I didn’t get a chance to touch on this last night because I had left for the game when the news hit. The Tigers traded Denny Bautista for Pittsburgh minor leaguer Kyle Pearson. With Bautista DFA’d the Tigers had 10 days to find a home for him. In exchange they get AA right hander Pearson. The 2003 4th round pick has a below average strike out rate (5.74 K/9) and a middling walk rate (3.38 BB/9). He’s 23.
With little leverage the Tigers get little in return. For the Pirates they get a guy who could help them at a very low cost.
Of course the Tigers could have kept Bautista had they utilized the options on Freddy Dolsi, Zach Miner, or Casey Fossum (Fossum could have refused assignment). With Rodney’s health always in question and neither of the big guns having pitched at all this year, I would have preferred the wait and see approach and horded as much depth as possible.
A knee-jerk reaction, over-optimistic at the near simultaneous return of Rodney and Zumaya.
Amen, Billfer…
Giving away a guy who has shown flashes of great stuff, and has a 3.35-ish ERA just isn’t done.
But I have to believe and suspect that Dombrowski & Co. saw something they really didn’t like in Bautista’s stuff lately. Perhaps they’re far more deeply concerned about that tendonitis than they ever let on.
I’m guessing that they’re also quite worried about their starting pitching situation, and this may be an attempt to give them another iron in that fire.
14 walks and only 10 K’s in 19+ innings I think was the cause for concern. I wasn’t too impressed with him. Plus they still have Lopez in Toledo if they need someone, even though he is learning to be a starter he could still come up back in the pen if they want.