By Jeff Moss
DetroitSportsRag@GMail.com
October 5, 2016
Let’s be clear about one thing. The Tigers and Red Wings are no longer under the control of Mike Ilitch. Due to a grave illness, Mike’s role with Olympia Entertainment is now basically non-existent.
After winning a power struggle with his sister (current University of Michigan regent Denise Ilitch) a few years back and being anointed the heir apparent to the family’s Pizza Empire by Mike and Marian, Chris Ilitch is clearly pulling the strings at Little Caesars HQ.
And Chris’ fingerprints are all over the news that Brad Ausmus is returning for a fourth season to manage the Tigers. Especially the decision to merely pick up Ausmus’ team option for year four instead of giving Ausmus a contract extension which would remove his lame duck status.
It’s incomprehensible that after three seasons of watching Ausmus manage the Tigers, ownership and the front office couldn’t make a definitive decision on surfer boy’s future.
I am not looking to relitigate the decision to bring Ausmus back, but only two options made sense:
- Firing him and starting fresh.
- Providing Ausmus with an extension of at least an additional year over and above the club option.
Instead, the team basically punted while insuring that the franchise would have to deal with ANOTHER season of uncertainty. I mean, you are basically telling your fanbase you don’t have enough faith in the manager to extend him. But hey, enjoy 2017, folks!!!!
So why did Al Avila only do the bare minimum when bringing back Ausmus? Well, based on what former DSR managing editor Justin Spiro told me on this week’s DSR Podcast, it’s because of Chris Ilitch’s edict that he doesn’t want to ever pay two managers at the same time.
That’s probably why Ausmus returned for a third season last year — when there were rampant INTERNAL rumors that Ausmus was gone — and it’s likely the reason Avila didn’t want to extend the former catcher, knowing that he would literally be stuck with him until that contract came off the books.
In fact, if Ausmus is the supposed hot commodity that Lynn Henning and Chris McCosky are trying to sell you on, he should have told Chris and Al to fuck off with their lukewarm one-year offer and tested the free-agent market.
But he is not. Because he isn’t.
And while I’d obviously much rather have Manny Acta, Gabe Kapler or Alex Cora at the helm of the Tigers, I honestly don’t think this decision is completely disastrous. The front office did give Ausmus notes on areas where he needed to improve last offseason and I believe he did — slightly.
If Jay Sartori and Sam Menzin could work with Ausmus on proper lineup construction over this offseason and the front office brass could somehow infuse a sense of urgency into the laid-back skipper, I would be somewhat content with the guy. Those are big “ifs” but I am not going to fret any longer over a decision that is out of my control.
(Maybe I am in denial, but giving myself an ulcer over Ausmus’ return isn’t exactly appetizing.)
What worries me A LOT more than the decision to give Ausmus a tad more rope with which to hang himself is an offseason without any input from Mike Ilitch. The thought of Chris calling the shots on the team’s budget is terrifying as we know what occurred the last time “Mr. I” was incapacitated.
Back in the fall of 2013, Mike was going through a health crisis (from which he eventually recovered) so it was Chris Ilitch who was making major executive decisions back then. Former GM Dave Dombrowski wanted to add free-agent closer Joe Nathan in an attempt to fix the team’s weak bullpen.
Dombrowski was given an edict from Chris Ilitch that if he wanted to add Nathan and his $9 million salary, DD would have to cut payroll elsewhere. That led to the disastrous trade sending Doug Fister to the Washington Nationals in exchange for a poor man’s Mike Aviles and two pitching prospects who weren’t ready to contribute to a contending team in 2014.
While I gave Dombrowski a lot of shit for the deal in which he acquired Robbie Ray, Ian Krol and Steve Lombardozzi, the current Red Sox GM would never have been in that position in the first place unless Chris Ilitch had put a gun to his head.
It was no coincidence that the day after the Fister deal, the team announced the signing of Nathan to that two-year contract.
Anyway, the thought of that ill-advised Fister deal still terrifies me to this day. You have to wonder if Avila is going to get a similar directive to slash payroll now that Mike Ilitch is no longer setting the budget.
Look, once Mike Ilitch dies, this team is not going to stay in that family for long. Hell, it would not shock me if, during the negotiations between Olympia and Tom Gores and Arn Tellem to bring the Pistons down to Little Caesars Arena, a discussion hasn’t commenced regarding the Pistons’ owner’s interest in adding the city’s baseball team to his portfolio.
The Tigers have always been Mike’s baby and Chris Ilitch isn’t going to keep this franchise one second longer than he has to. The only question is how much damage will he do while helming the ship. Could the Fister trade be a harbinger of things to come this winter?
