The Tigers have lots of uncertainty with their lineup and rotation but they still have some interesting hurlers in their bullpen. That’s leading to a great deal of interest on the trade market, with Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic noting that the bull market for relievers so far this offseason has only added to the interest.
Back in July, MLBTR’s Steve Adams wrote about the many intriguing relievers that could make for interesting trade chips for Detroit. After the trade deadline came and went, they traded only one of them: impending free agent Michael Fulmer. Since then, they lost Wily Peralta and Andrew Chafin to free agency, the latter declining a player opt-out. But they still have plenty of talent back there, with Rosenthal listing Joe Jiménez, Gregory Soto and Alex Lange as some of the candidates, though there’s also Jason Foley, José Cisnero and Will Vest.
Trading from this group will likely be a balancing act for Scott Harris, the club’s new president of baseball operations. Subtracting talented arms from the roster will undoubtedly hurt the club’s chances at competing in the short term. However, the odds may be stacked against them anyway. The rotation will be without Casey Mize and Tarik Skubal for at least part of the year, as they are both coming off of surgeries that will keep them joining the club to start the season. Spencer Turnbull should be healthy but he missed all of 2022 recovering from Tommy John surgery and will be an unknown going into next year. The lineup will be looking for bouncebacks from Javier Báez, Jonathan Schoop, Austin Meadows and Akil Baddoo, while hoping that struggling youngsters like Riley Greene, Spencer Torkelson and Ryan Kreidler take steps forward. There’s a lot that needs to break right for short-term success and the club may think about sacrificing some of the present for the sake of the future.
If the club views their circumstances through this lens, each reliever will be a unique case when it comes to the calculus of considering a trade. Jiménez, for instance, has between five and six years of MLB service time. That means he’s slated for free agency one year from now. 2022 was his finest season to date, as he threw 56 2/3 innings with a 3.49 ERA, 33.3% strikeout rate, 5.6% walk rate and 33.1% ground ball rate. He might have actually been better than the ERA indicates, with his .328 BABIP well above league average. His 2.00 FIP, 2.90 xERA and 2.30 SIERA all suggest he was unlucky to have his ERA settle where it did. MLBTR contributor Matt Swartz projected him for a salary of just $2.6MM in his final pass through arbitration before reaching the open market. Cisnero is also just one year away from free agency, though he’s in the opposite position statistically. He posted a 1.08 ERA in 2022 but with a sky high 18.1% walk rate. A .242 BABIP kept him from really feeling the consequences of all those free passes. He’s projected for a $2.2MM salary next year.
Contracts for free agent relievers have been pricey so far, with Edwin Diaz getting $102MM for five years, Robert Suarez $46MM over five and Rafael Montero getting $34.5MM over three, making Jiménez and his modest salary quite appealing. From Detroit’s point of view, it might help them in the long run to turn their single year of control over Jiménez into prospects that can help them six or seven years down the line.
Where the calculus gets a little trickier is relievers who aren’t as close to the open market as Jiménez. Gregory Soto has just over three years of service time, meaning he’s not slated for free agency until after 2025. That means he’s much more likely to be able to help the Tigers to compete in the future but also means he could net a greater trade return. He posted a 3.28 ERA this year with a 22.8% strikeout rate and 48.1% ground ball rate, but a 12.9% walk rate. The control issue has long been present for him, as he’s never posted a walk rate below 12%. For reference, this year’s league average for relievers was 9.1%. Trading him would be somewhat akin to the Orioles moving on from Jorge López at this year’s deadline. Lopez had 2.5 years of control remaining at the time and netted the O’s four prospects, but also cost them a proven reliever who could have stayed with them down the stretch and for 2023 and 2024.
If the Tigers are willing to consider trading a pitcher with even more control, they have some options in Lange, Foley and Vest. All three of them have between one and two years of MLB service time, meaning they have five years of club control remaining. Lange had a 3.69 ERA in 63 1/3 innings this year, along with a 30.3% strikeout rate and 55.6% ground ball rate, though a high 11.4% walk rate. Foley tossed 60 1/3 frames with a 3.88 ERA, 16.8% strikeout rate, 4.3% walk rate and 57.1% ground ball rate. Vest got 63 innings of action with a 4.00 ERA, 23.2% strikeout rate, 8.1% walk rate and 49.7% ground ball rate. These guys have yet to reach arbitration and have years of cheap control, which makes them valuable to other teams but also potentially valuable to the Tigers as well.
