2023 Trade Deadline

[Longgone]

I don't get all this Rodriguez is a flake talk. He took time off to salvage his marriage, successfully it seems. That's good, no? I don't know all the details, and I don't need to know. The Tigers seemed fine with it and welcomed him back. Why is that not satisfactory?

I'm not too happy Detroit got ****ed at the trading deadline, but again, I dont have all the facts and motivations, so I'm not going to assign blame. **** happens.

[chasfh]

5 minutes ago, Tiger337 said:

Stacked with pitching? How many of those will make it through the end of next year without getting hurt? They seem to do a good job with pitchers but their overall run prevention is still 21st in MLB.   

I would also like to see them concentrate on position players, but the free agent market looker thinner in that area this off-season.  So, their best effort to try to be more competive next season is to add a pitcher. 

I don't know what they're going to do, and I have no recommendations for them. All I'm saying is that I would be floored if Scott Harris gives him extra years after he torpedoed a done deal that he was on board with throughout the entire process until the very end, and I would not be surprised if they do not pursue him if he opts out. If he does opt in, I will root for him to win until he is no longer with the team.

[RandyMarsh]

I want E-Rod to stay and have us pick up a solid depth/back end guy like how we viewed Lorenzen this past offseason so my ideal rotation next year would look something like 1. Skubal 2. E-Rod 3. Mize 4. Veteran FA 5. Manning  The depth pieces and/or swing men would be Olsen, Brieske, Madden, Turnbull and Faedo. 

[SeattleMike]

37 minutes ago, Tiger337 said:

Stacked with pitching? How many of those will make it through the end of next year without getting hurt? They seem to do a good job with pitchers but their overall run prevention is still 21st in MLB.   

I would also like to see them concentrate on position players, but the free agent market looker thinner in that area this off-season.  So, their best effort to try to be more competive next season is to add a pitcher. 

Is LOB% skill or luck? The Tigers are top 10 in WHIP. Top 5 in walks, average in K/9,  top half in hits allowed, average in HRs allowed. Every other team ranked in the top 10 in WHIP is among the league leaders in fewest runs allowed per game. By most metrics the Tigers defense is decent. In some really good, in others ok. The one metric where they really stink is in allowing men on base to score. They are 29th in LOB%. This says to me they been pretty unlucky. 

[Tenacious D]

I suspect he feels some sense of loyalty to the Tigers based on how they accommodated him last season.  I’ve never heard of a player taking an extended leave to resolve a family issue.  And that would never happen in any other job.

If he were a free agent and we could sign him for 4 years/$69M, we’d all be ecstatic.  Doesn’t seem to be a clubhouse problem and is still an elite pitcher.

[Tiger337]

33 minutes ago, SeattleMike said:

Is LOB% skill or luck? The Tigers are top 10 in WHIP. Top 5 in walks, average in K/9,  top half in hits allowed, average in HRs allowed. Every other team ranked in the top 10 in WHIP is among the league leaders in fewest runs allowed per game. By most metrics the Tigers defense is decent. In some really good, in others ok. The one metric where they really stink is in allowing men on base to score. They are 29th in LOB%. This says to me they been pretty unlucky. 

Good points.  yes, LOB% is largely luck.  Conversely BABIP looks lucky in the other direction.  FIP-, xFIP are about average. 

[gehringer_2]

1 hour ago, RatkoVarda said:

two would be better than just one.

Skubal - coming off major surgery; Manning - blah; Mize - coming off major surgery; Turnbull - coming off major surgery and blah; ERod - may be gone and weirdo.

Olson, Faedo, Madden, Flores, Hurter, Wentz - nice depth but who knows; really no one impactful until Jobe in 2025

Even they are all healthy, Skubal strikes me as the only one with Ace level stuff and you do have to wonder if his arm stays together. I'd put Mize as a solid #2 level guy. Unless his FB comes back better after the surgery I don't see #1 level in his future. Manning appears to be OK but middle of the rotation also. Turnbull could surprise to the upside. He didn't look good this year but he might once he has some innings in post TJ - just don't know with him. So I'd agree, enough arms but not necessarily a dominant staff without more help. They do have depth of back of the rotation depth with Faedo, Wentz, Brieske, Olson. The deep bench is nice.

[chasfh]

4 hours ago, SeattleMike said:

Is LOB% skill or luck? The Tigers are top 10 in WHIP. Top 5 in walks, average in K/9,  top half in hits allowed, average in HRs allowed. Every other team ranked in the top 10 in WHIP is among the league leaders in fewest runs allowed per game. By most metrics the Tigers defense is decent. In some really good, in others ok. The one metric where they really stink is in allowing men on base to score. They are 29th in LOB%. This says to me they been pretty unlucky. 

LOB% along with BABIP are the two elements that separate WAR and RA9-WAR for pitchers.

WAR is based on expected wins added based on FIP, which is based not on runs allowed, but expected runs allowed given his performance in those areas he's considered responsible for: walks and HBPs; strikeouts and infield fly balls; and homers allowed. These are the elements the pitcher is being held responsible for, and factors out base hits and baserunning.

