On this date five years ago, the Tigers agreed to terms with Jordan Zimmermann on a five-year, $110MM deal. The Wisconsin native expressed a preference to return to the Midwest after spending the first eight-plus years of his pro career in the Nationals’ organization.
At the time, Zimmermann looked a reliable bet to log #2 starter caliber production. Between 2013-15, the right-hander had tossed 614.2 innings of 3.19 ERA/3.27 FIP ball for Washington. He wasn’t overpowering, but Zimmermann threw a ton of strikes, avoided barrels, and punched out enough batters to become a high-end starter. If anything, the deal looked a bit team-friendly at the time of signing. Entering the offseason, MLBTR’s Tim Dierkes had projected Zimmermann to pull down $126MM over six years.
Unfortunately, things didn’t play out anywhere near as hoped. Zimmermann went on the injured list twice in 2016 and was limited to 105.1 innings of 4.87 ERA ball that first season. Things continued to trend down from there. Over the next three seasons, Zimmermann managed just a 5.80 ERA, with opposing hitters posting a .299/.339/.518 line against him. He missed almost all of this past season after being diagnosed with a forearm strain but finished the year healthy.
Zimmermann is now a free agent, and he’ll almost certainly have to work his way back onto a team’s roster via a minor-league deal. As of May, the 34-year-old said he had no interest in retiring any time soon.
Never a fan while he was in the D. Fell way short of expectations. Glad to see contract gone.
Probably one of the worst free agent signings ever. Tigers would probably like to time travel on this and make it never happen… It did look decent at the time though. He will probably have a hard time even finding a minor league deal at this point.
100% agreed.
Im curious if this is a common feeling among DC fans about Zimmermann? I don’t see how he felt short of expectations. Yes, he had some pretty high prospect status, but its not like he was Strasburg level or anywhere close in terms of that. And he was very consistent in DC, with 2 seasons of top 10 Cy Young finishes with the stats to back it. I always thought, watching him throughout his career until Detroit, that he was one of those guys who just knew how to pitch, not blow everything by the hitter.
No, Zimmermann is plenty popular here in DC. If anything this summary underplays his success by only giving his stat line from ’13-’15. He was also good in 2011 and borderline dominant in 2012 (ERA+ of 136). Seriously, for his last five years in DC he started 155 games with an ERA of 3.14. What kind of expectations did he NOT meet?
Thanks for helping clear that up Ted
I think throwing a no hitter went into some of the figuring on Detroit’s part. Signing looked great I thought at the time. Zimmerman fell of a cliff almost, Sad to see that happen to anyone. Especially with over 100 million on the line.
Money well spent…
Serenity now!
Haha name checks out
I wonder what happened to this guy. He went from All-Star in his 20s to terrible in his 30s. Maybe he’s just one of those guys who age catches up with really fast to compared to others.
He had neck surgery his first year in Detroit, and the effect on his game was disastrous. When he was able, he would show occasional flashes, but consistency never returned.
Oh he was plenty consistent. Consistently a dumpster fire!
That makes since. Neck injuries are debilitating. Chris Carpenter dealt with neck issues for many years in his pitching career. Missed whole seasons because of it and was the reason for his retirement.
Angels
Don’t the Angels only sign guys who are future TJ candidates? Zimm already had it.
Too healthy to pitch for the Angels.
How to throw 110 million down a drain 101
Should have paid Scherzer instead of this awful contract.
Zimmerman + Upton is more than Scherzer alone
I agree. They should have kept Scherzer.
Verlander, Scherzer, Price would have been a great 1 2 3.
Scherzer turned down a very good contract offer.
Max Scherzer really didn’t want to stay in DET.
Max Scherzer wanted a ring. Same as Verlander and Price. Those Detroit teams from 2010 till 2013 were the best team of that era to never win a world series.
Having that bum Jim Leyland didn’t help.
Guess you gotta be known for something, eh ?