As for the Orioles, Rosenthal mentions them as another team stacked with relievers that could garner trade interest. However, most of them are in the latter category of still having years of cheap control remaining and are thus less likely to be moved. Félix Bautista, for instance, is not on the table in trade talks.
Really would like them to re-sign Wily P. The guy has been great for the Tigs. Trade Soto & trade Jimenez
Hopefully they can find players with decent obp. Matthew Batten on the Padres is buried in the depths; and I believe would be a great low risk-low cost acquisition for this limbo club.
Get back Wily and definitely unload Soto.
Now after all these years the Tigers have a good bullpen they’re going to dismantle it..OMG will this organization ever get it right again???
As a fan, I have to give credit-where credit is due, Chris Fetter has been a heaven sent for this organization. They have some nasty talent in the pitching depths; unfortunately, they need to shore up the rest of the rag-tag mob.
Completely agree. Keep the pen together and address the other holes in the roster. Makes no sense to trash the one thing they have going for them.
Hey, I hate to see them destroy the one thing The Tigers do well, too….but WHO ELSE do we have that other clubs want? You have to trade from your STRENGTHS to address your WEAKNESSES ( in this case, Hitting)..
They have a ton of arms in the pipeline & very few hitters. Need to get the balance right.
you’re thinking like AA, risk adverse. Harris said you can’t be risk adverse and need to take calculated risks. Bottom line you can’t be afraid to deal from your strength if you want to improve. AA blew the markets on Boyd, Fulmer, and countless others, Harris will not. Trust the process.
Both adverse and averse are used to indicate opposition. Adverse, usually applied to things, often means “harmful” or “unfavorable” and is used in instances like “adverse effects from the medication.” Averse usually applies to people and means “having a feeling of distaste or dislike.” It is often used with to or from to describe someone having an aversion to something specific, such as “he is averse to taking risks” or “he is risk averse.”
@naldo
Avila did not blow the market on Boyd or Fulmer. Boyd received lowball offers and they intended to build around Fulmer. The plan was never to be in rebuild forever, and you can’t predict injuries. As to what Harris will do, that’s an unknown at this point. So far, he’s thinned their depth and bench, and really hasn’t replaced anyone with a better option. I hope you’re right.
He blew it for 7 years as GM and many more with the tigers. Bad trades,,free agent signings, trades, player development, etc etc
Absolutely, Avila was abysmal at signing FAs. As to player development, Detroit was a top 3 system ahead ago, before all of the prospects got called up. He was hit and miss on trades, but was handcuffed on the JV trade. He was limited to teams that JV would approve. His trade of his son to the Cubs was good, as was Greene to Atlanta.
Stymeedone, I think the Astros offered Alex Bregman for Boyd. It was before Bregman was MVP but I think the Tigers nixed the deal because they wanted MORE, and Bregman was a +++ prospect from Day 1 and a star from Day 1.
I don’t remember exactly. Longtime readers of MLBTR (or someone who knows better than me how to search for old stories). may correct or confirm this.
I wouldn’t say he messed up on Fulmer. That Gipson-Long kid had one bad outing at Erie, was otherwise very good.
Also, the return for Dirty Daniel Norris looks exceptional. Reese Olson has been lights out in the minors thus far.
Boyd was treated with great professionalism by the Tigers organization, much like Victor Martinez and Miguel Cabrera. I don’t know what was offered for Boyd in his prime, but it wasn’t Al’s fault he got hurt. I agreed with them non-tendering him. It was a gamble and only time will tell if he truly lost on that bet.
Given the volatility of relievers, shouldn’t they sell high on a few of them? A good bullpen doesn’t mean a whole lot when your offense and rotation is as bad as Detroit’s.
They should have dismantled it last year. Instead, you got nothing for Peralta and Chafin. Move Jackson while he still has good value.
Under Avila, Chafin was expected to opt in. That changed when Avila was fired. You don’t trade one of the most valuable commodities in baseball, because your team was racked with injuries this year. Evidently, Harris was too much of an unknown for comfort. Avila would not be tearing down. Harris seems to be. Chafin opted out.
IMO, he opted out because he had a very good year, and expected that he could do quite a bit better than his $6.5M option.
The Tigers have plenty of depth in the minors at P, and will for many years to come.
The issue always is what can you get in return. The best return for bullpen guys comes near the trade deadline, and unless they are elite, the return isn’t great. So sure, there probably is interest in some of our bulllpen guys. We also have some guys in the minors who could step up if we did trade someone. Plus, I have full faith in Fetter and Harris to identify some guys who could be had on the open market cheap and resurrect their careers. But none of that matters if we are not getting something useful in return. And a 40 FV minor league player or someone who profiles as a utility guy isn’t going to cut it.
