Surging Tigers Ready For Amateur Draft
PLUS: KUDOS TO KERSHAW ON HIS 3,000TH K
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Pregame Pepper
Did you know…
Never mind 300 wins: Justin Verlander is 0-7 with a 4.70 ERA in 15 starts since San Francisco squandered $15 million on his 42-year-old arm . . .
Stuck at 262 wins, Verlander has become trade bait for any team willing to take on an expensive two-month rental down the stretch . . .
When Lawrence Butler legged out an inside-the-park home run leading off for the A’s against beleaguered Atlanta rookie Didier Fuentes in Sacramento Tuesday night, it was the first time anyone did that since 1943 . . .
Former Cy Young Award winner Dallas Keuchel, 37, signed a minor-league deal with the Kansas City Royals after auditioning for multiple teams last week . . .
Dodgers DH and MVP contender Shohei Ohtani once went 0-for-8 in a 15-inning game against the Boston Red Sox . . .
Even with Kenley Jansen anchoring their relief corps, the Angels had the worst bullpen in the majors over the first half . . .
Speaking of bullpens, the Braves bolstered theirs by promoting 41-year-old Jesse Chavez again . . .
Erstwhile Phillies ace Aaron Nola tweaked his ankle at George M. Steinbrenner Field, the minor-league facility where the Yankees train but the Rays play home games . . .
In his first nine starts, Nola went 1-7 with a 6.16 ERA.
Leading Off
Detroit Tigers: It’s Draft Time Again
By Joe Underhill
Major League Baseball has been trying to make its draft more appealing to its fan base for years. It has moved when the draft takes place and now recently drafted players rarely get a chance to get their feet wet in their draft year.
They’ve shortened it too. In 1990, the Houston Astros drafted 100 players (no that is not a typo), decreased it to 50, then 40, and now 20.
The biggest challenge that MLB faces with the draft has nothing to do with its length or when it’s held; it has everything to do with the time it takes — usually multiple years — before a player is ready to contribute to the major-league club.
Every draft has busts and steals, but in sports like basketball, there are only 15 roster spots and an early drafted rookie is expected to be able to contribute immediately.
The NFL does its draft better than any other sport from the standpoint of making it a spectacle. It has a steeper learning curve than basketball but fans can expect to see a team’s top draft picks playing meaningful snaps to start the season.
In baseball, casual fans want a “draft grade” for their favorite team or want to know who “won or lost” the draft.
For a player drafted out of high school, it is not uncommon to spend three to five years playing in the relative obscurity of the minor leagues before carving out a career in the majors.
College players are usually a little faster, depending on their positions and how long they played in college.
All drafts require a few years of data to determine who evaluated talent well and who did not. For basketball and football, three years is plenty but baseball often needs five- to-seven years.
Baseball is a sport of failure; a 70% failure rate (.300 batting average) is considered an excellent hitter. The same applies to the draft; less than 20% of drafted players will make it to the majors at some point.
In honor of the upcoming draft, here are the 10 best players the Tigers have drafted and developed between 2010 and 2020 (the team drafted, signed, and promoted the player):
Looking at the first few years of draft picks it becomes clear why the team was stuck in a long rebuild. In addition to giving up a lot of first round picks (in the old compensation system), the team did not draft or develop well. Only four players have posted career WAR totals above 10 (granted it is still early in a number of these players careers).
Tarik Skubal (9th round 2018) leads all players with 15.9 WAR, followed by Nick Castellanos (1st round 2010) 13.6, Drew Smyly (2nd round 2010), and Riley Greene (1st round 2019).
Skubal’s fellow draft mates in 2018, Casey Mize (1st round, 4.9WAR) and Parker Meadows (2nd round, 3.3), have a very good chance to break the 10 WAR threshold, as does 2019 late round gem Kerry Carpenter (19th round, 5.5).
The 2020 class has three players who have their careers on track and look like they will be above average players. Spencer Torkelson (1st round, 1.2 WAR), Dillon Dingler (2nd round, 1.3 WAR), and Colt Keith (5th round, 2.2 WAR) are all key parts of the current Tigers team.
