By Jeff Moss
DetroitSportsRag@GMail.com
June 22, 2014
I am going to break at least three self-imposed DSR Main Page Article rules in the following post:
1] Treating Detroit Free Press columnist Drew Sharp like a credible sportswriter who is worthy of critique and not like the humungous pile of horse shit he actually is.
2] Calling a human being a troll.
3] Spending my time addressing the Doug Fister abomination of a trade. Again.
But a couple of weeks ago, this disingenuous piece of human debris who has carved a living out of trolling Detroit sports fans wrote something in a Freep chat so infuriating that I have to comment on it against my own better judgment.
For the record, I abhor the terms “hater” and “troll.” They are lazy words used by imbeciles to pigeonhole people they disagree with. I am not a hater or a troll because I believe Mike Trout is a better baseball player than Miguel Cabrera. I am just a high-functioning adult who understands the concepts of basic math.
Having said that, there are actual trolls out there — just not as many as you might think. Look, Skip Bayless is a troll; the only differences between that worthless ESPN talking head and Drew Sharp are skin pigmentation, annual salary, the lack of bitterness and a speech impediment problem.
Sharp has spent a career writing crap he doesn’t believe just to get a rise out of you folks so it is difficult to fully know when he is being serious. But I will take this comment in his recent chat at face value if only for the reason that it gives me an opportunity to bash this shithead while blasting Dave Dombrowski AGAIN for the historically awful Fister deal.
Here is the screen-grab from that chat. Try to ignore “Dr. Detroit’s” horrible grammar …
The Doug Fister deal remains “excellent.”
“It was a good trade.”
“Get over it.”
There is so much wrong with the above paragraph that I don’t even know where to begin.
As I have been posting on Twitter for the past few days, Dombrowski’s swap of Fister for Robbie Ray, Ian Krol and Steve Lombardozzi was bad the day it occurred. It was awful when the season started. It’s terrible now and it will continue to be gift that keeps on giving …… us herpes.
The “White Doug” deal makes Obama’s trade of five Taliban insurgents for a US military deserter look like …. well ….. Dombrowski’s ORIGINAL trade to bring Fister to Detroit in the first place.
If the 5 Taliban prisoners at Gitmo blow up the Freedom Tower and Berghdahl masterminds it, it will STILL be a better trade than Fister deal
— Jeff Moss (@JeffMossDSR) June 22, 2014
After last night’s eight-inning gem against the division rival Braves — he didn’t give up a run and only allowed five hits and one walk — Fister has an ERA of 2.65 ERA and WHIP of 1.04. His WAR of 1.4 puts him on a similar Wins Above Replacement trajectory as last year and will likely keep him in the top ten of most valuable starting pitchers in ALL OF BASEBALL in that category over the last three seasons.
I mean, the dude has walked SIX batters in 57 2/3 innings pitched, for Christ’s sake!!!!!
Of course, none of this even factors into why the trade was bad the day it was faxed into the league; none of this is hindsight. On the day the deal was consummated, it was clear that Dombrowski sent one of the most reliable starting pitchers in either league to the Nationals for a utility infielder; a lefty relief specialist who can’t get righties out; and an average lefty starting arm who MIGHT contribute in Detroit in 2016.
Seven months after the worst trade in Detroit sports history to not include Adam Oates was finalized, here is where we stand ….
Steve Lombardozzi has a 626 OPS and a WAR of MINUS POINT FIVE …. in Baltimore because he was dealt to the Orioles for Alex Gonzalez. And A-Gon was so terrible that he was A-GONE before the month of April was complete.
Krol has been mostly lousy this season and now is on the Disabled List with arm fatigue. He is somewhat functional versus lefties (714 OPS against) but (as predicted in this space in November) he can’t get righties out — they have a Barry Bonds-esque 1.120 OPS against him.
The only difference between Krol and Phil Coke is Ian doesn’t have a white trash wife named BobbieLou with store-bought tits and an 80s hairstyle.
