Tigers - Acquire Laird, Jackson, Sign Everett
Detroit Tigers - Signed SS Adam Everett to a 1-year, $1 million contract; Acquired C Gerald Laird from the Texas Rangers for P Carlos Melo and P Guillermo Moscoso; Acquired P Edwin Jackson from the Tampa Bay Rays for OF Matt Joyce.
No flashy moves here, but these do collectively improve the Tigers chances of being competitive in 2009, though they’re not significantly positive moves for the long haul. The Tigers allowed too many runs last season and while Laird and Everett are very ordinary players, they’re both good defensively and aren’t replacing players that were doing all that much for the team offensively last year. Everett has been a Gold Glove-caliber defender at short, but given that he’s going to be 32 in February and has recent shoulder problems, it remains to be seen if he can maintain the amazing defense he needs to be a starter.
Jackson was useful for the first time in ages, but he was still the weak link in a Ray rotation that has 5 better starters and a deep stable of pitching prospects even after Jacob McGee’s Tommy John surgery. I still think he’s likely to end up in the bullpen, where his command issues will be less apparent. He could have a nice Alan Mills-type career and be pretty valuable.
Matt Joyce is a good pickup for the Rays in that the team was pretty deficient of OF prospects in the upper-levels. People shouldn’t get the idea that he’s established anywhere near the .831 OPS that he put up in the majors, but he finally hit in the minors after two disappointing seasons, in which he showed little advancement, dropped him off a lot of prospect lists.
Laird was simply the odd man out in Texas, who have good organizational depth at catcher, though a few of their catchers are more of the “catcher” variety.
ZiPS Projection - Edwin Jackson
————————————————————————————————-
W L G GS IP H ER HR BB SO ERA ERA+
————————————————————————————————-
2009 11 14 32 31 179 195 99 21 77 120 4.98 90
————————————————————————————————-
Top Comps: Don Aase, Ryan Dempster
ODDIBE
ERA %
Top 1/3 19
Mid 1/3 35
Bot 1/3 46
ERA+ % BB %
>150 1
<30 0
>
140 2 <40 4
>
130 3 <50 6
>
120 7 <60 19
>
110 16 <70 38
>
100 30 <80 62
>
90 50
>80 73 HR %
>70 92 <14 16
<20 41
K % <26 66
>179 1 <32 85
>159 7
>139 14
>119 39
ZiPS Projection - Adam Everett (SS)
—————————————————————————————————————-
AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI BB SO SB BA OBP SLG OPS+
—————————————————————————————————————-
2009 304 35 73 15 2 3 31 20 45 4 .240 .290 .332 64
—————————————————————————————————————-
Top Comps: John McDonald, Tim Bogar
ODDIBE
Offense %
STAR 1
AVG 7
REP LV 55
OPS+ % OBP % 3B % Hits %
>160 0 >.400 0 >10 0 >200 0
>140 0 >.375 0 >5 2 >150 0
>130 0 >.350 2
>120 0 >.325 13 2B %
>110 1 >.300 44 >45 0
>100 2 >30 0
>90 7
>80 20
>60 67
BA % SLG % HR % SB %
>.350 0 >.550 0 >50 0 >70 0
>.325 0 >.500 0 >40 0 >50 0
>.300 1 >.450 1 >30 0 >30 0
>.275 11 >.400 7 >20 0 >10 8
>.250 40 >.350 35 >10 2
(Based on Projected PA)
ZiPS Projection - Matt Joyce (RF)
—————————————————————————————————————-
AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI BB SO SB BA OBP SLG OPS+
—————————————————————————————————————-
2009 460 61 113 25 3 20 61 45 117 3 .246 .316 .443 101
—————————————————————————————————————-
Top Comps: Josh Kroeger, Roger Maris
ODDIBE
Offense %
STAR 13
AVG 27
REP LV 69
OPS+ % OBP % 3B % Hits %
>160 1 >.400 0 >10 1 >200 0
>140 5 >.375 1 >5 19 >150 0
>130 8 >.350 9
>120 16 >.325 36 2B %
>110 31 >.300 72 >45 2
>100 51 >30 22
>90 70
>80 85
>60 98
BA % SLG % HR % SB %
>.350 0 >.550 6 >50 0 >70 0
>.325 0 >.500 16 >40 2 >50 0
>.300 2 >.450 45 >30 8 >30 0
>.275 10 >.400 77 >20 51 >10 10
>.250 39 >.350 94 >10 94
(Based on Projected PA)
ZiPS Projection - Gerald Laird (C)
—————————————————————————————————————-
AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI BB SO SB BA OBP SLG OPS+
—————————————————————————————————————-
2009 340 49 85 19 1 7 36 24 70 3 .250 .306 .374 79
—————————————————————————————————————-
Top Comps: Mike Heath, Yorvit the Terrible
ODDIBE
Offense %
STAR 2
AVG 25
REP LV 81
OPS+ % OBP % 3B % Hits %
>160 0 >.400 0 >10 0 >200 0
>140 0 >.375 0 >5 0 >150 0
>130 0 >.350 4
>120 1 >.325 27 2B %
>110 3 >.300 65 >45 0
>100 10 >30 0
>90 25
>80 49
>60 88
BA % SLG % HR % SB %
>.350 0 >.550 0 >50 0 >70 0
>.325 0 >.500 1 >40 0 >50 0
>.300 1 >.450 5 >30 0 >30 0
>.275 16 >.400 26 >20 0 >10 0
>.250 50 >.350 71 >10 19
(Based on Projected PA)
Dan Szymborski
Posted: December 11, 2008 at 07:05 PM |
17 comment(s)
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1. Mark S. is bored Posted: December 11, 2008 at 07:34 PM (#3026416)Heh.
