What leads the Free Press to publish this garbo? First of all, they spelled “targeting” in the headline wrong (as ‘targetting’). Second of all, they don’t even put an author to the story and simply call it a group effort. Really? It took the entire Free Press staff to put together a single line of (pseudo) substance and several lines of fluff? If I was on the Free Press staff, I wouldn’t be happy that my name was lumped in with this. I don’t know, maybe the Free Press is desperate during a down time for Tigers baseball or maybe they’re putting a lot of stock into Bleacher Report nowadays. I’m mostly knee jerkin’ at how vague and uninformative it is, so I’m going to do what they should have done and analyze it a little bit.
It received the attention of NBC’s Circling the Bases, who dismiss the “report,” but not entirely:
According to the Detroit Free Press, “reports have said” the Tigers are interested in having free agent second baseman Orlando Hudson replace Placido Polanco, who signed with Philadelphia last month
[snip, snip]
It’s an unlikely scenario anyway, as the Tigers have top prospect Scott Sizemore at the ready. Sizemore, who turns 24 on Monday, batted .308/.389/.500 with 17 home runs and 66 RBI between Double-A Erie and Triple-A Toledo last season. He underwent surgery to repair a fractured left ankle in October, but there have been no reported setbacks in his recovery.
[snip, snip]
It’s very possible that Hudson could find himself signing another one-year contract. If his price drops far enough, the Tigers can’t be dismissed entirely.
OK, on the surface, because the Tigers just lost Polanco to the Phillies, it doesn’t seem crazy. However, the Tigers just re-signed Adam Everett ($1.55 million) and Ramon Santiago ($1.25 million), and as the quote explains, they are expecting Scott Sizemore to take over at 2B for Polanco in the spring. Signing Hudson would essentially guarantee that Sizemore would be playing in the bus leagues in 2010 before receiving a chance (or the Tigers would have to decide and eat one of the contracts they just inked). Also, perhaps most notably, it would make the Tigers decision to not offer Polanco arbitration in the first place even dumber.
Hudson made $3.4 million with the Dodgers last season and I’m guessing, if he winds up signing another one-year deal, he’ll require something along those lines again. Polanco made $4.6 million last year and just signed a deal with the Phillies for three years worth $18 million ($5 million in 2010). It probably would have been worth the extra million or two it would have cost to keep him around, especially with the money that could have been saved by ending the Ramon Santiago, or the Everett, era. I don’t see the Tigers further admitting any mistakes by pursuing Hudson unless, as NBC suggests, his price drops far enough (Dombrowski has already admitted the mistake to not offer Polanco arbitration once and that was because they could have received a draft pick). To me, it would have to be a very significant drop off to the point it would be almost crazy not to offer him something. But I can’t think of any MLB egos that would be/have been willing to take a 60-70% pay cut for the love of the game.
Hudson is not bad, by any means. He’s been particularly healthy throughout his career, aside from a wrist injury in 2008 that prevented him from reaching 500 ABs for the first time in his career since his rookie season. He’s been to two All-Star Games (more than Polanco) and has four Gold Gloves (also more than Polanco). Their offensive numbers aren’t too different, although Hudson’s numbers drop off when you look at his AL numbers compared to his NL numbers (albeit it was earlier in his career) while Polanco has been steady in both leagues. Ultimately, it doesn’t really come down to the Tigers opinion as to what Hudson can bring to the team as a player; it just doesn’t make sense contractually and with the bodies they already have up the middle. I think if there is any truth to the Tigers mentioning Hudson, I think it was the Tigers simply throwing around names remaining on the FA list, someone heard it out of context, and they took it to the Freep.
In short, and making everything I’ve said moot, nothing to see here.
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