going to be better than a strikeout for a player’s performance assuming that the contact isn’t negatively affecting the overall swing.
The question is if it will lead to a substantially better player. What we don’t know is if the change in LD/FB rates are connected to the new selectivity. If the two are connected, maybe it all comes out in the wash. If they are separate and Jackson is simply improving his eye independent of the various other changes in his swing and approach, it’s extremely good news.
Jackson’s real flaw was that he chased a lot of pitches, but if he’s not doing that anymore he’s going to age quite well. Plate discipline and power are old player skills and as Jackson starts to lose a step in center, he’s going to need his bat to step up. This new found ability to lay off bad pitches will help.
He’s going through two simultaneous adjustments. We have to watch both. Is the shift to more fly balls good or bad? Too soon to tell. Is it the result of new swing tendencies? Too soon to tell. Jackson is showing some real signs of maturity, at least I think he is. It’s possible that Jackson has changed his swing in a way that encourages more contact, but weaker contact. You’d rather have a guy smoke the ball 80% of the time than hit it softly 85% of the time and we haven’t had enough time to sort that out.
As the Tigers move forward, they’re going to have to make a decision about Jackson’s future. He’s a free agent after 2015 and they don’t have an obvious replacement going forward. Even at his worst, he’s an MLB starter. The question is if Jackson might yet be a star. The tools are there and the eye is getting better. It’s not clear if that’s an overall positive, but the evolution is worth watching.
How Was The Game? (May 16, 2014)
A touch of revenge.
Tigers 1, Red Sox 0
The Tigers returned to the scene of the crime (read: ALCS) Friday and put their trust in Max Scherzer (9 GS, 59 IP, 1.83 ERA, 2.79 FIP, 1.7 fWAR) to shepherd them through the first of a three game set. Max was impressive out of the gate, striking out five in the first three innings before a 47 minute rain delay slowed the pace. Max finished with six plus innings and no runs, which the Tigers needed considering that they pushed just a single run across in the 1st inning and tiptoed their way through a bullpen 7th. Nathan got the final three outs and sent the Sox fans home to ruminate about their three World Series in the last ten seasons. The club will try to take the series with New English D-endorsed ace Rick Porcello (7 GS, 44.2 IP, 3.22 ERA, 3.07 FIP, 1.1 fWAR) on the hill Saturday night.
The Moment: Max gets Napoli looking to end the 6th.
Mildly Interesting Site News!
Starting next week, I will be joining TigsTown (or Scout Tigers, depending on how long you’ve been a reader) and will be writing a weekly feature over there. New English D isn’t changing and it certainly isn’t going anywhere. This is addition, not subtraction. TigsTown is undergoing a bit of a reinvention and will be adding a bit more big league analysis, which is where I will come in. Paul (@TigsTown) asked if I’d like to contribute and here we are. New English D has always had a good relationship with the other Tigers sites (like TigsTown, BYB, MCB, Walkoff Woodward, etc) and this particular arrangement made sense for both sides. Although, be warned that some of the content is behind a paywall, but the membership offers a good amount of access.
We’re still going to have the same type and level of analysis here, and I’m still writing at Beyond The Box Score and Gammons Daily. I’ll be sure to keep you in the loop with links on Twitter and I will likely post links here as well. You probably won’t even notice a difference! Thanks for reading, as always. Go Tigers.
What’s Next for Robbie Ray?
Assuming nothing changes in the next 72 hours, Robbie Ray’s place in the Tigers rotation is going back to its rightful owner: Anibal Sanchez. With that, the Tigers will have their staff intact once again, while leaving them with a decision about what to do with Ray, who has performed well in two starts against two reasonable soft opponents. What should the Tigers do?
The easiest solution is to toss Ray back to Toledo and let him continue on like the last two weeks never happened. He certainly has things on which to work and more seasoning as a starter in AAA should do some good. If Sanchez hadn’t injured his finger, we wouldn’t be considering anything else with respect to Ray. His command needs work and so do his offspeed pitches. Triple A is a fine choice.
But…
Even though it was Houston (terrible) and Minnesota (very bad against LHP), Ray held his own to the tune of a 0.79 ERA and 2.40 FIP. Interestingly, Ray struck out fewer batters and walked fewer than we expected going into the season, but he was also doing that in Toledo. We don’t know how Ray would do in a full season as a starter right now, but we’ve seen a little taste and the odds that he wouldn’t suck look better. He sat 93-94 with the fastball and used the changeup pretty well. The breaking ball was hit and miss, but he wasn’t bad at all.
Which leaves us with another option. Ray in the bullpen.
I think this is a good idea, but I’m not your typical front office strategist, so if you asked me to wager, I’d say the odds of Ray heading to Toledo are probably 80/20 right now. But on the 20% side, Ray in the bullpen makes some sense. Maybe even a lot of sense.
First of all, in the bullpen you don’t need your third pitch nearly as much because you don’t see batters two and three times in one game. Two pitches can go a lot further. Second, the Tigers are going to want to manage Ray’s innings anyway during this season, so why not manage them by shortening his outings. Instead of working 6-7 inning in Toledo, run him out there for two innings at a time in Detroit. This will allow Ray to work on developing his arsenal against MLB caliber hitters, but won’t force him to run into a lineup a third time, which is when he’ll get smacked. If he can help the club, use the innings in a way that makes the most sense.
I haven’t heard anyone worry about Ray’s stamina. The question is about his stuff and his command. I don’t think he needs to learn to stretch out or pace himself, so you don’t need to keep him in Toledo because that’s the only place he could do work on that. Although, it’s important to note that you can’t just flip a switch and be ready to start again. If they move him to the pen, you won’t be able to spot start him when Smyly needs to miss two starts with an oblique injury in August. That will have to be someone else.
You’re risking a short term fill in if you move him to the bullpen and you are affecting his long term development. There are pros and cons for the latter. Maybe he needs to work as a starter to learn to be a starter, or maybe he needs to face better competition so that he is forced to use his secondary pitches more often. It’s hard to say. We probably can’t answer that without knowing the inner workings of the Tigers strategy or Ray’s own mind.
Beyond all of this is the simple bullpen need in Detroit. The bullpen isn’t very good. Nathan seems to be over his early season issues, but there really isn’t a great reliever in the bunch. Joba and Al-Al have flashed above average, but also revert back to maddening quite often. Krol is okay. Miller is fine. Reed is fine. Coke is, well, you know. It’s not a particularly atrocious bunch, but there is very little oomph. You need some knock out relievers and Ray has that ability. A lefty who can bring 94 out of the pen with some decent offspeed stuff. He could fill the Smyly role from last season, or the role Smyly should have filled before Leyland made him a one inning specialist.
Have a 4-1 lead with the starter tiring in the 7th? Bring in Ray to throw two innings. Or three. Need someone to get five outs? Ray. How about a guy to handle two lefties split by a good righty? Again, Ray. Coke is clearly not the answer and Krol doesn’t seem like he’s going to be a true setup man right away. Why not try Ray in that role?
I think it would be a very smart move for the bullpen, it would just be a question of how it would affect Ray in other ways. Smyly seems to have handled the transition well enough, but it might not work for Robbie. It also might bite them if they need three fill in starts next month and Ray isn’t stretched out.
Used properly, I think Ray could be a difference maker in the 2014 bullpen. There are reasons not to do it, but I want to see them try. If the Tigers are really committed to winning a title, this would be the kind of move they should make. Lots of teams have broken in their top prospects with bullpen duty, the Tigers could do the same. Ray probably isn’t Wainwright or Price (Almost certainly not!), but giving him 60 innings in relief this year might be the right call and I would give it a shot.
New English D 