The current Tigers team is the best team in baseball with 11 of the 26 on the active roster drafted or signed as international free agents by the Tigers.
Good drafting and good waiver-wire acquiring are the keys to building depth that allows a team to build sustained success. In a few days, the Tigers will try to keep building that depth across their system.
Joe Underhill is a high school administrator and diehard baseball fan and fan of the city of Detroit. Joe currently writes for the HTP Newsletter. You can follow Joe on Twitter@TransplantedDet and @transplanteddet.bsky.social. His email is joe.underhill@auburn.org.
Cleaning Up
No Wonder His Surname Starts With a K
By Dan Schlossberg
With 300 Win Club ostensibly limited to the 24 existing members, can the 3000 Strikeout Club suffer the same fate?
Clayton Kershaw just vaulted over the plateau, joining Justin Verlander and Max Scherzer as the only active pitchers with at least 3000 strikeouts. Nobody else is even close — and five-man rotations coupled with pitch counts should keep it that way unless some team desperate for pitching brings Zack Greinke out of retirement.
Chris Sale, next on the strikeout list, is far away at 2,528 and has a long injury history.
Behind him are the injured Gerrit Cole (2,251) and the aging Charlie Morton (2,124) and Yu Darvish (2,007), the only other active pitchers with even 2,000 strikeouts.
Kershaw, the 20th man to join the elite group, needed only three strikeouts to cross the threshold.
Among the incumbent members are just three other lefties: Hall of Famers Steve Carlton, Randy Johnson, and CC Sabathia.
Along with Kershaw, Cooperstown denizens Walter Johnson and Bob Gibson are the only pitchers to notch all of their career strikeouts with one team.
Kershaw’s glittering resume includes three Cy Youngs, an MVP trophy, five ERA crowns, a Gold Glove, a World Series ring, and 11 All-Star selections. He also has a career earned run average of 2.52 — sensational by today’s standards.
At 37, he could have several productive years left.
HtP weekend editor Dan Schlossberg of Fair Lawn, NJ is covering the All-Star Game and Hall of Fame inductions this month while promoting his latest book, The New Baseball Bible. He’s signing July 26 in front of Willis Monie Books on Main Street in Cooperstown from 11-1. Dan’s email is ballauthor@gmail.com.
Timeless Trivia: the Wild Spending of the Mets
According to Joel Sherman of The New York Post, the Mets ($242.3 million), Dodgers ($387 million), and Yankees ($238.5 million) combined to spend $1.633 billion in free agency last winter while the other 27 clubs combined to spend $1.439 billion . . .
In the first four years of owning the Mets (2021-24), Steve Cohen spent $1.36 billion in payroll and luxury tax — topping the expenditures of the Marlins, Rays, and Pirates for the previous 21 seasons combined . . .
The AP reported that the Flushing club was the first to top the majors in payroll for three straight seasons since the Dodgers did it from 2014-17 . . .
Overall spending in baseball rose 1.8 per cent to $5.158 billion in 2024 alone and went up 27.3 per cent in three years under the current labor contract . . .
Mets outfielder Juan Soto has the largest and longest contract in baseball history: $765 million, plus incentives, over 15 seasons.
Know Your Editors
HERE’S THE PITCH is published daily except Sundays and holidays. Benjamin Chase [gopherben@gmail.com] handles the Monday issue with Dan Freedman [dfreedman@lionsgate.com] editing Tuesday and Jeff Kallman [easyace1955@outlook.com] at the helm Wednesday and Thursday. Original editor Dan Schlossberg [ballauthor@gmail.com], does the weekend editions on Friday and Saturday. Former editor Elizabeth Muratore [nymfan97@gmail.com] is now co-director [with Benjamin Chase and Jonathan Becker] of the Internet Baseball Writers Association of America, which publishes this newsletter and the annual ACTA book of the same name. Readers are encouraged to contribute comments, articles, and letters to the editor. HtP reserves the right to edit for brevity, clarity, and good taste.