OT: Tigers Acquire Jarrod Washburn
Only cost us French and Robles...Great deal
as long as French doesn't turn into the next Jurrjens.
I'm not sure he has the stuff to be. He can pitch, that's clear, but his stuff seems mediocre at best.
wow. that was out of nowhere and I like it.
I am far too slow. I like the deal, though. Nice starting 3 moving forward. Now if only we could score some runs..
Verlander, Washburn, Jackson. Just. Freaking. Awesome.
The fact that it only cost us two second tier prospects is fantastic. Yes, I am considering French a second tier prospect.
And we didn't even have to give up too much.
Not that this deal won't work in the Tigers favor but French is almost a Washburn clone only more than a decade younger and the Tigers are paying his salary next year. I would almost wager money that Wash and French will have similar seasons from here out. I think they bought a little high to be honest.
French is considered a borderline major league starting pitcher. He does not compare favorably to Washburn in any way other than that they're both lefties. Mauricio Robles is the pitcher that the Mariners have high hopes for in the future.
Washburn for the past 4 years has been a borderline major league starting pitcher. The only reason he has stuck in the M's rotation is due to lack of talent and depth in their system. His resurgence this year is the only real reason he has gotten many looks. I agree Robles has the higher upside, but after watching Washburn pitch the past few years I would say I have no problem taking a flier on French. He is a decent back end starter whose style translates very well to Safeco field. Flyball lefty who stays in and around the zone. Reminds me very much of Wash. He does have a question mark as he has not established himself as a major league pitcher yet, but then again I was never very enamored with Washburn so maybe my opinion of this deal and what the M's got is tainted a little. In any case I'd still rather have French than Carlos Silva on the mound.
Don't forget we have a good young gun in Porcello in the rotation as well.
So far the tigers are making things work. I definitely didn't see them at first in the AL Central at this point back before the season started. Definitely good to see.
i wouldn't be so sure that porcello doesn't move to the bullpen for the rest of the year or get shut down entirely. Its clear he's substantially fatigued.
That's your impetus for this move. He's been ineffective for about a month now, and the Tigers have wanted all along to limit his innings.
Now you can cross your fingers and hope that regression to the mean and luck (Washburn having an ERA well below his FIP, which itself is low due to an oddly low HR/FB%, and Jackson being well below his FIP due to an unsustainably low BABIP) doesn't bite the team, because the Tigers still don't have the offense to survive that. Good thing the division sucks, teams with offenses as lousy as the Tigers and White Sox usually aren't contenders.
I have no idea what you just said but by God is it refreshing.
/seriously not a baseball geek no idea what a BABIP/FIP/LMNOP is
BABIP is Batting Average on Balls In Play.
Take a guy like Galarraga, he had a ridiculously low BABIP last season (way below the average) which definitely played into his low ERA and favorable record (13-7 I think). He was getting pretty lucky on balls that were put into play - they were finding fielders' gloves at a much higher rate than most.
Fast forward to this season and I bet ya Galarraga's BABIP is back to the mean (or above it).
ty for that. What's FIP?
To sort of clarify further, there are many studies that suggest that pitchers can really only control 4 things:
Flyball/grounball ratio
Strikeouts
Walks
Homeruns
Once a ball is put into play, nearly every single pitcher's career number settles around a .300 batting average against. Pitcher's that, over seasons, allow lower total batting averages do so by striking lots of people out.
So, this year, Jarrod Washburns Batting average on Balls in Play is around .240 - nearly 60 points behind what you can reasonably expect a pitcher to do. The reasons for this are likely twofold:
-The Mariners have good defense.
-Washburn has been extremely lucky, and is due for a regression to the mean.
the Tigers are pretty good overall. So If it's because of the M's defense, it shouldn't cause too great of a drop off.
Good defense only does so much though, most of it is luck. Even guys on great defensive teams typically have BABIPs somewhere in the normal range. Guys do occasionally maintain a normally-unsustainably low BABIP for a whole season, but a vast majority do regress toward the mean and end up with a BABIP of at least .270 (which is very low but you see guys with it every year, they're almost entirely just lucky).
As for FIP, it stands for Fielding Independing Pitching, and is a stat meant to take out the influence of defense to reflect what your actual performance (HR, BB, K, things you can control) and show your "true" runs average. Based on the Voros McCracken finding that pitchers can't control the ball when it is in play and all pitchers gravitate toward a certain BABIP. Only knuckleballers seem to consistently have a below-average BABIP, but that's based on a small sample size and might not be accurate.
Overall they may be pretty good but Wash is historically a fairly extreme fly baller. How good is your outfield defense? A big problem for Jarrod the past few years has been the gaping pit of suck that was Raul Ibanez in left field. I know you have Granderson acting like death to flying things in center but if either one of the corners is below average watch out.
well unless the MLB allows magglio to ride around on a segway out in RF he gets to less balls than charlie weiss could and we're currently shopping to land a LF before the 4pm cut-off since the Ryan Raburn/Josh Anderson/insert some other 4A player here platoon is finally over.
