Tigers face heavy price to shed salary: Granderson
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BY LYNN HENNING
COLUMNIST
DETROIT NEWS
December 8, 2009
Indianapolis -- Unless medical red tape snags things, the Tigers hit the detonator Tuesday on another whopping trade, made more for financial reasons than for another reality of baseball during the Dave Dombrowski era:
Pitching wins.
The Tigers might or might not triumph on their latest big deal. Keith Law, a scout and former front-office executive I respect who works for ESPN -- and who knows all the players in detail -- believes the Tigers got the best of Tuesday's tentative trade, which sends Curtis Granderson to the New York Yankees and Edwin Jackson to the Arizona Diamondbacks.
But they paid a heavy price in that they are saying goodbye to Granderson. He was so popular with fans that not even an off-year at the plate could sour the community on an All-Star who could do amazing things for the Yankees.
His exit is bound to create a nasty backlash with Tigers fans, especially if the 2010 version of Tigers baseball isn't exactly an exercise in pennant contention.
Law’s analysis and the Tigers’ apparent sign-off on this trade has to do more with the two pitchers the Tigers got from Arizona, Max Scherzer, 25, and Daniel Schlereth, 23. They were first-round draft picks in 2007 and ’08, respectively, and are full of the Tigers’ pitching DNA: power-pitchers who will offer the Tigers more longevity due to their ages and limited time in the majors.
That's what put the Tigers in a bind on Jackson. He was two years from free agency. He had Scott Boras as his agent. Boras as a rule does not choose to do contract extensions in advance of free agency, which scared the Tigers to death in that they could end up losing a top-of-the-rotation right-hander with only a pair of draft picks as compensation.
So, they opted for replacing Jackson with Scherzer, and for bringing aboard Schlereth and Phil Coke as the essential bullpen arms they need to fill in for two free agents who seem headed elsewhere, Fernando Rodney and Brandon Lyon.
Jackson the X-factor
Austin Jackson is the X-factor in Tuesday's trade. He is 22, extremely athletic, fast, and will get a shot during spring training at becoming Granderson's replacement in center field and batting leadoff.
He also could prove to be frustrating. It's a matter of whether he can hit enough at the big-league level. And even if he hits, he will be no match for Granderson's power or extra-base prowess.
But back to pitching.
For the Tigers, it's everything. Pitching's magic is that it can defeat good hitting. And big payrolls.
That's now of special import to the Tigers.
They will begin adjusting to probably two-thirds, if that, of the payroll they flashed during the past two years. As those bad contracts Dombrowski somehow got into begin to wane, they won't come back. The money won't be there, at least in the foreseeable future.
And that won't be the worst thing that will happen to the Tigers. Far from it.
They showed during the past two years that money doesn't buy much but regret. It's better to go with more modest salaries. It's better to be younger. It's better to have that talented youth under club control -- meaning as far away as possible from free agency and arbitration.
And that's what the Tigers achieved in Tuesday's apparent deal.
They set themselves up to be something closer to a Minnesota Twins-style club. (Even the Tigers fans who hate the Twins love their ethic.) They also put themselves into position to do with the occasional expenditure what money in baseball is supposed to achieve: They'll be able in time to afford the extra piece that can put a younger, less experienced team with talent over the top.
At least that's the ideal the Tigers are now espousing.
Hope for the future?
Pitching will keep them in the game, regardless. If they sign Justin Verlander, as expected, to a long extension in 2010, they'll nail down the most important player on the roster, and the player who was most in their sights when they considered making these dramatic off-season deals on a par with Tuesday's swap.
They can turn to Rick Porcello, who, if healthy, will be Verlander's sidekick. They can work to make Scherzer a trustworthy, maybe more dependable, version of Jackson. They can stitch things together on the back end in 2010 knowing that a pair of dynamite left-handers, Casey Crosby and Andy Oliver, will be begging for a rotation seat in 2011.
And in the process they will be shedding all that badly spent money, cash that Tigers fans thought was just terrific when it was dished out to Carlos Guillen and others until the dangers of extending players long-term turned the fans into cynics, and made Dombrowski regret his nightmare off-season of 2007-08.
Tuesday's trade might eventually be viewed as an impressive step in the right direction for baseball in Detroit.
But check in next summer when Granderson is launching home runs at Yankee Stadium, when Jackson is rolling up more All-Star numbers with the Diamondbacks, and when Placido Polanco looks like just the jewel the Philadelphia Phillies were chasing.
Don't judge Tuesday's deal by 2010. Not in Detroit, anyway. Wait a couple of years for the better verdict.
© Copyright 2009 The Detroit News. |
