Tigers Stocking Up On Middle Infielders
PLUS: AFTER DEALING STARS, METS OWNER BOOSTS INCOMING BUT UNTESTED KIDS
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Pregame Pepper
Did you know…
New playoff participants? Entering play this weekend, the Brewers were poised to make their fifth playoff appearance in six years. The Giants were on the verge of returning to postseason play after a 107-win record in 2021 and 81-81 campaign in 2022 and the Reds last made the postseason in 2020. In the American League, the Twins were AL Central champs in 2020 while the Orioles and Rangers -- the AL’s top seeds -- both last made the playoffs in 2016 . . .
Atlanta’s under-appreciated ace Max Fried has the best earned run average of any starting pitcher since 2020 . . .
Former Cy Young Award winner Dallas Keuchel, 35, is back in the big leagues, this time with the Minnesota Twins, after six quality starts in Triple-A, where he posted a 1.13 ERA, 21.2% strikeout rate, 9.1% walk rate and 61.5% ground ball rate . . .
In their quest for the AL Central title, the Twins kept prospective free-agent starters Kenta Maeda and Sonny Gray . . .
Credit Tampa Bay with a coup for stealing Cleveland starter Aaron Civale, who has a 2.34 ERA in 13 starts this season and 1.45 ERA in July . . .
If Seattle is serious about winning its first pennant since 2001, why did it dump closer Paul Sewald on Arizona for a leftover tunafish sandwich? . . .
The Marlins were so devoid of power (third-from-last in home runs) that they traded prized lefty pitching prospect Jake Eder to the White Sox for third baseman Jake Burger . . .
Mets reliever Adam Ottavino is a 13-year veteran who has never won a ring but intends to exercise his option to stick around next season . . .
All of a sudden, Acuña is the top Mets’ prospect. No, not Ronald, Jr. but his 21-year-old brother Luisangel, who has topped 40 steals in the minors three years in a row.
Leading Off
Detroit Tigers: How this Trade Deadline Points to the Future
By Joe Underhill
Well, that was anti-climactic. At least for fans of the Detroit Tigers who expected their team to be active at the trade deadline.
The Tigers had two of the better starting pitchers available in Michael Lorenzen and Edurado Rodriguez and also had solid relievers in Jose Cisnero and Chasen Shreve who, at least from the outside, should have been appealing to teams gearing up for a post-season run.
President of Baseball Operations Scott Harris has said he expects to compete for the playoffs next year, so he was maintaining an extremely high asking price for relievers like Alex Lange and Jason Foley. With all the pieces available, the only deal the Tigers ended up making was flipping Lorenzen, their lone All-Star representative, to the Philadelphia Phillies for infielder Hao-Yu Lee.
The scouting report on Lee reads like Harris’ preferred prospect: plays multiple positions defensively (3B, SS, 2B), controls the zone well with approximately a 19.4% strikeout rate along with a 10.4% walk rate. He also has some speed, having stolen 14 bases in 2022 and currently with14 steals in 17 attempts this year.
Lee won’t be a big power-hitter but should project to hit 10-15 home runs with 25-30 doubles. While Lee has played around the infield, most projections show his best position in the majors being second base.
Lee’s most likely future home is where the future of the Tigers gets very interesting.
Currently, per MLBpipline five of the Tigers’ Top 10 prospects now project to have second base as part of their profile, including top hitting prospects Colt Keith and Jace Jung.
The Tigers are really hoping Keith will be able to make third base work as his bat looks like it is just about ready to be tested against MLB pitching, but defense will be the real question.
Within their top 30 prospects, according to MLB, the Tigers currently have a seeming glut at second base. Keith (1) at AAA, Jung (2) at AA, Lee (6) at High A, with Wenceel Perez (9) also at AAA and Cristian Santana (10) at Low A. Outside of the top ten they also have Manuel Sequera (16), Luke Gold (18), Andre Lipcius (20), Eddys Leonard (22) and Danny Serretti (27), who all project to utility or second base as their future home.
Santana is the case in point for why having a third of top prospects at one position isn’t necessarily a bad thing.
Santana signed out of the Dominican Republic for $2.95 million in 2021 — still really early for a young man who is only 19 but hitting .167 with a strikeout rate for 31% is concerning. “Prospects” are called that for a reason, since the majority of prospects never make it to the major leagues. That means adding as much talent as possible and allowing the competition to sort it out is crucial.
The positional versatility that the Tigers are preaching and teaching at the minor- league levels and which manager AJ Hinch is utilizing with the big-league club will help some of these players contribute.
The other way the apparent glut will help is in future trades. If the Tigers find themselves with multiple middle-infield types who are blocked by better players, they can in turn be flipped for either more prospects, or for a MLB-ready player for a position of greater need.
While for many Tigers fans the trade deadline may not have brought the influx of talent many were hoping for, it has reinforced the type of players that the Tigers are seeking.
It has also shown that Harris won’t trade someone just for the sake of making a trade and, along with the MLB draft, reveals there are some promising players in the Detroit system.
Harris has said he expects to be a buyer at next year’s deadline and the glut of middle infielders may help him to do just that.
Joe Underhill is a high school administrator and diehard baseball fan and fan of the city of Detroit. Joe currently writes for www.tigstown.com. Follow Joe on Twitter@TransplantedDet.
