What a steal for Detroit. Especially if Willis gets back to his All-star and near-Cy Young winning ways.

Actually, it's a steal ONLY if he gets back to those ways. It's a standard Carlos Silva-type contract if he doesn't.

Assuming Dontrelle can return even slightly to form, this IS a steal, since it's actually BELOW-market compared to the standard set by Meche, Silva, and Lohse. The switch to the AL works against him, but the vastly improved defense - my god were the Marlins ever butchers on the left side - could really help. Worst case he's still a better option than Chad Durbin or Mike Maroth.

Rotoworld hates this deal but I don't get them. Obviously the down-side is if his arm falls off - but even if he's an innings eater in 2010, 10 million is very reasonable. He also could still be a good pitcher, especially if last year was a down year, since he's very young (26).

He will also have a better defense...and who knows how the AL will take to his awkward delivery.

Actually, it's a steal ONLY if he gets back to those ways. It's a standard Carlos Silva-type contract if he doesn't.

And there's a very plausible chance that he'll never again be as good as Carlos Silva.

Willis 2005-06-07:

HR/9 = 0.41, 0.84, 1.27

BB/9 = 2.09, 3.35, 3.81

ERA+ = 151, 112, 83

It isn't the kind of trendline you really like to see.

If he had not signed this deal, how much of a raise could Willis realistically have expected after his 2007 Season? From 6.45 to 7 or 8 million, right? Then, if he even had a league average season in 2008, he would probaby get 9 or 10 in 2009, right? I'm figuring he would have made anywhere from a low of 16 million to a high of 18 million. So he's giving up his first year of free agency for about 12 million. He'll be 29 when the deal is over, and still be in position for a nice long 4-5 year deal worth 60 million at the least, unless he gets hurt or totally sucks...in which case he has still secured his family's future with this deal.

Not a bad position to be in at all.

This IS a steal, since it's actually BELOW-market compared to the standard set by Meche, Silva, and Lohse.

I agree. My only reservation is seeing how he does in AL. You can't beat this deal up when Gagne just got 1/10. Heck, even Dombrowski threw $7 mil at Todd Jones.

Short of Willis blowing up, I can't see how this isn't a good deal for the Tigers.

They basically had a 1 year deal with a team option for 2009, already, for about $20 million. They guaranteed 2009 and added 2010 for $10M. I think it's pretty meh in terms of value, but who knows what'll happen to the pitching market.

Great deal for the Tigers. Once he gets the Marlins ick off of him and gets used to pitching in front of a real major league defense, he'll bounce back somewhat. It is a bummer that he won't get to hit anymore though. Lousy DH rule.

It isn't the kind of trendline you really like to see.

An increase in homers, walks and ERA is exactly what I would expect to see from a guy pitching in front of a defense that has at least 4 players who are among the worst in the league at their positions (2nd, 3rd, SS and LF IIRC).

Unless (a) this extension included a no-trade clause; or (b) Willis arm falls off, I can't see how this is a bad contract for Detroit.

Heck, Detroit could sign Sabathia or Santana next year and trade Willis to the NL, and get back prospects for him....

Willis is what he is, a #3 SP... 4.00 to 4.50 ERA type. That is actually decent value for that.

Willis has never put up CY peripherals though, even his one really good year was driven by luck more than skill as he posted a 3.73 xERA. There is no reason to expect him to have a sub 4 ERA though he could sneak down there since ERA is so random and his funky delivery might throw people off the first time through the league. There is no reason to expect a 5 ERA either though.

Trends are misleading...

Giambi 1998-1999-2000-2001

Avg .295-.315-.333-.342
OBP .384-.422-.476-.477
SLG .489-.543-.647-.660
OPS+ 130-153-187-198

A four year trend that's even more pronounced than Willis'! I predict Giambi to have a 210 OPS+ in 2002.

Javier Lopez 1999-2000-2001-2002

Avg .317-.287-.267-.233
OBP .375-.337-.322-.299
SLG .533-.484-.425-.372
OPS+ 127-104-89-74

I sure hope the Braves weren't stupid enough to keep that bum around in 2003...

Tom Glavine 1991-1992-1993-1994

ERA+ 153-133-127-106
WHIP 1.095-1.187-1.362-1.470
CG 9-7-4-2

Another over-used young arm burning up fast. Damn that arm shredder Bobby Cox!

An increase in homers, walks and ERA is exactly what I would expect to see from a guy pitching in front of a defense that has at least 4 players who are among the worst in the league at their positions (2nd, 3rd, SS and LF IIRC).

An increase, sure. A tripling in HR rate and a near-doubling in walk rate over a 3-year period is more than a mere "increase."

BTW, I agree that it's a fair deal, and I'd have signed it if I were the Tigers. And there is a possibility that it will turn out to be a steal. Most likely he'll settle in as a league-average innings-eater type. But it's not realistic to dismiss the possibility that there's more wrong with Willis than simply a bad defense behind him, and that the Tigers will pay $29 million for 3 seasons of crap/DL/crap/DL.

