Tigers - Acquired Cabrera
Detroit Tigers - Acquired 3B
Miguel Cabrera and P
Dontrelle Willis from the Florida Marlins for OF
Cameron Maybin, P
Andrew Miller, P
Dallas Trahern, P
Eulogio de la Cruz, P
Burke Badenhop, and C
Mike Rabelo.
You just know that there's someone at Baseball America thinking "Thank God we didn't schedule the Tigers's Top 10 list earlier than we did." This is as good a demonstration as any of why building your farm systems isn't just for rebuilding teams - the Giants and Orioles would have a hard time pulling together a package that could get just Cabrera without bombing the franchise.
You have to give a lot of credit to Beinfest as he still makes great pickups even when everyone knows that his boss is one of the biggest Welfare Queens in American history. Cabrera instantly goes to the middle of the Tigers's already quality offense and Willis, even though he's not the pitcher he was a few years ago and is more of the D-Light Rail rather than a D-Train, should be a good #3/#4 guy. Maybin wasn't super-useful in Detroit with Granderson already in center and the Marlins have had serious issues at finding a centerfielder the last couple of years. Miller has a good shot to be better than Willis in the near future.
Thumbs-up to both GMs. Beinfest may have a AAAA team, but he's making it the best AAAA team it can be and Dombrowski shows that trading prospects and doing something dumb don't have to go hand-in-hand.
2008 ZiPS Projection - Miguel Cabrera
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AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI BB SO SB BA OBP SLG
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Projection 601 107 191 42 2 33 122 86 105 4 .319 .409 .556
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Opt. (15%) 601 117 199 43 2 37 131 93 100 6 .331 .424 .594
Pes. (15%) 469 66 134 25 0 18 77 53 93 2 .285 .361 .455
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Top Comps: Jim Ray Hart, Ron Santo
2008 ZiPS Projection - Dontrelle Willis
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W L G GS IP H ER HR BB SO ERA
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Projection 14 11 35 35 228 243 110 23 74 130 4.36
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Opt. (15%) 16 9 35 35 230 233 94 19 64 140 3.68
Pes. (15%) 9 11 29 29 185 210 108 25 70 100 5.27
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Top Comps: Mike Hampton, Paul Splittorff
2008 ZiPS Projection - Cameron Maybin
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AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI BB SO SB BA OBP SLG
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Projection 486 58 123 24 3 13 52 51 177 31 .253 .328 .395
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Opt. (15%) 559 79 157 32 7 18 85 69 185 46 .281 .364 .460
Pes. (15%) 417 39 93 17 1 7 41 37 168 19 .223 .288 .319
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Top Comps: Sammy Sosa, Ron Gant
2008 ZiPS Projection - Andrew Miller
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W L G GS IP H ER HR BB SO ERA
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Projection 10 12 35 29 174 175 90 20 87 158 4.66
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Opt. (15%) 15 10 39 32 200 180 80 16 82 198 3.60
Pes. (15%) 6 13 29 24 137 157 95 24 87 109 6.24
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Top Comps: Matt Keough, Pete Broberg
2008 ZiPS Projection - Dallas Trahern
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W L G GS IP H ER HR BB SO ERA
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Projection 9 12 30 30 183 209 104 21 67 98 5.11
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Opt. (15%) 13 10 33 33 211 218 96 18 59 132 4.09
Pes. (15%) 5 12 25 25 145 187 108 24 67 61 6.58
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Top Comps: Carl Scheib, Jim Slaton
2008 ZiPS Projection - Eulogio de la Cruz
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W L G GS IP H ER HR BB SO ERA
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Projection 7 9 54 17 151 163 80 16 65 106 4.77
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Opt. (15%) 11 7 59 19 173 166 72 13 64 140 3.75
Pes. (15%) 4 9 45 14 120 142 79 17 65 77 5.92
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Top Comps: Ken Hill, Bob Miller
2008 ZiPS Projection - Burke Badenhop
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W L G GS IP H ER HR BB SO ERA
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Projection 8 11 28 28 167 196 93 19 55 85 5.01
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Opt. (15%) 11 10 31 31 189 205 89 17 54 107 4.24
Pes. (15%) 5 10 23 23 134 172 90 20 52 59 6.04
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Top Comps: Johnny Kucks, Danny Cox
2008 ZiPS Projection - Mike Rabelo
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AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI BB SO SB BA OBP SLG
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Projection 298 29 74 19 2 5 28 18 68 1 .248 .301 .376
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Opt. (15%) 380 46 104 27 4 10 52 30 79 2 .274 .337 .445
Pes. (15%) 234 18 53 12 0 2 20 8 59 0 .226 .257 .303
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Top Comps: Tom Pagnozzi, Nelson Santovenia
Dan Szymborski
Posted: December 06, 2007 at 10:49 PM |
41 comment(s)
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Get your minds off baseball, folks.
Damn...
That optimistic projection looks nice. Miller's too.
Why, what happened?
Man sentenced in bizarre satellite diagnosing scam
Man sentenced in bizarre satellite diagnosing scam
Anyone dumb enough to fall for that deserve to lose their money.
Good.
Get your minds off baseball, folks.
Why do you think our minds are on baseball?
I'm going to assume this is a reaction to the horrible shooting in Omaha.
Dude, I don't know what point you think you are making, but it's because I have been following the news every damn day for over 30 years that I need to worry about something as ridiculous as baseball to keep from going insane with rage and sorrow. So shut up.