Here is the deal. The Tigers have an excellent chance at contending in 2017 with the status quo. They don’t have to make any huge free-agent splash at all. The roster is pretty much set barring a drastic austerity program.
You could do a lot worse than a starting rotation of Justin Verlander, Michael Fulmer, Daniel Norris, Jordan Zimmermann and Matt Boyd.
That’s two Cy Young candidates from 2016, a rookie who showed during the second half of the season why he was once a top fifteen prospect in all of baseball, and a pretty decent fifth starter option in Boyd.
The big question mark is obviously Zimmermann but he is going to make $92 million over the next four seasons and one would have to hope that he will rebound from his injury-plagued debut season in Detroit. Nobody is expecting dominance from Zimmermann, but competence would be nice.
Give me a guarantee of a Zimmermann 2.5 WAR next season and I am all in.
If the team picks up their option on Cameron Maybin, the lineup is pretty much set as well. The addition of a capable backup catcher who can hit from the left side of the plate (a reunion with the son of the team’s GM would do) and a righty bat that can platoon with Steven Moya at the DH position when Victor Martinez inevitably loses all knee cartilage would suffice.
Even the bullpen MIGHT be adequate with Bruce Rondon looking like he FINALLY turned a physical and mental corner along with the likes of Justin Wilson, Alex Wilson, Shane Greene and, eventually, Joe Jiminez.
If Mike Ilitch weren’t at death’s door, you’d like to dream about a monstrous offer to someone like Aroldis Chapman. But since that’s not happening, the team might as well bring Francisco Rodriguez back for a $6 million team option since his buyout is $2 million anyway. K-Rod has his issues, but he is definitely worth $4 million.
The Tigers won 86 games in 2016 with very little injury luck and a full year of Fulmer and Norris in the rotation next season SHOULD help. There is no reason why a somewhat healthy 2017 version of this team couldn’t contend for the AL Central again.
Which is why a significant decrease in payroll would be an absolute tragedy. Between the promising young staff and Nick Castellanos’ development, and Verlander and Miguel Cabrera demonstrating that they aren’t going down the tubes anytime soon, 2016 was evidence that the window for this team is NOT CLOSED.
Chris Ilitch slamming the door shut on this era just to save a few million dollars for a family worth almost SIX BILLION dollars — in the midst of getting public funds for their new hockey arena — isn’t going to be a good look and he will rightfully be vilified by Detroit’s baseball fans.
And it’s not like any salary reduction is going to come through popular moves like getting rid of Anibal Sanchez, Mark Lowe or Mike Pelfrey. Those contracts are all unmovable so the bloodletting would have to come at the expense of Verlander, Ian Kinsler or J.D. Martinez.
And here is the thing. Dombrowski bit the bullet on the Fister fiasco and folks who are not familiar with this website or with Tony Paul’s Twitter account probably have zero clue that it was Chris’ fault for dealing away Fister for zero immediate assistance for a team that was a legit World Series contender.
If an order is made NOW and Kinsler or J.D. are dealt, EVERYONE is going to know the culprit. If Chris wants to play the role of heel over what amounts to a cup of coffee for you and me, he will be treated accordingly in this city.
The best way for Chris Ilitch to save face and not become a pariah is to keep the payroll where it’s at for the 2017 season and then put the franchise on the market the second his dad passes. There is no shortage of billionaires with Detroit ties (Gores, Dan Gilbert, Crazy Steve Ballmer) and maybe we’d hit the lottery and Mark Cuban would enter the bidding. Without Bud Selig around to cockblock him like he did a few years ago with Cuban’s Cubs interest, maybe that’s not a pie-in-the-sky dream.
But Chris is already going to have to endure the comparisons to his dad running the family business and if he decides to slash the payroll of the Tigers, his initial foray into the REAL public eye is going to be a black one.
Sit tight. Take the loss. And then sell the team, Chris.
Of course, the irony in all of this is Chris has been running the Wings for years now with little assistance from the old man. And while MANY fans of that organization — myself included — have been begging for a youth movement and budget-cutting with the city’s hockey team, Chris has refused to sign off and instead continues to desperately hold on to that pathetic playoff streak.
Chris Ilitch has given orders to Ken Holland to extend that meaningless streak for as long as possible even if it’s a detriment to the franchise’s future, which means Holland has been given orders to spend right up to the salary cap ceiling.
It would be our luck if Chris fucked up BOTH of his father’s teams for totally divergent reasons.
Ending any hope of the Tigers winning a World Series during the Verlander/Miggy era would be Chris Ilitch’s legacy if he orders a needless budgetary cut to further line his family’s coffers.
He’ll be Public Enemy #1.
I hope he is well aware of this.
(You can follow the writer of this piece on Twitter @JeffMossDSR. Also, you can join in on the discussion of this article on Facebook by clicking here.)
