1. The trade was caused by overpaying Ordonez, Willis, Robertson, etc.

John Paul Morosi wrote an article on this and many people seem to agree, but the argument is extremely weak on many levels. The presumption seems to be the Tigers are under an NFL-style salary cap. What would 10 or 20M less in salary really change? Maybe you could add talent through payroll instead of through trade, but maybe thats not enough. Instead of crticizing DD for overpaying, lets give some credit to Illitch for being willing to overspend and attract marquee players to Detroit. We had a winner in ’06 and a contender last season….Back to my original point. The trade makes sense on many fronts. If you’re going to “blame” something, you can blame the teams failures last seasons, Granderson’s inability to hit lefties, EJax 2nd half fade, Granderson’s marketability making him more valuable as a team member than a baseball player, the mediocre farm system and talent development, etc. Writers and fans looking for a simple and easy answer (its money!) to explain this need to dig and think a little deeper. The Tigers had to get better for a lot of reasons and couldn’t keep pulling out the Illitch’s wallet to do it. Yes, some investments made painted the team into a corner with limited flexibility, but thats just one of many reasons why this trade went down.

2. Austin Jackson swings this deal.

Reallly? If Scherzer becomes a second ace to pair with JV, this isn’t a homerun trade for the Tigers? If Granderson becomes a mediocre hitting platoon player and EJax fades into NL mediocrity is this not a good trade? If Schlereth and Coke join Zumaya and Perry to form a dominant bullpen for years, this isn’t a good trade? The Tigers got 4 quality prospects. Deciding the trade hinges on one of them is preposterous.

3. Curtis Granderson will always be a Tiger.

I’ve said as much myself. Its natural to form attachment to players you spend a lot of time cheering for, especially over a long period of time. But as a few people have touched on, its completely irrational. Curtis is probably extremely happy about this opportunity. He’s getting promoted to the highest stage in baseball. It may not be great for you and me as Tiger fans, but our adoration doesn’t go both ways. This is worth remembering. Don’t shed tears for Curtis, because he isn’t shedding them for you. Nor should he.

Incoming players:

Max Scherzer: 25 yr-old right handed pitcher; 1.5 seasons in the majors. Strong fastball/strikeout pitcher. Weak point is control. I like his potential. A year younger than Edwin Jackson; hopefully he can step into his role.

Phil Coke: So-so left handed reliever. Not sure what to think. Fu Te-Ni and Bobby Seay are lefties. Perry, Zumaya, Dolsi are righties (assuming Zumaya is back).

Austin Jackson: 22 yr-old who batted .300 at AAA. His minor league stats are somewhat similar to Granderson although he’s moved up faster. More on Granderson later

Dan Schlereth: No clue. First round draft pick in 2008. Pushed to the majors in 2009 and did poorly – but jumped from AA where he had a 1.01 ERA in 20 games. Too early to say. Another lefty.

Outgoing players:

Curtis Granderson: Coming off his worst season – batting .249 (although with 30 homers). I’m actually not a huge Granderson fan. He’s struck out over 140 times 3 of the last 4 seasons with a peak of 170ish. He’s got a lot of speed – but trading in his BA for 30 HRs doesn’t help, IMO. In reality, Granderson is an average player who had one good season (2007) where he batted .300. I know he’s a fan favorite; but I think Jackson will be better in the long run.

Edwin Jackson: Coming off his best season (by far, IMO). Jackson had 3 full seasons in the majors with ERAs of 5.76, 4.42, and 3.62. This is a risk, if the 3.62 is for real. Scherzer has more power and pitched better at age 24 than Jackson did (that was Jackson’s 4.42 ERA year). Scherzer was, I think, 4.02 last year. My gut tells me that Scherzer’s fastball will make him a better risk in the long run.

So… on balance – I like the trade (sorry, Tigers fans). The Tigers get 4 players in exchange for 2. Scherzer has a slightly better chance of success than E. Jackson, IMO. A. Jackson has upside; Granderson doesn’t. And the Tigers get two lefties for the bullpen that may or may not help.

I used fangraph’s WAR numbers and projections to try and estimate some sort of balance among the players. Based on their projections, Granderson is worth about 5.1 wins next year, and EJax 2.3 for a total of 7.4 wins we’re giving up. Coming back we get Scherzer at 3.2 wins (there’s no projection for him so I conservatively guessed he will repeat his value of 2009. I think this is fair since he will improve some but is moving to a tougher league), but not much value for Coke and Schlereth since they are relievers. I pegged them at 0.2 and 0.5, respectively which might be aggressive. That gives a total of 3.9 wins coming back, leaving a deficit of 3.5 wins. This is the amount AJax would have to produce at in order to balance the trade in year one.

The only 3.5 WAR players last year were Nick Swisher and Jason Bay. Some 3.6 guys were Todd Helton, Nate McLouth and Nelson Cruz. Some 3.4 WAR players were Shane Victorino, David Wright, Juan Rivera, Brian Roberts, and….. Curtis Granderson (cosmic coincidence, no?).

Most of those guys have at least a decent amount of power, something that Jackson has not yet developed, so I would guess that for 2010, we probably come up a bit on the short end. Longer term, Jackson apparently has the potential to eclipse those guys in terms of production, and if he does, we might look back and call this a favorable trade for the Tigers.

I’m sure there’s a better way to do this, so I’d really like to see somebody else take a stab at it using whatever metric works best.

If the Tigers could have traded Robertson, Willis, Bonderman, Ordonez, Inge , etc they would have – but no other team is looking add overpaid underachievers – so the Tigers had to give up talent to get talent.

Now if last year Granderson had batted .349 instead of .249 and struck out only 40 times instead of 145 times last year – and batted .280 against left handed pitching, instead of the .180 he did, i could understand the outrage, but he didn’t.

For once the Tigers made a trade for their future and sold high, rather than waiting until there’s little or no value left in the player.

Hold off with all the b*tching until we see how this year plays out – and how the 6 players (the 4 new tigers and the two ex-tigers) produce in 2010 and 2011.

I think everyone here is overlooking the fact that his numbers have declined two straight years from his magical 07 campaign. Areas that have declined: Hits, doubles, AVE, OBP (almost), SLG and OPS. HR have increased a bit, as have his walks, but he still strikes out way to much, despite apparent strides away from that trend in 2008. Also, he has never hit lefties well, and with a .183/.245/.239 line against lefties in 2009 at the age of 29 next year, it isn’t like he hasn’t had time to work on it. How much longer would he be a valid option in center? And at what price? Personally, I think about 3-4 years, but with a much increased contract. And he would continue to throw away 200 at bats per season against lefties.

Why this trade is good for Grandy:
I think this trade can (and will) help his career immensely if he can handle playing in New York. I expect him to hit 30 HR and drive in 100 Runs in that matchbox of a stadium, especially with the short porch in right. Sitting a little lower in the order, around 5,6,7 slot should allow him to not need much better than a .260 AVE if he can continue to mash righties. The Yanks have that luxury that they can pay him good money to play mostly against righties and be productive. Plus, now that he has more spotlight hopefully he can win that Gold Glove he so deserves.

For your second question, I’m not sure what you mean or are trying to get at with that question. I never said that nobody knows how to rank prospects.

Lee

Lee

Steve

Other questions-
Did EJax’s comment about Run support mean anything?-
http://twitter.com/edwinjackson/status/2742217762

Is Granderson’s top priority now a reality show?