I'd trade a 90% chance of Ron Santo's career for, what, a 30% chance of Sosa's career everyday of the week. And thanks to do-gooders like Mitchell Maybin likely won't get the same, errr, boost that Sosa got mid-career.
Illitch and Dombrowski are my favourite GM/owner combo in baseball.
In other words, if you
1) had a player whom you knew was going hit and play 3B like Ron Santo
2) you would definitely trade that player for another who had little chance to be Sosa.
Really? Why?
Whoops. Other way 'round. I'd rather be pretty sure to have Santo than maybe have Sosa.
If the Tigers have really decided to play Cabrera and third and Renteria at short, I'm going to have a hard time characterizing Detroit's defense as "pretty good."
To me, Detroit has obviously added talent, but it seems like a poorly constructed team at the moment. Bad defense, bad bullpen, not overwhelming starting pitching. Maybe more moves are coming though...
I agree the '08 Tigers don't look as good defensively as the '06 Tigers. But I don't think they're bad.
Is 2008 Renteria a downgrade on 2006 Guillen? I'm not sure.
And Magglio did well in UZR this year, for what it's worth.
And Jones will help in the outfield even if it means losing Inge at third.
As for the pitching, Verlander and Bonderman are a good, young 1-2 punch. 3-5 should give 'em quality starts aplenty (even if they're rarely dominant unless Willis magically regains his form). The pen is a slight concern, but Rodney is solid, and Jones keeps doing what he does. (It really is a shame about Zumaya.)
Is there any talk about moving Guillen to third and Cabrera to first?
I also think Cabrera's defense will be much, much better this year.
I won't speak for Dan, but it would surprise me if that were the case. There are a lot of players in the minor leagues who strike out a lot.
Dan, if you see this, is ZIPS done entirely in Excel? If so, how big is the file? I'd imagine it's enormous.
I'm not Dan, but we discussed this a few times. Yes, it is done in one spreadsheet. Yes, it is enormous.
What takes up all the space? All the stats for the database of comparable players? I'm sure there's a lot of code, but as you well know it takes a long time to write enough code to use up 70mb of space.
To make a long story short, I'm never going to look at a probability density function again and go "Hey! That's platykurtic!"
I think it's comparable to the Halladay/Burnett/Pettitte trio.
and
had a player whom you knew was going hit and play 3B like Ron Santo
I think everyone would but let's clarify a couple things. Miguel Cabrera doesn't play 3B like Ron Santo. Santo won 5 gold gloves, Cabrera is probably a bad 1B (unless you actually believe BPro's defensive ratings which have Cabrera above average the last 2 years). Gary Sheffield, with less speed, might be a better overall comp for Cabrera (an awfully nice comp obviously).
The younger Sosa looked pretty good defensively to me and he added baserunning value (most of the time) and he does look like a pretty good overall comp for Maybin. That narrows the gap some between the Santo/Sosa comp.
I'll let Dan chime in but I'm guessing both the 90% and 30% guessimates are highly optimistic. Santo's post-24 career would be pretty sweet -- 1500 games, 131 OPS+ which includes his decline phase. Jim Ray Hart's post-24 career, not so much -- 124 OPS+ but just 649 games. I assume that's more a cautionary tale about the risk of injury than the risk of cliff-diving, but the chances that Cabrera stays healthy and productive for the next 10 seasons (i.e. Santo) are likely a good bit less than 90%. And yes, Maybin's chances of being Sosa seem less than 30% too.
Thirdly, the Marlins aren't of course trading a likely Santo for a longshot Sosa -- they're also getting several other players and several millions in salary reduction. Everybody would trade 30% Sosa for 90% Santo. But even limiting it to those two, it's 2 years of Santo (when Cabrera will be an FA) for 3+ years of potential Sosa and about $20 M over the next 2 years. That's still a good deal but it's a much different deal.
And then you add in the 1-2 years of Willis (saving $6-14 M ... I'm not sure when he's an FA) and getting back the 50% chance that Miller becomes Willis plus the 10% chance that Miller becomes Cole Hamels (?) plus the 10% chances that each of those other guys have of proving useful and the trade again starts to look different.
Of course, being the Marlins, by the time any of these guys get good, they'll be "expensive" and they'll get swapped for the next round of budget prospects who, by the time they get good, ...
You have Rogers ahead of Bonderman?
True. Cabrera's better than Sheffield was at the same age, though. (Not quite the same attitude problems, for one.) Hank Aaron shows up as Cabrera's most similar by age, and although that's a lot of pressure to put on the next 15-20 years of a guy's career, so far it fits. (Now if only the Tigers would put him in the outfield!)
Maybe. I like Sosa as a comp (the .280/.330/.520 Soriano-like Sosa before '98), but he wasn't providing positive offensive value until his age 24 season. That's 3-4 years away for Maybin if things go right. Cabrera is a superstar now. Besides, Granderson is their CF, and he's a darned good one. Maybin's glove is lessened in LF.
The thing to keep in mind is Detroit's window to win with the current core is the next 2 years. Cabrera and Willis both help fill that need now, and both are still young enough that if they're resigned they'll be valuable for the next 6-8 years. Good on the Marlins for getting quality and quantity, but I think it's a stellar trade for the Tigers.
Remember there was a time when only the Red Sox and Yankees would have the chutzpah to pull this sort of thing off? This ain't your father's MLB anymore.
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