Yet.
And after a quick start in both Toledo and Detroit, Robbie Ray has shown why ZERO credible scouts thought the lefty was a Top 100 prospect in the minor leagues.
His strikeout to walk ratio isn’t turning any heads in the International League and the kid has been garbage in June with a 6.08 ERA.
Of course, none of that really matters. We ALL knew that Dombrowski didn’t receive proper compensation for a valued commodity who, as of last fall, was still under team control for two more seasons.
[Sidebar: The most underreported part about Dombrowski’s haul was that he INSISTED on a starting pitcher as the centerpiece of the return. Remember the list of starting pitchers he showed Joe Nathan when I accused the GM of not doing his due diligence? Well, the Tigers’ TWO BEST prospects are both STARTERS!!! Jake Thomspon and Jonathon Crawford. The problem wasn’t that Dombrowski put Fister on the market; it was the shit sandwich he received in return. End of sidebar.]
Well, not EVERYONE thought the deal was a hot mess at the time. While the deal was panned by everyone from rival General Managers to Fangraphs to Keith Law, there were a handful of true believers who thought Dombrowski made a good move.
Coincidentally, they (Lynn Henning, Matthew B. [Aggressive] Mowery, Tom Gage, Chris Iott and John Lowe) all cover the Detroit Tigers for a living.
This Tweet goes in the Lynn Henning Hall of Fame right next to:
- His writing that the Tigers were 5-to-10 years away from competing in the AL Central. They were playing the Cardinals in the World Series within the year.
- His proclaiming that Joel Zumaya’s signing with the Minnesota Twins was the Hot Stove League steal of the winter. Zumaya never threw another pitch in the Major Leagues again.
2.65 ERA.
1.04 WHIP.
1.4 WAR.
Unless Fister was Bob Gibson in previous seasons, I don’t think those numbers represent much of a decline. At all.
And what the fuck was Sharp talking about when he wrote that the Fister deal had to be made so the Tigers could keep Max Scherzer? WHAT?!?!?!!?
If anything, the trade had jack squat to do with Scherzer and was forced on Dombrowski by Chris Ilitch because the GM wanted to bring in Joe Nathan for 2 years at $10 million per season. And how is that signing working out for us?!!?!?!?!?
An excellent trade.
Get over it.
We just like guys who used to play here.
As I stated earlier, Fister could win multiple Cy Youngs and lead the Nats to their first World Series and the trade STILL would not qualify as the worst in Detroit sports history — that will ALWAYS belong to Jimmy Devellano for the Oates/Paul MacLean swap for Bernie Federko and Tony McKegney.
The year after that monumentally horrid deal went down, Oates and MacLean combined for 169 points in St. Louis while Bernie and Tony accumulated 60 in Detroit (with McKegney only playing 14 total games as a Wing).
Federko retired after that ONE season with the Wings while Oates went on to rack up 1,221 points post-Detroit, which resulted with his induction into the Hockey Hall of Fame.
The big rumor when Oates was unceremoniously shipped out of Detroit for two decrepit has-beens was that the gifted center was fucking Denise Ilitch, one of the owner’s daughters. Mr. I was none too pleased.
On March 22, 1989, Bob Probert was arrested at the US/Windsor Tunnel for allegedly smuggling 14 grams of cocaine in his underwear. The speculation was that Oates and Denise were with Probert at the time.
And then three months later…POOF…Oates was gone.
So Denise Ilitch is the main suspect in the worst trade in Detroit sports history and Chris Ilitch most likely instructed Dombrowski that the Nathan signing couldn’t occur until Fister’s seven-million-dollar deal was off the books.
The two worst trades in Detroit sports history and Ilitch Kids have their fingerprints all over both of them.
Fuck, those two Ilitch offspring make Atanas’ executive producing work on the “Lost in Space” reboot starring Joey Tribbiani look like the work of Cecil B. DeMille.