If Harris can get a great trade, I would trade Soto, he walks to many men!
Soto to the Dodgers for at least of their young impact position player talents
like Miguel Vargas(3B/OF) Michael Busch (2B/OF or Andy Pages (OF).
SportsFan, I would do that trade for any of the three that you mentioned, but I don’t think that LA would. Those guys are all, generally, ranked in the top fifty prospects in baseball. I think we’d get a few prospects from the other team that’s in their top 10-15 range.
LA may do a deal for Turnbull and one of the relievers for multiple young players and high level prospects.
Don’t know if it would happen in the offseason or if they would get more value at the trade deadline.
These are some of the prospects that would interest the Tigers
in any blockbuster deal:
Diego Cartaya, C
Bobby Miller, RHP
Miguel Vargas, 3B/OF
Michael Busch, 2B/OF .
Andy Pages, OF
Ryan Pepiot RHP
2 or 3 from this list and others not on this list could be a competitive deal.
No. The rebuild is over….remember? No more trading for “prospects” as Harris is a NL guy and has little to no concept of the AL. If he’s the wonder boy Chris thinks he is, he can develop what is in the pipeline and snag a high-profile FA or take a flier on Bellinger.. Remember, Junior thought Hinch was all that and an order of fries and he’s turned out to be a disaster.
Zero chance Soto gets any of them.
@stancpa
Be careful what you post. “He walks to many men” has much a much different meaning than “He walks too many men.”
“much a much”?
Bundle, not bumble!
As for the Orioles, they only traded Lopez because they had Felix. Lopez had such great numbers((1.68 ERA, ,972 WHiP) up until the trade that you knew he would hit the wal and he did in Minnesota (4.37, 1.632). If Hyde has a weakness, it’s in handling the bullpen. Late in the season, he brought in Felix for a six out save and in their 8th, the Orioles put the game away. Felix still went out for the top of the 9th, when there was no reason to waste those pitches. Felix finished the game, but was unavailable, due to fatigue, for the next several days. The article says the Orioles are another team stacked with relievers, but most of those were waiver claims(Perez, Krehbiel, Baker, Voth, even Felix himself) and waiver claims do have a habit of proving why they were placed on waivers.
waiver claims do have a habit of proving why they were placed on waivers.
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Good management. Pick up an under-performer, turn him around a little, and trade him for value.
Fixed relievers are fixed relievers. Doesn’t matter how they were acquired.
Krehbiel is the only one who I don’t think is capable of performing well. I’d move him but the return would be very small.
The orioles could use another reliever in my opinion.
Of course everyone wants the tigers bullpen, they were ranked in the top 3 overall as a unit. Its comical though that these teams think they can get Alex Lange and all the other arms with 3+ years of control lol, Delusional.
I do see them offering up for trading Jiminez, Cisnero, and potentially Turnbull and Soto. Tigers need Power OFer, 3rd, 2nd, and SP.
Unless you can throw 95 mph, guru, Tigers aren’t trading Turnbull. Someone has to start! Otherwise, I agree.
I’ll come back here in several months when turnbull is traded then
Turnbull and Cisnero are coming off injuries and would be sell low candidates. And they wouldn’t need a 3B if Harris wasn’t quibbling over $2MM. Can’t wait to see how much additional it will cost to fill the hole he created. As to SP, they will have Turnbull, Rodriguez, Brieske, Manning, Faedo, and Wentz. Some depth could be added, but with the young pitchers, and players coming off injuries, do you really want to weaken the depth of the pen? Jimenez is gone in a year, so he’s movable. Keep the rest.
Remember when Randy Smith decided Travis Fryman was too expensive then overpaid for Dean Palmer. God, I hope we aren’t back in that boat.
Gage Workman looks like a bust to me.
Then again, maybe “bust” isn’t the right term since that suggests he was once actually a prospect. Did anyone else think he was a prospect besides the Tigers scouts?
Relief pitchers are like field goal kickers in football they can make all the difference but they can flame out real quick as well if there’s value then get what you can because the Tigers are not going to content for another 2 or 3 years.
Sounds like the Dave Dombrowski approach to bullpens.
Chafin, Peralta, Jimenez etc should have been dealt at the trade deadline.
They let 2 of those guys become free agents and got nothing in return?!
Teams were “low balling” Avila.
Scott Harris gets a “clean slate” and should get better returns on some of these relievers.