Wait, CP... what exactly does your infield's defense have to do with how many home runs you give up?

Keith Law mentioned he thought this was a bad move for the Tigers because they should have at least waited to see if Willis can handle the AL. And he was skeptical that Willis would be worth $10+ in the final year of his contract.

poorer defense = fewer balls turned into outs = longer innings = more batters faced per inning = more opportunities for HR = more HR per inning = higher HR rate

Wait, CP... what exactly does your infield's defense have to do with how many home runs you give up?

I assume he means that worse defense = more hits allowed = more batters faced = more of all counting stats (though, with a more tired pitcher, therefore a greater chance of bad event counting stats, and possibly a higher rate per BF).

Trends are misleading...

As is anything if we want to play with selective cases and endpoints.

But in general, trends are the furthest thing from misleading, and it isn't sensible to pretend they're meaningless.

Wait, CP... what exactly does your infield's defense have to do with how many home runs you give up?

You stop trusting, so you nibble more, so you throw more balls so you end up throwing more get it over the plate type pitches which result in more HRs. After watching bad Jeter (01-03), Soriano and Giambi play together for three years, I am fairly confident this happens to some, particurlarly younger pitchers. Weaver was the most obvious example, but I think Lily struggled with it too when he came up.

Edit: and what Salvo and Josh said which maybe be a more pratical, objective way of phrasing what I think I saw.

If I can't count on my defense to catch the ball I would try and strike guys out. That means fastballs and it means HRs. There is also the possibility that Willis was just kind of tired of pitching in front of 250 people. Or that, gasp, he had a bad year.

He is three years younger than Silva, has a better ERA+, has way more upside and even with declining peripherals his K/IP blows the anemic Silva out of the water. I don't know that Detroit's defense will be all that much better, but I do think Dontrelle will be more into it, and I'm guessing the Tigers did their homework on his medical status.

3 years and 29 vs. 4 years and 40 for Silva is not even comparable. It's a steal. There is a chance that every contract can turn out bad. There is relatively little chance of this blowing up on the Tigers as compared to many notable deals of the recent past (Pavano, Wright, Burnett, Schmidt, Hampton, to name but a few).

Make it 4 and 48 for Silva. Ouch.

What a bunch of hokum. If Willis was trying to strike out more hitters, his fastball was not the way to go. And I wonder how long it took him to figure out that his little plan to spite those butchers wasn't working, as he didn't strike out any more hitters than he ever did. If he really was trying to strike people out to avoid his fielders (which would make him a dumb pitcher), his strikeout pitch is the slider, which might explain the walks, and possibly the HRs if he was hanging them.

Its a good contract for both sides. As a respectable number 3, neither side got stupid and I think his numbers will reflect that. I'm the #3 guy where I work, maybe I can negotiate for $10mil per...

The adjustment to AL hitting will be interesting though...any thoughts?

If Willis were still on the Marlins in 2008 I'm sure everyone would expect improvement upon the 5.17 ERA he posted in 2007. After all, the highest ERA of his career going into '07 was 3.87.

So, let's be negative and say in 2008 he'd have a 4.40 ERA in FLO...what does this equal in Detroit?

Well, according to Willis' page at B-Ref the NL lg ERA was 4.30, and the AL's (using Josh Becketts' page as a random example) was 4.74.

So, let's add .44 (4.74 - 4.30) to that 4.40 "off-the-top-of-my- head" projection above and he'd have a 4.84 ERA and probably throw over 200 IP.

If he did that for the duration of the contract...even though his age says he'll improve...he's easily worth 10 mill in today's market.

Wasn't part of that bad Marlins defense Miguel Cabrera at third? And if Edgar Renteria plays like he did in his truly terrible 2005 with the Red Sox, the defense behind Dontrelle will be almost as bad as last year.

And, are we sure that Dontrelle's numbers weren't also going south at an alarming rate because he was overused at a young age?

This seems like a really good deal, and I'm not even a big fan of Willis.

FWIW, I got to see him a couple of times late in the year... he simply didn't seem to have command, reduced velocity... just didn't seem like the same pitcher.

I was a huge Dontrelle fan- but I don't think Detroit will be happy with paying him nearly 10 million a year. It's NL to AL, and it isn't as if he's moving to a particularly good defense. I know you can make a decent argument for Dontrelle's future on ZIPS- all I can tell you is, he looked cooked when I saw him. I hope I'm wrong.

I don't care what the market is, 4.84 in any number of innings isn't worth $10 million. But while I dislike this contract and think Willis will suck, the league average ERAs on baseball-reference's player pages are park-adjusted. 4.30 wasn't the NL average, it was the the NL average adjusted for Joe Robbie Stadium; the same with 4.74 and Fenway Park.

Rotoworld hates this deal but I don't get them.

You realize that college (heck, high school) interns write the news blurbs for all those fantasy sites, right? You'd get the same level of analysis from the clerks at Blockbuster.