On the other hand, RA9-WAR is like WAR, but it makes the pitcher responsible for the base hits and the baserunning—IOW, for the actual runs scored. That's why the two figures can be very different for the same pitcher.

I think of WAR as being forward-looking, along with FIP: based on how they have been pitching, for those areas they're responsible for, how are they likely to do in the future? If their WAR is a lot higher or lower than their RA9-WAR, they're probably running into a stretch of bad or good luck and, in most cases, are probably due for a correction.

Conversely, I think of RA9-WAR as backward-looking, along with ERA: how many runs did the pitcher actually give up on his watch? So when I want to use a WAR metric in thinking about who I think should win the Cy Young, for example, I look at RA9-WAR much more than WAR.

The best part is you can see how much the luck affects a pitcher by looking at their Fangraphs card, on which you can see not only WAR and RA9-WAR, but also BIP-Wins and LOB-Wins, and it's all beautifully additive.

Tarik Skubal is a great example of this. Here's what his card said for 2022:

You can see all the way toward the right that his WAR, based on FIP (2.9) is much higher than his RA9-WAR, based on runs allowed (1.8). if you look at his LOB% of 67.5 and his BABIP of .299 to the left of these, you can see Skubal has been somewhat unluckier than league average (.287 BABIP and 72.9% LOB%), so that led to him giving up more runs than he should have, were he luckier in these two areas. And so the math goes: 2.9 WAR plus -0.3 BIP-Wins plus -0.8 LOB-Wins = 1.8 RA9-WAR.

The takeaway here is that Skubal pitched much better in 2022 in the things he could control than his actual runs allowed showed, but for his bad luck in BABIP and LOB, and such luck usually—not always, but usually—evens out, we could expect him to get much better results going forward.

The drag part is that it's not happening in 2023 so far, either, because his WAR is 1.0 but his RA9-WAR is 0.2, so he's basically terribly "unlucky" this year as he was last year. But, theoretically, he should get better results going from here, assuming the LOB and BABIP luck even out. That's how it's supposed to work, anyway.

[holygoat]

9 hours ago, Shinzaki said:

Would you offer ERod that one year extension at 20 million if he opts in ?

I wouldn't offer E-Rod s**t.

[gehringer_2]

1 hour ago, chasfh said:

The drag part is that it's not happening in 2023 so far, either, because his WAR is 1.0 but his RA9-WAR is 0.2, so he's basically terribly "unlucky" this year as he was last year

I don't think there is much question he hasn't been unlucky when he's been hit this season, he hasn't been able to throw stikes. The episodes when his blreaking ball command has just disappeared have been almost painful to watch.

[Tiger337]

8 hours ago, Longgone said:

I don't get all this Rodriguez is a flake talk. He took time off to salvage his marriage, successfully it seems. That's good, no? I don't know all the details, and I don't need to know. The Tigers seemed fine with it and welcomed him back. Why is that not satisfactory?

I'm not too happy Detroit got ****ed at the trading deadline, but again, I dont have all the facts and motivations, so I'm not going to assign blame. **** happens.

I agree with this.  It seems a lot of people turned on him based on the article by Rosenthal.  I am still not clear on the timing of events there.  I don't know exactly what happened last year either.  

[chasfh]

I’m not so sure Eduardo Rodriguez should be given a pass for going incommunicado with the team for two months, and his agent doing so as well. I would think that the minimum either could do was to keep his employer, to which he presumably has a professional obligation, looped in to his status. Is that unreasonable to expect? I don’t know, you tell me.

In any event, the $64 question will be, will the Tigers be willing as an organization to put up with this kind of thing for the next four or five years? Because it doesn’t matter what we think or what we ourselves would put up with—it’s up to them to decide and deal with it. But it would be gobsmacking if they extend him for 5/100 or something, his acting out continues, and the organization pretends like they had no idea it could happen again.

[Longgone]

28 minutes ago, chasfh said:

I’m not so sure Eduardo Rodriguez should be given a pass for going incommunicado with the team for two months, and his agent doing so as well. I would think that the minimum either could do was to keep his employer, to which he presumably has a professional obligation, looped in to his status. Is that unreasonable to expect? I don’t know, you tell me.

I think you are reading way too much into what was likely a casually phrased response to a reporters question. All I believe they meant to convey is that they hadn't received any updates and there was nothing new to report. I don't believe they were conveying any angst or expressing any concerns with the process.

[microline133]

2 minutes ago, Longgone said:

I think you are reading way too much into what was likely a casually phrased response to a reporters question. All I believe they meant to convey is that they hadn't received any updates and there was nothing new to report. I don't believe they were conveying any angst or expressing any concerns with the process.

This is correct.

[chasfh]

3 minutes ago, Longgone said:

I think you are reading way too much into what was likely a casually phrased response to a reporters question. All I believe they meant to convey is that they hadn't received any updates and there was nothing new to report. I don't believe they were conveying any angst or expressing any concerns with the process.