Avila’s trading strategies and returns was below average on some of these deals.
Greene for LHSP Joey Wentz (Atlanta) who has come back from Tommy John and had a 0.00 ERA
in the Arizona Fall league was a good deal by Avila.
The Tigers should only move one or more of these relievers if they can get young, impact position player talent in return.
Otherwise, there is no point in trading.
If Spencer Turnbull is healthy and back to top of the rotation stuff, then he would generate a huge return on players coming back. for him
I like Spencer too much. That would be a tough one to lose. I’m more hopeful on ERod and Baez kickin the rocks.
Love the tenacity and talent of Turbull and would not trade him unless
some team “blew them away” with a great offer that could fill many holes on the Tigers. Turnbull had even better stuff than Manning, Mize etc..
For example, Tigers would want a deal with a team with a deep farm system.
The Dodgers have loads of talent that could be a trading partner.
Turnbull and maybe one of the relievers would get a big return to the Tigers.
The Tigers would want back at least 2 players or more from this list as a center piece of any deal + more players
Diego Cartaya, C
Bobby Miller, RHP
Miguel Vargas, 3B/OF
Michael Busch, 2B/OF .
Andy Pages, OF
Ryan Pepiot RHP
Otherwise, the Tigers would pass on the deal.
They are done just giving away players for nothing in return.
Hand me the blasted phone…..
Hand me the blasted phone. I’ve studied Bob Barker extensively!
Alex Lange could develop into one of the best relievers in all of baseball. He can be absolutely unhittable at times. Watch the movement on his pitches! Command can be a bit of an issue, but he is that close to being unhittable. I don’t think any team will offer what it should take to pry Lange from the Tigers.
I absolutely agree. So underrated. He looks vicious out there. Maybe some of the statistical projections don’t agree- I don’t know; but he has to be passing everyone’s eye test.
Soto’s stuff is filthy, as well. He’d be better as a set up man. He doesn’t seem to have the confidence needed in a closer. His stuff is near unhittable.
Trading Jimenez could bring a solid prospect indeed. But it’s up in the air if his value is higher now or at the trade deadline. Anyway, with his good peripherals, Jimenez certainly will be coveted.
Since Cisnero is only under contract for next year as well, I see the general allure of trading him too. But unlike Jimenez, Cisnero does not have good peripherals; his age also decreases his value to some extent. I guess he starts with the Tigers.
Gruß,
BSHH
The Tigers maybe, maybe, have Riley Greene as a position player. That’s about it. Every other player has been a miscalculation by Al Avila or has floundered under his miscalculated coaching hires.
If another club has some spares around, Detroit has no option but to trade any arm they have for any bat/glove they can find. Step right up.
Do his “miscalculated coaching hires” include the manager?
After all, didn’t Hinch have a say in his coaching staff?
Agree with the miscalculated coaching hires. Great franchises are able to turn waiver wire players and post-hype prospects into everyday players or more.
When is the last time the Tigers did that? JD Martinez?
Players come to the Tigers and get worse. That needs to change. Let’s hope the new hitting coach team can change that.
The Tigers have Turnbull, Torkelson, Greene and many others in the pipeline that could surprise in the coming years if Scott Harris keeps them:
Kreidler, Pacheco, Keith, Dingler and more.
Better player development with the New Front Office
should move more of these guys up the developmental totem pole and to the majors.
They have some interesting players in the low minors that
need developmental assistance to maximize their production and success.
.The Tigers have a terrific nucleus and are only a part or two away from contending. They don’t have to make a single trade. See what they have in ST with a hitting coach, not a fool like Coolbaugh…who was really just acting on orders from the charlatan Hinch. The team has a nice blend of speed and power and the new rules banning the shift will show in the hitting. There’s a rumor that the fences are being moved in a little in right and left centerfield which will make the park wildly more fair to Tigers hitters. I look for Miggy to come to camp ready for his farewell tour…..he has another hundred games in him for sure.
I still have a little hope for Tork. When he came back up at the end of the year, he looked a lot better at the plate – although he still isn’t out of the woods yet there. His defense is very sound.
I also like Eric Haase as a PT catcher. We could do a lot worse at C than Haase (see Jake Rogers).
All the other positions are huge question marks – including Baez. I didn’t like the signing at the time and his disastrous season didn’t help. He seems to be a selfish player – more worried about old beefs with players and fans than playing the game the right way, i.e., advancing the runner vs. STRIKING OUT AGAIN.