Give it a rest already Scherzer was not going to sign with Detroit. There was not a money out there to sign Scherzer last time I checked Scherzer couldn’t hit and that was the Tigers big problem
Hitting was never Detroit’s problem. The problem was that Mr I was not going to pay Scherzer more than Verlander. Then, when he made what he thought was a good offer, Scherzer’s agent treated it like an insult. It then went public, got very ugly, and Mr I never offered another contract.
All evidence to the contrary hitting was the issue.
Great point!
He was ver good in Washington and was great for the first quarter of his first season in Detroit. Then his arm gave out. If it wasn’t Detroit it would have been someone else giving him a big contract at that time.
What are you talking about? He was good in Washington. He was never a top of the rotation type arm, but from 2011 to 2015, he had a 3.14 ERA, 3.30 FIP, 1.14 WHIP, 4.6% walk rate, .8 HR/9 and had an 18.5 fWAR.
What are YOU talking about? You just repeated what the guy said, he said he was very good in Washington.
Whoops, I thought it said he wasn’t very good.
mlb1225 stick to fudging numbers. My smartphone left off the “y” in very.
Get your eyes checked. For everyone’s sake. Twice tonight you’ve been caught misreading.
Alright, chill out. It was an honest mistake.
Two in a span of minutes. Just pointing it out.
I have no interest in retiring from baseball either, but then again, I’ve yet to make my Major League debut and never will.
THE IMAGINATION IS A POWERFUL THING!
He made Boyd the ace… sad. Even Sanchez was better lol
In retrospect if the Tigers could do it over again Zimmermann’s agent never gets a phone call. I don’t know what happened to Zimmermann in Detroit, he went from solid #3 in Washington to awful in Detroit.
Mike Fiers, Austin Romine and Jonathan Schoop are the only good free agents Al Avila signed to go along with 30+ busts since 2016.
Avila has signed only 19 FAs. Upton, Martin and his son were pretty good signings. You realize other than Upton and Zimmerman most of the signings were low budget rebuild reclamation projects, that were cost efficient.
I forgot about Leonys Martin… I don’t know where you get 19.
Glad that contract is finally over. One good thing Avila did was somehow get out from under that Upton contract. That was a houdini move.
I think your going to see him try very hard in getting a minor league deal with Milwaukee, he has made it clear in the last couple of years he wants to go home to Wisconsin. I say why not can’t hurt anything to let him be a non – roster invitee.
Did any of the big free agent signings from 2015-16 offseason pay off enough to be worth the money?
David Price (7/$217m) — 98 starts in 5 years; 10.4 WAR; good 46-24 record with 3.74 ERA when healthy, but can’t stay healthy; are 2 wins in 2018 WS worth $31m/year for 7 years?
Zack Greinke (6/207.5m) — 66-33; sub 3.50 ERA; 11.3 WAR; only okay in playoffs; can’t go deep into games; but Arizona was able to get some interesting prospects after only paying him for 3.5 years
Jason Heyward (8/$184m) — 90 OPS+ averaging 10 HR and 5 SBs as a corner outfielder; 8.4 WAR, over half from defense; are 2 GGs worth this money?
Chris Davis (7/$161m) — horrific signing; -3.3 WAR over last 5 years; only reason not worse is that he is a part-time player
Justin Upton (6/$132.8m)– 3 solid years; but now not at replacement level; Tigers smart to unload early
Johnny Cueto (6/$130m) — 82 starts in 5 years; good 32-20 with 3.75 ERA when healthy; at least cheaper than David Price
Jordan Zimmerman (5/$110m) — horrific 25-41 with 5.63 ERA over 97 starts
Jeff Samardzija (5/$90m) — when you sign a middling starter to a big contract, he is still a middling starter; career 97 ERA+ that has performed at 98 ERA+ with Giants
Yoenis Cespedes (3/$75m) — 1 good year full year in 2016 at $25m; opted out and Mets signed to a new 4/$110m deal that was a disaster
Alex Gordon (4/$72m) — couldn’t crack 100 OPS+; cheaper version of Jason Heyward; 3 GGs in the 4 years are nice; and at least he gave the Royals a bonus year to turn into 5/$76m, but still a 4.0 WAR over 5 years
Smartest signings appear to be Greinke and Upton bc original signing team unloaded at first opportunity.