Some nice, low-risk moves by the Tigers. I'm still picking the Indians in the AL Central, although any team in the division that picks up significant talent at this point will be a contender in 2009.
Yep. Low-cost moves designed to improve run prevention. Not sure they'll work, but they make sense.
I see Trevor Hoffman signing a one-year deal to close for the Tigers.
I see Trevor Hoffman signing a one-year deal to close for the Tigers.
Link? Or just a hunch?
When I have time to do a baseball sim, I usually try to pick him up and have him fill out the bullpen or the minor league club.
GREG-0: Don't the Rangers still have 19 "star catchers" to trade for something?
BRIAN: Yeah, they haven't traded any of them yet.
GREG-O: They traded Laird, didn't they?
BRIAN: Yeah, but he's nothing special. I don't count him.
GREG-O: C'mon. He had a pretty good year last year.
BRIAN: He's a spare part. He wouldn't have caught more than 35 games for any of the eight playoff teams last year.
GREG-O: No, no, no. He was good last year. He'd have played.
BRIAN: Name one team from the eight playoff teams where he would have caught more than 35 games.
GREG-O: I think he's better than that Soto. Soto from the Cubs.
BRIAN: The National League Rookie of the Year.
GREG-O: Yeah, right now I'd take Laird over him. He's a better player right now.
It confuses me. Now I'm wondering if there's someone out there called Yorvit the Good, Yorvit the Adequate, or Yorvit the Not-Quite-As-Terrible-As-The-Other-Yorvit.
I'm guessing Brian is actually Brian Estridge, who actually has a clue about most sports (and is a decent-enough guy). Greg-O is Greg Williams, formerly half of the hottest sports talk show in DFW (The Hardline). At one point he actually did postgame for Rangers games...but I never got much of the vibe that he knew anything about baseball.
Just in case you're curious, here's something for you to read re: Greg Williams -- The Hard Lie
p.s. Suff - I was going to recommend that you stay away from The Ticket for your sports talk fix...until I realized that this was on ESPN radio...man, I'm glad I have XM these days...
Laird was probably better last year than Carlos Ruiz. He was probably better than Varitek and Kendall although he wouldn't have taken their jobs. And he might have platooned with AJ in Chicago and gotten to more than 35 games. Soto was, of course, actually the best starting catcher on one of the 8.
Yeah, the point was that one guy made a stupid assertion (that Laird was not in the class of any of the starting catchers for last year's playoff teams) and the other guy's choice as to who he was better than was the best of the bunch (with the possible exception of Martin). I assumed it was just because he couldn't think of any of the other guys' names.
I have turned on the Ticket a few times, but unless it's Norm H (and his grating voice), they never actually talk about sports. It's always "gay or not gay" or something inane like that. I really only listen to ESPN now. There used to be a Fox Sports station out of Cleburne that would play Jim Rome and then Chris Myers, and I usually listened to that. But then they went all-local for a couple of months, and now they're old-time country.
It has been rumored/speculated about in a few places--BPro for one--but it is just a hunch. Shapiro had talked about Hoffman a lot, so when Cleveland signed Wood, I thought that made Detroit the logical landing spot for Hoffman--they are looking at a 2009 push, and IMO Hoffman (I live in SD) will want a one-year deal if he has to relocate (and of course teams would want that length too).
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