Cleaning Up
Mets Make a Mess But Try to Clean Up Their Act
By Dan Schlossberg
Despite Steve Cohen’s promise that the prospects he acquired at the trade deadline will be the second coming of Murderer’s Row, history suggests that only one in five ever reaches the big leagues — with far fewer reaching stardom.
So fans of the stripped-down New York Mets should wait to celebrate the arrivals of shortstop Luisangel Acuña, younger brother of MVP favorite Ronald Acuña, Jr., and outfielders Drew Gilbert and Ryan Clifford, both obtained from Houston for Justin Verlander. And who knows what to make of catcher Ronald Hernandez or shortstop Marco Vargas, other kids imported during a trading frenzy that dumped six of the 26 men on the roster in a matter of days?
Fortunately for the Mets, Cohen has money and he’s willing to spend. That doesn’t mean he’ll be in the upcoming Shohei Ohtani sweepstakes but he could bring in less-expensive free agents with better futures that his recent aged imports.
Although the tabloid headlines heralded the trades of Verlander and co-ace Max Scherzer, both of whom waived their no-trade clauses to escape a sinking ship, the Mets couldn’t have made the deals without adding big bucks to the swaps.
The Astros, for example, got $35 million to help defray Verlander’s inflated salary and could get another $17.5 million if the pitcher’s 2025 option triggers. The Rangers got $22.95 million to help pay Scherzer, whose annual haul for this year — matching Verlander’s — will be a record $43.3 million.
Gone are the days when the Commissioner of Baseball voided Charlie Finley’s sales of Joe Rudi and Rollie Fingers from the Oakland A’s to the Boston Red Sox for $1 million each because he felt such sales violated “the best interests of baseball.”
Rob Manfred is not about the stop any machinations of ownership as long as the game continues to rake in record revenues. It did last year, topping $11 billion in income.
Cohen’s net worth approaches $20 billion (with a b), according to Forbes, and he’s also a fan of the team he owns. That’s why he allowed general manager Billy Eppler to run up his Opening Day payroll to a record $377 million, according to Cot’s Baseball Contracts. Even the second-ranked Yankees were shy of the $300 million mark.
But now the Mets actually have a chance to reverse their 101-61 record of last season and to top it off by crashing all the way to last place — just a year after finishing zero games out of first place (but losing the division after losing the season’s series to the Braves).
Sure, Pete Alonso, Brandon Nimmo, and Francisco Lindor are still there but clubhouse morale has gone out the window and fans who purchased tickets for late-season games will either boo their ballclub or boycott it. That is not what Buck Showalter bargained for when he came out of retirement to manage again.
The Mets figure to be a very young team next year and figure to need a younger, more patient manager. The name of ex-Met Carlos Beltran, who actually had the job for 77 days before the Houston World Series scandal broke, may be mentioned again.
At least some of the “baby Mets” added this year have shown promise. Francisco Alvarez, a power-hitting catcher, has improved his defense and third baseman Brett Baty, an offense-oriented third baseman, has fared well in the wake of the Eduardo Escobar trade. But the jury remains out on Mark Vientos, who hasn’t had much of an audition because he’s stuck behind Alonso, Baty, and the mystifying-retained rotund DH, Daniel Vogelbach.
These Mets aren’t going anywhere this year except home for the winter. But the owner’s promise to field a world champion within five years will still be valid for the next two years. All the Mets need to do is figure out how to get by their perpetual rivals, the Atlanta Braves. It won’t be easy.
Here’s The Pitch weekend editor Dan Schlossberg of Fair Lawn, NJ covers baseball for forbes.com, USA TODAY Sports Weekly, Sports Collectors Digest, Memories & Dreams, and other outlets. He’s also written 40 baseball books. Dan’s email is ballauthor@gmail.com.
Timeless Trivia
“It's like making a huge trade to get him back. He's been one of the top starting pitchers in the league for a while now. You miss a guy like that.”
— Braves manager Brian Snitker after ace left-hander Max Fried, out since May 5, threw six scoreless innings Friday at Wrigley Field in his return to the rotation
A 1952 Topps Mickey Mantle card sold for $12.6 million on Aug. 28, 2002 to become the most valuable piece of baseball memorabilia ever sold . . .
Hockey superstar Wayne Gretzky once paid $451,000 for a scarce 1910 Honus Wagner card . . .
The name of Hall of Fame pitcher Jim Kaat was once spelled “Katt” on a card . . .
Player fees for baseball card rights went from an initial $5 a year to more than $500 because of pressure from the late Players Association chief Marvin Miller . . .
Players also receive a percentage of Topps’ overall sales . . .
Baseball cards have also appeared in Japan, Cuba, Venezuela, Australia, Ireland, Mexico, and the United Kingdom.
Know Your Editors
HERE’S THE PITCH is published daily except Sundays and holidays. Benjamin Chase [gopherben@gmail.com] handles Monday and Tuesday editions, Elizabeth Muratore [nymfan97@gmail.com] does Wednesday and Thursday, and Dan Schlossberg [ballauthor@gmail.com] edits the weekend editions on Friday and Saturday. Readers are encouraged to contribute comments, articles, and letters to the editor. HTP reserves the right to edit for brevity, clarity, and good taste.