OT- Tigers acquire Omar Infante & Anibal Sanchez
Just heard on the radio, and has been confirmed on twitter that the Tigs have traded for Infante and Anibal Sanchez from the Marlins. Love the deal, there is also a chance that Sanchez could be retained at the end of the year, he's a Venezuelan guy who apparently is already on good terms with Miggy.
Editing post to clear up what exactly was swapped
Tigers get:
- RHP Anibal Sanchez
- 2B Omar Infante
- Marlins comp pick which comes in at 36 (i think)
Marlins get:
- RHP Jacob Turner
- C Rob Brantly
- LHP Brian Flynn (AA prospect, don't know much about him)
- Tigers comp pick which is placed somewhere in the 70's
http://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2012/07/tigers-acquire-omar-infante-anibal-sanchez.html
Tell any of those guys to turn around and hit right handed and I bet they do better than Raburn.
As another astute poster (who also posts here, I just haven't seen him here yet today) said on another board , the Tigers are at 41 men on their 40-man roster. It's going to take more than a trip to Toledo for Worth. That sets our 25 man, but not our 40-man roster. Someone is going to have to be DFA'd.
Welp if it's Raburn, it will only add more melancholy to an already gloomy sports day. At least Raburn will be able to report to any team and play immediately, without having to sit out a year, or he can choose to remain a Tiger and collect his tuition
Anibal Sanchez has a no-hitter on his resume. Granted, Phil Humber has a perfect game and the Tigers rocked him, but the kid has great stuff. I think his ceiling and Turner's are close enough that this works out great
I love this trade.
Sanchez has 14 quality starts in 19 starts this year, and 110 Ks. He's have a much better record except he's had a lot of solid games with no run support. 4 or 5 of his losses are legit, but he should probably be a 9-7 pitcher right now, and probably better than that with the Tigers' bats behind him.
It seems a lot like the Pfister deal last year. Solid pitcher on a bad team with little run support. Man, if Sanchez works out for us like Doug did last year.........
The guy who makes faucets, I think.
Weird, I always thought of Santiago and Infante as basically two copies of the same player when they were first with the team, and now they're both on their second go-around.
Back around when the Tigers were playing chicken with a 60-win season Santiago and Infante were thought to be the next Tram and Lou. Who would have thought a decade later they'd be back together on the same Detroit roster.
(Though w/o checking I'm pretty sure Santiago has been a Tiger the entire time)
Santiago was the major piece in our trade for Carlos Guillen (LOL SEATTLE) and they cut him after about a year and a half and we snapped him back up. In fact, Infante's first spin with the Tigers was long enough that he was still here when we got Santiago back.
Santiago played for Mariners in '04' & 05
They're similar, but Omar can hit at a good chunk higher average than Ramon. At least he can in the NL.
And even if they are the same, I'd rather have two Santiagos than a Santiago and a Raburn.
Venezuela has been good for the Tigers and the Tigers have been good for Venezuela. Tigers already have 5 Venezuelan's on the 40 man roster. Sanchez and Infante make 7 and Victor Martinez possibly 8. Hopefully Sanchez enjoys a WS championship and decides to stay on for the long haul.
The Tigers have also had Venezuelan's, Magglio Ordonez, Carlos Guillen, and Freddy Garcia on the team recently
http://espn.go.com/mlb/team/roster/_/name/det/detroit-tigers
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_current_Major_League_Baseball_players_by_nationality#Venezuela
Brantly wouldnt have ever seen the field behind Avila...I'm not a huge Avila guy, but with his dad in the organization...he's not going anywhere and will be given ever chance to succeed (probably even more so than Rayburn & Inge, but hopefully it never gets to that). Also, Turner was always trade bait. He's been involved in trade talks for a few years now.
I hate the 'he's so young' excuse. He's young but he's definately not a verlander.
Sanchez is a solid change of pace starter in the back of the rotation. I would much rather have Sanchez than a rookie in the rotation.
But keep in mind...all you need is 3 starters in the playoffs. I have a feeling JV, Fister, and Scherzer/Porcello will work well.
Infante is a good player that can play 2B, SS, or outfield if needed. His OPS is 250 pts higher than any 2B on our team! Goodbye Ratburn? I can only hope.
We traded 'potential' for proven players.
I'll do that everyday.
I hope we didn't trade our best prospect for a "solid change of pace starter at the back of the rotation." Sanchez has a sub-4 ERA, solid WHIP, and he's doing it with fielding that is (at best) no better than the Tigers' fielding. He's top-20 in baseball in defense-independent ERA. At worst, Sanchez should be challenging and beating Porcello as the 4th starter, and truth is, you ought to be able to throw him right into the mix with Scherzer and Fister, he should be every bit as good as any pitcher on the roster not named Verlander. (Although, Scherzer at his best is probably better than Sanchez at his best.)
To me, Turner is 'potential'. But he has a huge chance of being Andrew Miller. Sanchez has top 20 pitcher in MLB stuff when he's on. I'm thinking he will pan out to be 3 or 4 in our rotation.
Turner will never be a top end rotation guy. Especially with the tigers. He needs defense, he's a low ball pitcher. Sanchez is a totally different type of pitcher than turner.
OK, lineup question: What do you do with Infante? #2 hitter, as a guy with more pop than Q Berry? (And presumably a better bunter, as Berry's bunting has been atrocious.) And then maybe bat Berry 9th to set the table for Austin Jackson? Like this:
- Jackson
- Infante
- Cabrera
- Fielder
- Delmon
- Boesch
- Peralta
- Avila
- Berry
Or maybe don't mess with a good thing, and switch Infante and Berry and bat Infante ninth?
So are you benching Q or Boesch?
This is an interesting question and I'll be very interested to see what the Skip does. Some tough research shows that Infante has a total of 10 SB this year and he has hit in just about every spot in the lineup. So I think there's two philosophies:
1. Bat Berry 9th as a "second lead-off man."
2. Bat Berry 2nd since he's got a hot bat.
I'm leaning towards option A. WIth as great as AJax has been, him being on base neutralizes Berry's speed. A lot of fans won't see that and would balk at moving Berry down. But since you've now got a legit 2 hitter, it's great to move him down where he'll A: have pressure taken off of him, B: still have protection with AJax behind him, C: is more likely to have clear base paths ahead of him.
My lineup:
1. AJax
2. Infante
3. Cabby
4. Prince
5. Young
6. Peralta
7. Avila
8. Boesch
9. Q
That's suddenly a very complete lineup. Though, now that I write it out I realize that leaves us a 7-8-9 of all lefties. So, I wouldn't be surprised to see Leyland swap Q and Infante. Or you swap Avila and Peralta. Or you move Boesch up and Peralta and Avila down. I think I like the later option.
Sanchez is a rental (presumably), or at least the Marlins weren't re-signing him, so this seems like a reasonable deal from the Marlins standpoint, and it's been pretty obvious that the Tigers are all-in on winning this year or the next. You knew they were going to do something.
But I do want to note that it's pants-on-head retarded that the Tigers, with the 5th highest payroll in baseball and being in the 11th largest TV market (and of the markets in front of them, 4 of the 10 have two teams in the market), were even eligible for a "competitve balance draft", let alone got a pick that they were immediately able to use in a trade.