Are you implying that Maggs and Thames aren't good corner OF's?????
Washburn's career BABIP is .280 which is still lower than the mean.
Even if Washburn regress a little bit but it won't be by much.
Apparently, his new pitch, split finger fastball, is what makes him a harder pitcher to hit against than in previous year.
Yep it's definitely his new pitch. Franklin Gutierrez and Jack Zduriencik are chuckling in the corner.
Best analysis I have seen. You beat me to it. Let me preface this by saying I am a gigantic Mariners fan. I am happy to be rid of Wash's contract. I hope he helps the Tigers but don't get your hopes up. Wash's resurgence has much less to do with learning a new pitch and a great deal to do with an upgrade to our now spectacular outfield defense and a lot of luck as well . Again I hope he helps you guys out and wish him the best but I like the trade from the M's side.
but what if they could still pull the trigger on the Halladay deal?
A starting rotation of Halladay, Washburn, Verlander, Jackson, and whoever. Plus you'd have at least Halladay, Verlander, and Jackson in the rotation next year.
You'd have to give up a lot (Porcello, Perry, and Crosby) but wow, that is a pretty stellar rotation.
Sweet! I love this deal. Washburn is a good lefty.
I love that top 3.
Great rotation, but what the heck are they gonna do for runs? Can the pitchers go to bat and just throw the ball over the infielder's heads?
Inge needs to take a few weeks off to get healed up. He is basically worthless right now. That right there would be a boost to the offense because all he does now is strike out.
ESPN was lauding how the Mariners GM was so intelligent to let go of Washburn after realizing they wouldn't go anywhere. Screw that, great pickup Tigers!
You know, in a trade, it IS possible for both sides to win. Saying the Mariners GM did something wise does not mean the guy thinks the Tigers are stupid.
Washburn will start Tuesday night, sandwiched between Verlander & Jackson in the rotation.
Terrific
great! now I don't have to comb the schedule and do the math to see who's the probable starter to decide if i'm going or not. 4/5 ain't bad odds.
Good pickup for the Tigers. Now just score some runs and we win this division easily.
Talk about getting something for nothing. This guy is a solid starter and should help us back into the playoffs.
isn't the Tigers' problem hitting? Don't they have the second best staff ERA in the league now? And with Inge having what looks like a major knee issue, Ordonez on the down side, and Guillen unproven yet, where is the offense going to come from?
Don't get me wrong, pitching, like defense in football, wins. But the Tigers have been terrible with runners on base this year, and this deal doesn't do anything to solve that.
There is still time left to get a decent hitter. But now we have 3 good starters, AG who has been better and Porcello. This will help keep his innings down and rest the bullpen.
MLB is going to start awarding runs (kinda like compensatory draft picks) to teams with 3+ consecutive innings with no runs allowed and no run support.
but this was a good deal that didn't require a whole hell of a lot in return. Not only that, who's to say that there are any impact bats out there on the trade block that the Tigers could afford. I can't think of any that really stand out in my mind, but I suppose I haven't really done my research either. Plus, we now obviously have the best pitching in the Central, and we should still be able to pull it out in the end despite our crappy offense.
We have nothing reliable going in our rotation after Verlander and Jackson. Starting pitching HAD to be addressed to give us a realistic chance at holding off the Twins and White Sox and winning this division. DD knew this and went out fixed it.
I agree. I was afraid that the Tigers were going to roll the dice that Porcello was not going to burn out and either 1) he would, in fact, burn out, or worse 2) he would get hurt. This is a good move for the Tigers maintaining their pitching advantage should Porcello need to be shut down. But I can't see this team being a realistic WS contender without adding a bat that can play the field as well, preferably a left-handed one.
the fact he is a free agent after this season....hopefully we can lock him up for a year or 2, but it looks like dombrowski still has some of that old majic left. Nice move.
The scuttlebut is that in the offseason the Yankees, Brewers and maybe Seattle will be after him. The Yankees wanted him in trade but the Mariners wanted too much from them (they apparently wanted Jesus Montero).
Washburn will not be worth what his next contract pays him. Pray the Tiger's don't try to re-sign him. He's 35 year old league-average pitcher.
No chance the Tigers try and re-sign him.
Hes probably going back to Seatle. He loves it there and thats why he was so cheap. The Mariners know he will be coming back to them next year.
Unless he takes a severe paycut I would bet my liver he won't be back in Seattle next year. Jack Zduriencik is building a contender for the future and he is doing that by acquiring boom or bust live arms. His youth movement and the organizational shift began last offseason and it will not change now unless the price is right, and by right I mean slightly above the poverty line. Book it, Wash will not be an M next year.
it but I wish he could hit too. I hope the tigers can pick up a bat from somewhere before 4pm today. This is better than just not doing anything though.
I like this deal. But would like it even more if we managed to pick up someone who could help the Tigers get some runs by the end of the day. 4 hours left I think right?