Def thought this deal would have worked out better. I could see Zimmermann retiring this offseason.
Avila has signed only 19 FAs. Upton, Martin and his son were pretty good signings. You realize other than Upton and Zimmerman most of the signings were low budget rebuild reclamation projects, that were cost efficient.
Bad signing unfortunately. Should try to go to the NPB.
Zimmermann was the consensus No 2 free agent starting pitcher on the market when he signed with Detroit. So the deal was not outrageous at the time.
What makes no sense is the way that the Tigers shut down spending after that off season, even as they were making a final push for the playoffs that season. Once Mike Ilitch passed, the check book was closed and payroll has plunged every year. And that is when they went over the tax threshold, not on Dombrowski’s term.
That off season, Al Avila spent more money on free agents than Dombrowski spent in any off season, and he signed more bad free agent contracts in the span of three months than DD signed in his 15 years in Detroit. Zimm, Pelfrey, Lowe, Aviles- all busts. Upton was the possible exception, and he was traded for nothing except to unload payroll. (DD’s worst contracts were extensions)
One can not blame Zimmermann for taking the money, and he worked his tail off every year to get healthy and come back, but his contract was a complete bust. I have to question whether it prevented the Tigers from spending, though. It seems they weren’t going to spend anyway.
Sure, payroll couldn’t remain as high as it was, but the club could have turned a profit and kept a respectable team on the field. But that wasn’t the priority, and still isn’t.
Their billionaire dying owner wasn’t going to wait around and pushed for those signings. I’m not going to blame Avila on that.
Stop whining, no one knows the pain of bad signings and trades more than a die hard Mariner fan. No one. At least the Tigers won.
Jordan Zimmerman was a solid pitcher coming out of DC. The neck injury really messed him up. I remember reading something 2 years ago that he lost a good amount of velocity and his curve ball was especially lacking the spin rate he had in DC. Neck injuries are as bad as Oblique injuries, they linger if not properly rested.
I would be fine with Milwaukee giving him a chance. I don’t know if that is a idea in the Stearns agenda though.
I also missed Niko Goodwin.
The site you likely looked up only mentions 19 free agents. When I looked at the transaction log, I quit counting actual free agents after 80. That site excludes Casey McGahee, Alex Presley, Edward Mujica, Travis Wood, Brayan Pena, Pete Kozema, Zack Godley…. the list is large.
The Tigers attempt to find “lightning in a bottle wonders” with the intent to trade them away for medium prospects. They simultaneously fail to recognize that their scouting and player development systems are subpar. The Tigers waste a great deal of energy, take all the risk for the benefit for other teams and ultimately establish a motel culture.
Goodwin’s parents loved Above The Law.
Niko Goodrum…
Zimmerman came out of the gate his first year on fire…he was Dealing, DEALING! 2 Earned runs in his first 5 starts, total.. Couple more quality starts, then you start to see where he got hurt…7 ER in 3 starts, 6 ER in a couple more, short outings, then IR
Neck Injury.
Never the same guy again.
Tried, gotta give him credit for that, but man, he just didn’t have it ever again. Not even close.
2 months into a 5 yr deal for 110M. Ugh. Ouch. That is some serious Detroit Lions luck there….very disappointing, sad etc as a fan.
Hope he gets a chance to leave the game on his own terms.
I mean y’all are being dicks yea it was a terrible contact but he had a good run in D.C. you can’t blame the tigers for giving him the money they did they thought they were getting D.C. Zimm nobody knew he was going to be injury prone without a past of being that way