Willis will suck

Isn't it a little early for reverse jinxes, Vaux?

If it's such a great deal for the Tigers, and so under-market, why did Dontrelle agree to it? Maybe he knows his arm is toast?

I still think Willis should be in the NL. He's a good enough hitter that it provides additional value, I think MGL said it might be worth .30 runs of his ERA.

Carlos Gomez had an article on THT earlier this year where he discussed how Willis' delivery had significantly slowed over the past three years and conjectured that it could be at least part of the reason for his struggles. Any chance that maybe the Tigers know this and are going to try and get him back to just throwing the hell out of the ball like he used to?

Worst case he's still a better option than Chad Durbin or Mike Maroth.

Everyone posting in this thread is a better option than Mike Maroth. Most corpses, invertebrates and beverages are better options than Mike Maroth.

I still think Willis should be in the NL. He's a good enough hitter that it provides additional value, I think MGL said it might be worth .30 runs of his ERA.

Pitchers hit a 365 OPS last year in all of baseball, and Willis had a 639 career OPS (856 last year). He averages about 70 at-bats per year, or 2 per start, for him.

Here's Dontrelle's batting VORP per year:

2007: 14.7
2006: 7.1
2005: 10.6
2004: 5.1
2003: 6.5

If we give him 10 runs per year, that's a 0.45 difference in ERA per 200 IP (with a RS=RA).

My problem with this deal is that Detroit already had him locked up for 2 years. Extending pitchers before you have to seems like a really bad idea, see Carpenter, Chris. The risk of injury is just too high for ANY pitcher. I think that's why the Santana market is so tepid.

#39, I think the Santana situation is very different. There, the suitors are being asked to cough up two or three major-league-ready prospects in exchange for the right to sign Santana to a free-agent deal. It's not the premature extension that is the problem but the quantity of talent included in the deal in addition to the money.

My problem with this deal is that Detroit already had him locked up for 2 years. Extending pitchers before you have to seems like a really bad idea, see Carpenter, Chris. The risk of injury is just too high for ANY pitcher. I think that's why the Santana market is so tepid.

Even worse, they weren't locked in for 2009 yet.

Here's Dontrelle's batting VORP per year:

But who knows what sort of replacement level they are using for that? Actually, comparing a pitcher's offense to replacement level is a dumb idea in the first place, since they aren't selected for hitting skills. If NL Willis got hurt for the year, the replacement level pitchers would be expected to hit like an average pitcher. There is probably no difference at all in the batting abilities of major league pitchers, AAA pitchers, and maybe even rookie ball or college pitchers.

I checked Willis's numbers, MGL's figure of 0.30 runs is accurate. He's worth about 7 runs more per year than an average pitcher at the plate.

I think it's absurd to call this a "great deal" or a "steal" when he has yet to throw a pitch for Detroit.

And, as some others have pointed out, Detroit's infield defense figures to be pretty damn terrible this year (LF should see a lot of ground balls), so let's not pretend getting out of Florida is going to boost his numbers.

#39, I think the Santana situation is very different. There, the suitors are being asked to cough up two or three major-league-ready prospects in exchange for the right to sign Santana to a free-agent deal. It's not the premature extension that is the problem but the quantity of talent included in the deal in addition to the money.

In Santana's case I was referring to the injury risk being too high. I think it's the 6-7 year contract that really spooks most teams. Even Santana probably has a 30% chance of completely disintegrating in the first 3 years of that deal, leaving you with 3-4 un-insurable years where you're paying $20-25M per for absolutely nothing.

I think if Santana could be signed for a 4/90 extension, teams would part with the prospects.

And, as some others have pointed out, Detroit's infield defense figures to be pretty damn terrible this year (LF should see a lot of ground balls), so let's not pretend getting out of Florida is going to boost his numbers.

Same thirdbaseman (I can't understand why they don't put Guillen at third, but maybe Cabrera out of FLA will improve), a ten run improvement at SS, a 20-30 run improvement at 2nd and a former SS at first instead of a bad first baseman. They also have one of the best CFers and RFers in the league. Detroits defense isn't Toronto's, but they have three top tier defenders on their team and even where they aren't strong, they figure to be better then what Dontrelle was pitching in front of in Miami.

Remember when Willis was a ''better'' pitcher than Webb...

And it appears to be the going rate for an innings eater. Although he may repeat the last three years in the AL as hitters get used to his odd delivery.

Remember when Willis was a ''better'' pitcher than Webb...

And it appears to be the going rate for an innings eater. Although he may repeat the last three years in the AL as hitters get used to his odd delivery.

I want to thank the BWAA for voting Willis the 2003 ROY. While Willis is going to haul in 29 million over the next 3 years, Webb is signed for 12 million for the next two years with an option for 8.5 million for 2010, for a total 20.5 Million for the next 3 years. Of course within a year at the most the D Backs are going to have to rip up that contract and give Webb a contract similar to Jake Peavy.