I’ve had a few hours to process the Nate Robertson trade to the Marlins (solidifying, for now, Bonderman and Willis’ spots in the rotation) while I was driving my fiance’s grandmother home from the airport. There’s nothing quite like alone time with grams to think about the upcoming Tigers’ season. And here’s my take on the latest significant roster moves in a little less than 1,400 words.
In the famous word (and accent) of Chuckie Sullivan, the Tigers’ 4th and 5th spot is “suspect,” at best. However, let’s concede that Bonderman always seemed like the logical choice for filling one of the spots, and dig right into how it really boiled down to Nate Robertson and Dontrelle Willis. There’s really no great argument for either one of them, but alas, one of them it must be.
And Nate Robertson it won’t be.
Nate Robertson was a fan favorite. He made it cool for little kids (and adults) to fill their mouths with cavities for the sake of a late Tigers’ rally with “Gum Time.” Until Inge recently, Robertson was the only player on the Tigers roster that makes Michigan his family’s permanent home. As a pitcher, he was durable. He had five consecutive seasons of 28+ starts and 165+ innings. You couldn’t ask for much more other than to keep opposing teams under five runs per nine innings, and Robertson did just that in four of those five seasons. In 2006, he had a career year with 13 wins and a 3.84 ERA; he also pitched well in two of three starts in the playoffs that year — the first playoff appearance for our beloved Detroit Tigers since 1987. He was pretty much everything you could possibly ask for in a fourth or fifth starter and best of all, it seemed like he was going to be a Tiger4lyfe.
Unfortunately, at some point before the 2008 season, that rubber arm must have been dipped in liquid nitrogen and frozen because it began to whither away faster than his fastball on a cold April’s day. In 2008, he struggled mightily, allowing the most runs in the league and compiling a 6.35 ERA. Remember that under-5.00 ERA threshold for a 5th starter? Yeah, well, a 6.35 ERA is unacceptable for any MLB pitcher. Yet, that contract extension in 2006 made him virtually immovable — nobody wants an aging pitcher coming off a 6.35 ERA season that has $17 million left on his contract. The Tigers were stuck with him for 2009 and that’s when his arm, and what seemed like every other limb on his body, officially disintegrated. He threw just 49+ innings in an injury riddled season that ended with groin surgery in November (ouch!).
Yes, Roberton was having a nice, little bounce back spring training (3.66 ERA and 19 K’s in 19.2 IP), but pushing 32-years old, beyond his prime, and with all those injuries lingering just a season ago, Robertson was a walker and a set of dentures shy of landing a rotation spot at Crandbrook Geriatric Village in Detroit. Ok, maybe not that old and worthless to a MLB pitching staff, but the point stands. Nate Robertson was maxed out like an Illitch Mastercard.
By trading him we fans no longer have to endure a season in which Robertson’s body can no longer keep up and as a result, his fastball inevitably rises cock-high like his ERA. The fans who once rooted him on would start calling for his head. (In fact, I’m willing to bet that a lot of fans will hate this trade because he was doing so well in meaningless Spring Training games, his history with the team, and because Dontrelle Willis will more than likely fail (“see, I told you so!” will then, undoubtedly, ensue, but I’ll get to Willis). It’s funny, because those are the same fans who were calling for his head these past couple seasons. But that’s fine, spring training elicits new hope and I’m okay with that, I guess).
It doesn’t take a sabermetrician to know that Robertson was having a better Spring than Dontrelle Willis and thus, at the measly $2 million cheaper, would be the easier guy to move via trade. So that’s exactly what the Tigers did. They cut the fat by pawning him off on the Marlins, the team that drafted him almost 11 years ago, received a prospy, Jay Voss, in return (who may or may not pan out) and got some meal money to go along with it ($400,000 of Robertson’s contract). Maybe Voss becomes the next Nate Robertson in the reliever variety, maybe he never pitches in the big leagues. The deal wasn’t about acquiring Voss (though, sure, it helps to get something in return unlike Sheffield last season — Robertson’s time in Detroit was much more valuable than Sheffield’s, too). It wasn’t about freeing up some chump change, either. It was about unleashing Robertson to give him another shot elsewhere and more importantly, what I think was the crux of the deal, allow the Tigers some wiggle room.
And that brings me to Dontrelle Willis and his uber-claustrophobic $12 million contract. In Detroit’s defense, the 3-year, $29 million deal before he ever threw a single pitch in Detroit is not so bad when you think about who Willis was lumped together with when he came to Detroit — Miguel Cabrera. I’m satisfied writing all this money off to Cabrera, and I’m sure it was a classic mixup of the Tigers accidentally giving the no-look allowance handouts, similar to Lloyd Christmas tipping all his helpers and accidentally handing Harry a wad of dough because he was so caught up in the moment.
No other team in the MLB in their right mind would want Willis and his erratic pitching, so it was either stick with him or cut him for absolutely nothing in return, exactly like Sheffield last season. Considering Willis is showing slight signs of being a real pitcher, it doesn’t surprise me that the Tigers decided to get what they could out of the better of the two and give Willis another crack at actually being relatively useful in a Tigers uniform. For all the money he’s made for doing nothing but being bad (which I could have easily done without the anxiety disorder), I don’t mind the Tigers giving him one last crack. And while his K:BB ratio was worse than Robertson’s this spring, he did finish with the upper hand with a 3.26 ERA, even after today’s poor performance (5 ER in 4.1 IP). Also keep in mind that Willis is also a fan favorite (when he’s actually pitching) and he’s only 28-years old, the same age Robertson was in 2006 when he was a more than serviceable 5th starter en route to a Tigers World Series berth.
Now, I’m not saying Willis is going to return to his 2003 (Rookie of the Year) or 2005 (Cy Young votes) form, but like I said, after battling through some issues and having a respectable spring, it won’t cripple the Tigers to give him another shot, especially when it was a choice between him and Robertson. It wasn’t like they were picking Willis over Porcello or Scherzer here. It was like going to Blockbuster and deciding between Titanic and The Notebook. Unfortunately, Rocky was never even a choice.
I do hope Willis can finish a season with an ERA under 5.00, win a handful of games, and eat innings as is required of a 5th starter, but if my hunch is correct we’ll see plenty of spot starts to try and fill that role. 29-year old Eddie Bonine could do it, 28-year old Armando Galarraga, and who knows who else? The Tigers could potentially bring up some of their younger talent to fill starts towards the end of the season, too (heck, even Jacob Turner can’t be far off considering all the heads he turned this spring).
28-30-years old isn’t exactly young, but it’s younger than a 32-year old who was hampered with a plethora of injuries last season. The Tigers probably realized they weren’t going to get one of these guys to throw 200 innings this season, as much as they’ll hope for Willis to, so they’re maximizing their odds of getting a committee of men in their prime years (usually 26-32) to combine for what Robertson once provided. In 2011, thankfully, the Tigers won’t have to touch either one of them and we can legitimately start wondering when Jacob Turner and Casey Crosby will be ready to crack the rotation. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves, ok?
Go Tigers.
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