Tony Paul @TonyPaul1984 After raises to Iggy and J.D., I figure #Tigers have $50M to spend this winter. That can get them Cespedes, good starter and two relievers.
Tony isn't considering the raises Miggy and VMart get. Although the roughly $10M they're saving this year covers that amount, if they so choose to account in that manner.
So MLBpipeline ranks all 6 guys we added in our top 15: Norris (1), Fulmer (5), Boyd (8), Cessa (9), Jones (13), Labourt (15) http://m.mlb.com/prospects/2015?list=det
I disagree strongly with the way they have some of the guys we already had. My top 15 prospects now would probably look something like: 1. Norris, LHP 2. Hill, OF 3. Fulmer, RHP 4. Burrows, RHP 5. Machado, SS 6. Moya, OF 7. Boyd, LHP 8. Jones, SS/OF 9. Ziomek, LHP 10. Farmer, RHP 11. Jimenez, RHP 12. Stewart, OF 13. Cessa, RHP 14. Turnbull, RHP 15. Shepherd, 3B
Six more innings to go. Tiger games are like NBA games. Everyone makes a run before it's over, and no lead is safe.
Both. We did as well as we were going to do with 3 rentals (and Soria hasn't pitched well). Our system was arguably the worst in the league entering this week, though. Especially at the AA and AAA levels. That was probably the best thing to happen with these deals, because all but Labourt were already in AA or AAA.
I agree with your list more than their list, but either way, nice to add 5-6 guys to our top 15. And holding Avila, Raja and the Fat Pasta helps us stay a little competitive.
All the guys we traded away the last couple of years would have made those levels respectable, so I'm glad we replaced them pretty well. We're still probably not a top 20 farm, but it definitely looks better than it did. Where do you think we'd rank now? That Soria trade still looks bad, and I'd rather have Ray than Greene and the two guys we got instead of Simon, but the Porcello for Fulmer, Cessa and Wilson move is alright.
I think we'll still be bottom 5 this offseason because Norris won't count as a prospect if he stays with us the last 2 months. At that point, we added some depth, but there still probably isn't a top 100 guy in the mix (Fulmer might be to some people, but he's a fringe guy in that group).
I don't mind that they kept Avila and Davis. They probably didn't want to expose the young guy they called up in LF (ended up being Collins) to facing LHP, so Davis makes sense. And Avila is good enough defensively to keep around if no one was offering much in return. I'm a bit surprised that Davis didn't seem to have much of a market, based on what DD was saying. Pasta can jump off a cliff. I don't need to see any more of him.
Simon better live it up now. He raped a chick at my buddy's bar so with morals like that he'll be headed the Evan Reed route shortly.
Oh, I hate Simon. But if he goes on a little steak again he'll save us 60 innings that would go to Boyd or Ryan getting beat up and the bullpen getting even more taxed.
I go back and forth on this one. I think it's probably best that Simon just takes the beating so the young guys don't, but the best case scenario for us would be Boyd coming up and at least giving the team reason to think he could be a #5 next year. After the way this season has gone in terms of all these young guys failing in every way imaginable, I can't see them going through an offseason with the mentality of "one of those young guys will figure it out and be our 5th starter" if they haven't seen them produce at this level yet.
This quote is from Jayson Stark on the Padres, who failed massively at selling. Thought it was interesting, and reminded me how nice is is that DD is pretty damn good at putting trades together (even if some don't work out) when you consider the amount of time he gave himself to do it.
I think with Norris already pushed into the rotation along with Buck Farmer, we'll get some Boyd starts soon enough. 2-3 decent starts at Toledo while Farmer is lighting gas fires in Detroit should get it done. Will be interesting to see if Fulmer pitches in Detroit in September ahead of next season; Lobstien figures into that 5th starter picture too, and he'll be back soon. Simon might also be useful pitching 4 innings at a time of mop up work.
Do you know if Fulmer is on the 40 man roster? I haven't seen if they had to put him on or not. If he is, I could see him getting a September call up to at least pitch out of the pen. If not, they could just leave him down the rest of the year to avoid having to cut someone else loose.
Dombrowski's quotes yesterday sure make it seem like he's coming back. He talked about the offseason plan like it's already being put in place. The main quote from it is basically a guarantee that they're signing a starter this offseason for the rotation. Seems like they could save two spots for some combination of Norris/Boyd/Fulmer/Farmer/Greene/others, though.
Samardzija seems like a solid target for us. He won't be at the top level of free agents, but he's very good and he probably wants the fuck out of the Cell. They have to really hope Norris is in the rotation, along with Verlander, Anibal and FA.
There are enough guys on the market this winter that at least one of them is going to go for lower than expected. You just have to hope that guy performs better than James Shields has to this point, as he was that guy last year. My current "below the top tier guys" target is Mat Latos. He won't have draft pick compensation, is still young, and really pitched well the last few months before this deal to LAD. I'm also really curious to know what the hell happened to Doug Fister since he left here. He had a really good ERA last year, but his K rate has gone into the tank, he's not throwing GBs anymore, and he has a total fWAR of 1.7 since the start of 2014. His velo is down 2.4 MPH from what it was two years ago.
I would love to see us beat up Gausman, setting up a less-than-stellar finish for him that would lead to us acquiring him in an Ian Kinsler deal this winter in my dreams.
I like Latos, if his recent stretch isn't a mirage. Fister has to be hurt, unless Jeff Jones and Avila deserve more credit. Porcello isn't getting ground balls anymore, either.
Brett Anderson on a short deal is intriguing. His health history doesn't warrant anything long term, but he's young and talented.
Kind of an interesting read on Fulmer's AA performance (through July 16) compared to the other studs the Mets have produced over the last 3-4 years. He compares really favorably to guys like Harvey, Wheeler, Sydergaard and others in most areas. I have no clue on whether the delivery and all that stuff will allow anything close to similar success moving up the ladder, but that pick-up seems to be very good. http://www.astrometsmind.com/2015/07/michael-fulmer-has-been-breaking-out.html
While I'm not saying his delivery is no worries, because I don't know what the issue with it is, but they smoothed out Max a bit and he's become a workhorse. I think our organization does a decent job of fixing flaws - Max, Austin's leg kick and JD's swing issues being three good examples. Now they can't seem to fix Alex at all, but damn those numbers from Fulmer justify excitement.
Only thing I've read about Fulmer's delivery is "it has some effort to it", but the question about how good his change up is seems to be the thing that would keep him out of a rotation more than the delivery based on what I've seen. Sounds like that's gotten better this year, though. Alex just has no bat speed, and there's not a ton you can do with a hitter who can't get around on fastballs in the strike zone.
Anibal has now given up at least 2 HR in 8 different starts this year. Prior to this season, Anibal hadn't given up 2 HR in a start since September 9, 2012. He gave up 13 HR total in 50 starts in 2013-14.
Tigers need to finish bottom 10 this year to keep their draft pick in 2016 (assuming they are going to sign a FA that received a QO)
Disagree. They need too many players to play really well to set up for next season. That's more important than keeping a first round pick next year if they sign a big FA. Among those players are: Verlander Sanchez Norris Castellanos McCann Gose Rondon
We are still going to lose a lot of games, even if the guys above play well. Only 2 games back from bottom 10 as it is
I think JD is better than last year, rather than seeing the regression that was reasonable to expect.
1B when VMart's contract is up and Miggy becomes the DH. He's not fast enough to play LF in Comerica and JD is hopefully locked into RF for a while.