 

 

[Jim Cowan]

Kenny Rosenthal predicted that trade of JD Martinez was imminent every month for 18 months before it occurred.   His version of events is no more credible than anyone else's. 

[holygoat]

2 hours ago, chasfh said:

 

 

I seem to remember some discussion about whether the Tigers had cause to cancel E-Rod's contract at the time.

[Tiger337]

1 hour ago, Jim Cowan said:

Kenny Rosenthal predicted that trade of JD Martinez was imminent every month for 18 months before it occurred.   His version of events is no more credible than anyone else's. 

I don't believe Rosenthal makes things up or that he is biased.  I think it's really difficult to predict trades with many owners being secretive and others floating stuff out there as decption.  That's why none of the reporters are good at forecasting trades.  

[mtutiger]

15 hours ago, holygoat said:

I seem to remember some discussion about whether the Tigers had cause to cancel E-Rod's contract at the time.

There was, although that seemed more speculation by the beat writers than anything vetted through a serious legal analysis.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: the Tigers know more about what happened than what any of us do. If they were fine letting him come back with no strings attached or were fine "giving him a pass", I'll defer to their judgment.

The bigger problem, IMO, is the poor communication that happened at the deadline. And as much as people can yammer on about "players rights" and all, in the real world, going back on a decision like that generally comes with long term consequences.

[chasfh]

5 hours ago, mtutiger said:

There was, although that seemed more speculation by the beat writers than anything vetted through a serious legal analysis.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: the Tigers know more about what happened than what any of us do. If they were fine letting him come back with no strings attached or were fine "giving him a pass", I'll defer to their judgment.

The bigger problem, IMO, is the poor communication that happened at the deadline. And as much as people can yammer on about "players rights" and all, in the real world, going back on a decision like that generally comes with long term consequences.

I have a feeling Scott Harris is not going to “give him a pass” on how the ghosting episode will affect what he decides re: Eduardo. I think Harris is going to accept whatever Eduardo’s decision is, whether to opt out or stick around. In either case, I will defer to Harris’s judgment. Another thing we don’t know is what conversations they will have in the meantime that may affect Eduardo’s decision.

Edited August 6, 2023 by chasfh

[SoCalTiger]

8 minutes ago, chasfh said:

I have a feeling Scott Harris is not going to “give him a pass” on how the ghosting episode will affect what he decides re: Eduardo. I think Harris is going to accept whatever Eduardo’s decision is, whether to opt out or stick around. In either case, I will defer to Harris’s judgment. Another thing we don’t know is what conversations they will have in the meantime that may affect Eduardo’s decision.

I’m guessing very little discussion. Erod knows damn well he left Harris out to dry and Harris is probably burned at himself for trusting him and his agent.  I agree with you it will play out and either way he will be gone before next season either via opt out or trade. 

 

i will be shocked he doesn’t opt out because he knows staying he knows he will end up in one of 20 locations not of his choosing. 
 

i don’t even  want to watch him pitch. Dead man walking. 

[chasfh]

3 minutes ago, SoCalTiger said:

I’m guessing very little discussion. Erod knows damn well he left Harris out to dry and Harris is probably burned at himself for trusting him and his agent.  I agree with you it will play out and either way he will be gone before next season either via opt out or trade. 

 

i will be shocked he doesn’t opt out because he knows staying he knows he will end up in one of 20 locations not of his choosing. 
 

i don’t even  want to watch him pitch. Dead man walking. 

This is not me saying what I personally want, but only laying out a potential outcome: it would not surprise me if, after Eduardo opts in, Harris trades him over the winter for less than market value, mainly to clear the atmosphere of any future influence Eduardo may have on other players, especially young guys, and as a way to communicate to others that this is what happens when you hang us out to dry or act out in public. If this does happen, Harris will get raked by a lot of the fans and media for it, but he will be unanimously supported inside the organization, because they have a mission and Eduardo will not be allowed to undermine it. I think this is comfortably within the range of outcomes.

[Tiger337]

1 hour ago, chasfh said:

This is not me saying what I personally want, but only laying out a potential outcome: it would not surprise me if, after Eduardo opts in, Harris trades him over the winter for less than market value, mainly to clear the atmosphere of any future influence Eduardo may have on other players, especially young guys, and as a way to communicate to others that this is what happens when you hang us out to dry or act out in public. If this does happen, Harris will get raked by a lot of the fans and media for it, but he will be unanimously supported inside the organization, because they have a mission and Eduardo will not be allowed to undermine it. I think this is comfortably within the range of outcomes.

If he does well the rest of the way, opts in and then gets traded for less than market value, I will be one of the people criticizing Harris.  

[chasfh]

Just now, Tiger337 said:

If he does well the rest of the way, opts in and then gets traded for less than market value, I will be one of the people criticizing Harris.  

You definitely won’t be alone!

[Tiger337]

3 minutes ago, chasfh said:

You definitely won’t be alone!

I also doubt that move would be unanimously supported within the organization.  Trading him at market value at the next trading deadline would be a different story.  Settling for less because you feel disrespected seems like a loser move.  

Ultimately, I think he'll opt out.