By Jeff Moss
January 11, 2012
DetroitSportsRag@gmail.com
In the last decade the city of Boston has witnessed seven championships. In the last seven years EVERY single one of their four professional franchises has won a title.
In 2011, the fans of Detroit had one horrid basketball team, a hockey franchise that disappointingly lost in the Conference Semi-Finals, an NFL organization that exited in the first round while never defeating a team with a .500 record and ………
A Major League Baseball team that suffered a torturous elimination at the hands of the Texas Rangers in a season in which the Detroit Tigers could plausibly have won the World Series.
But if you read any column from the local sports media regarding the Year in Detroit Sports you would have guessed that 2011 in the Motor City took one giant shit over Beantown 2004.
Yet we didn’t win ANYTHING of any consequence. Like, at all.
And considering the absolute dick tease of a year we just lived through, I can’t handle another 366 days in which the city of Detroit doesn’t raise ONE banner to the rafters.
Look, the Wings will once AGAIN be considered one of a handful of legitimate Stanley Cup contenders.
The Lions will probably be considered a wise guy selection for the Super Bowl based on their continued improvement and their relatively soft 2012 schedule.
And the Tigers will be about 2-to-5 to win the pathetic AL Central thus earning them another chance to win their first World Series title since 1984.
Every single one of the Detroit franchises not owned by a hairy chested, Palestinian should have a “Win or Bust” mantra this year which leads me to the topic of this column.
The Tigers need to deal Jacob Turner. I am not saying they have to trade the 20-year old right hander for Matt Garza (although it wouldn’t bother me), but they have to go all-in immediately in an effort to win their first title in TWENTY-EIGHT FREAKING YEARS!!!
Here is the deal, if the Tigers trade a 20-year old prospect for a 28-year old proven commodity, they will NOT be sacrificing their future as that jackass Lynn Henning suggested in Tuesday’s Detroit News.
Let’s just say Dave Dombrowski can finalize a deal with Theo Epstein and the Tigers send Turner and a couple of other prospects not named Nick Castellanos to the Scrubs.
This would be the team’s pitching staff with their corresponding ages:
Justin Verlander – 28
Doug Fister – 27
Matt Garza – 28
Max Scherzer – 27
Rick Porcello – 23
How the fuck could a team with an average starting pitching staff age of 26.6 possibly mortgage their future with THIS proposed trade? A rotation, for the record, that would be considered the best in baseball. Not next year, not in three years, BUT RIGHT NOW.
And I love this discussion that something must be wrong with Garza since he has been traded by two teams and is about to get dealt by a third.
Umm, I have dissected Garza’s stats and this is what I have found:
1) In three seasons while pitching in the toughest division in baseball (AL East) he had an ERA of 3.70, 3.95 and 3.91.
2) In his last four seasons the guy has had an incredibly consistent WHIP of 1.24, 1.26, 1.25 and 1.26. While that number isn’t outstanding at least you know what you are getting.
3) He strikes people out. About one K per inning.
4) He is extremely durable. He has averaged 198 inning pitched in the last four seasons.
5) He is coming off a career best ERA of 3.32. And yes, he did pitch in the National League, but that issue is mitigated by the fact that his home games took place at WRIGLEY FUCKING FIELD.
If Jacob Turner put up those kind of stats in his first few years in the big leagues, would ANYONE be disappointed?
We all watched Turner’s two starts this year and I don’t think anyone would confuse his “stuff” with Verlander’s. If anything, Turner looked like a Porcello clone.
Here is the reality we are dealing with as Tigers fans and that lapdog morons like Henning are in denial about. The current roster basically consists of guys who are either in their prime (Miguel Cabrera, Victor Martinez, Jhonny Peralta, Jose Valverde, etc.) or who are young and just coming into their own (Brennan Boesch, Alex Avila, etc.)
And I don’t want to piss on anybody’s parade, but the Tigers farm system is a freaking joke. The far-off-future has ALREADY been mortgaged for the present and near future by Tigers management.
This occurred when the team signed V-Mart and Valverde as free-agents and forfeited first round draft picks in the process. It happened when Dombrowski pulled the trigger on the Fister deal.
To a lesser extent the Tigers strategy was exposed when DD sent a guy who could have been penciled in as their 2012 second baseman (Scott Sizemore) for a situational relief pitcher that is no longer in the team’s plans.
And if you had any doubt about Dombrowski’s financial priorities just take a look at the 2011 MLB Draft where he completely reversed form by selecting affordable players instead of going over Bud Selig’s slot recommendations like he did in the past with Porcello and Turner.
If you peruse Henning’s recent list of the team’s Top 50 prospects you would throw up your breakfast if the current roster wasn’t relatively young and coming off a 95-win season.
http://www.detroitnews.com/article/20111219/SPORTS0104/112190386
I mean, the organizations FOURTH best prospect is supposedly Casey Crosby. A 23-year old who already underwent Tommy John surgery. If “Soak Your Head” is to be believed, the franchise only has three kids better than a guy coming off a Double-A season in which he had a 4.10 ERA and a WHIP of 1.51!
And if that thought isn’t frightening enough, the Tigers sixth best prospect is Andy Oliver. When you are considered a POOR MAN’s version of Andrew Miller, that ain’t™ (Sparky Anderson) a good thing.
And you might want to hide your shoelaces and sharp knives before reviewing the stats of Henning’s fifth best Tigers prospect, Rob Brantly.
This 22-year old is a catcher who spent 2011 between West Michigan and Lakeland. Upon his promotion to Lakeland, Brantly hit .219 with a .239 OBP and a slugging percentage of .322 in 155 at-bats.
So, Tigers fans, the team’s SECOND best position prospect has Advanced Single-A stats that would make Gerald Laird barf.
And he is a CATCHER. A position that hopefully will be filled by Avila for the next decade anyway.
You can’t make this stuff up. And people like Henning are suggesting that the future already hasn’t been balloon mortgaged by Quicken Loans?
And here is one other thing to ponder when insisting that Dombrowski hold onto Turner like he is the Hope Diamond.
Every fall Tigers fans have to sit on pins and needles wondering what kind of payroll the team will have based on the financial commitment Mike Ilitch is willing to make.
During the summer, Ilitch will turn 83-years old. If you think we are absolutely clueless about the old man’s year-to-year payroll constraints, what do you think will occur when he dies and his kids take over his Pizza Empire?
That is why the idea of swapping Turner for an established player entering his prime doesn’t bother me. At. All.
Go get Garza, sign Yeonnis Cespedes for whatever it takes, trade either Boesch or Delmon Young for a third baseman, guarantee yourselves the AL Central and take your best shot in October.
And then rinse, repeat and do it all again in 2013. And 2014. And 2015.
It is a simple plan™ (Sam Raimi), but one that would ensure the organization’s competitiveness for the foreseeable future barring Denise Ilitch-Lites-Oates-Succubus getting her grubby little hands on the franchise in some sort of bizarre, Macedonian, King of the Ring Last Will and Testament battle.
I am sorry that I am not worried about the possible negative ramifications of a Turner-Garza deal for the year 2018.
If I am still on this side of the ground in six years, I’ll worry about it then.