Trade Lange back to the Cubs. p
They need to take a bad salary back and get a good player like Seattle did last year with Winker/Suarez. We should be targeting Berrios P/ Moreno C from Toronto for Soto, Jimenez and maybe Carpenter
Suarez was never getting paid enough to be considered a bad contract by anyone but Cinci. The Winker part didn’t work out too well for them, so maybe not the best example.
Suarez was considered a bad deal. Seattle gambled on a return to his 2019 form and it paid off.
Ward/Rendon might be an option, they just traded for Gio Irsulla
Perhaps the most annoying thing in nearly every article is this site ALWAYS puts such emphasis on BABIP, probably the most hit or miss “advanced” statistic imaginable(at least for pitchers). If a guy has success but in a way that seems the slightest bit suspicious (often because of biased ideas about the necessity of a high K/9, etc) BABIP Gods are immediately summoned and treated as MORE reliable than the other stats…when in reality it is little more than divination IMO. Every pitcher is run thru the BABIP, strand, exit-velo test. Strand-rate I can understand.And we then turn to the fip/sierra Gods. All this and the result is little more likely to be accurate than the dudes baseline stats. It’s overanalysis. But mainly I hate this BABIP stat. FIP is also a rediculously biased stat. Some of others are decent. I am not “old school”.
The irony is I always seem to attack the sabermetric stats while I myself use so many of them. It’s because it’s funny how many people don’t see that strict adherence to many of these biased stats and refusal (religious type hatred of “old school”?) to trust the most basic stats (of what actually occured-as if what actually occurs is LESS important…no balance here) is equally dogmatic and irrational. Like people who are SO atheist or overly intellectual fail to see how they are really in spirit exactly the same as the people they dislike….biased and low key hateful of the other side. Narcissistic. Shadow-projection. I see it in baseball and religion more than anywhere (except politics).
I must admit I ranted. I apologize. Not the place for all that.I think the Tigers should expect a fair amount of those underperformers to improve. First year on a new team is often unimpressive, for instance. And their division is currently weak. Don’t trade just to trade. Get something good. Teams are too willing to not try to win. I get it if you are getting good players but often relievers get you a weak return (people would rather overpay for them like Houston and the Mets did recently…joking). What a mixed message to sell relief arms after overpaying for free agents recently
Why not just wait til deadline on relievers?
Teams are too willing to not try to win.
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The other side of the coin is that some teams make a half-hearted attempt to win. Then they fail to win, fail to get younger, and fail to get cheaper
What are the chances of the Tigers even being .500?
Jimenez had a career 5.72 ERA before last year. What is the upside and downside of waiting?
Because relievers are a “what have you done for me lately” trade piece. They have good stats to look at currently. That may not be true halfway thru next year.
Were all hoping this Harris is smarter than the V.P. Harris, who did not even know our ally was the R.O.K. army boys. Harris got a gold mine in Detroit’s pen. Solid Gold, like the old C.K.L.W solid gold. The rest of the team is a .500 maybe, with that pen intact. Complete makeover needed.
The team was shut out, SHUT OUT, 20 times,, it ain’t the pitching that was the problem. He has a clean slate fan wise, there are no must keeps if he feels he needs to move them. Detroit loves baseball, build a winner, a regular winner, the stadium will be rocking. We like pitching, but we love hitting. We love speed, Detroit embraced Ron LeFlore, we loved that guy. If you get the hitter’s they will come. We’ve been dying for a Rod Carew, since Rod Carew. If you get them they will come, the fans that is.
I’m convinced that the most vocal adherents of advanced statistical methods have no interest or aptitude for math.
WTF do you mean, Darragh–help them six or seven years down the line??
That’s what I thought,.but I am trying to be nice.
I may be in the minority, but I don’t consider Chafin a big loss. He supposedly had what he wanted in Detroit and turned his back on the Tigers…..adios, hippie. Jiminez I’ve never cared for and he’s due for a bad year so let him have it elsewhere.. I’d resign Fulmer if he’s agreeable….not much more can go wrong with him physically and he and Fetter were on the same page. I also liked Willy Peralta…as a #5 starter. The rest of the rotation is in place other than Mize who I think quit on the Tigers to have TJ on a ligament that wasn’t torn to take two years off. I have no idea what Harris is up to…..other than firing Coolbaugh he hasn’t impressed me so far. What if any role a new GM will have under him looks pretty small. I’d imagine he’s going to pull a DD (just handed a 5 year extension in Philly) and be both the Pres and GM. I sure hope Hinch ain’t involved in any moves…..he’s not what many in Detroit believe he is and another horrendous start should be the end of his time there.