The lone major trade of DePo’s young tenure is one that made horse sense for both teams. The Tribe endeavored earnestly to ignore and address Bradley’s mounting peccadilloes, but even a forward-thinking organization can’t entirely discount matters of personality. Somewhat counterintuitively, the Indians were wise to deal with a GM as smart as DePodesta, who, despite Bradley’s waning credibility, still realized what a talent he was and, if pressed, was prepared to barter fairly for him. That’s what happened. Tribe GM Mark Shapiro walks away with the whiff of the earnest disciplinarian about him and a top-shelf power prospect in Gutierrez (who, at the age of 20, slugged an impressive .513 in the hurler-philic FSL) to boot. If the PTBN is anyone of consequence, it’s an even better deal for the Indians. As for the Dodgers, they get a genuine middle-of-the-order hitter who happens to capably man a key defensive position. Back in his native SoCal, Bradley can convalesce his rep, enjoy the charms of troop-friendly Jim Tracy and get back to wielding his considerable talents on the diamond. Everybody wins.
Thanks to nine runs in two innings–a week’s output for last April’s squad–the Detroit Tigers moved to 4-0 with a 10-6 win over the Minnesota Twins. While the Tigers have gotten fairly good pitching, with all four starters notching wins and a team ERA of 3.00, the key to the start has been an offense gone haywire. The Bengals have 30 runs in four games, with at least six tallies in each contest. It’s the first time since last May that the Tigers have scored six or more runs in at least four straight games (a streak that stretched to five at the time). I had a sense that what the Tigers had done this week was historic, so I decided to put on my researcher cap–two sizes too big, signed by Clay Davenport, and rarely worn–and check. I fired up my two favorite tools, the Sabermetric Baseball Encyclopedia and Retrosheet (God Bless Retrosheet!) and tried to ascertain how unique this was. Damned if I’ll go down that particular rabbit hole again. Thinking this would be a quick process, I soon discovered that the Tigers have gone where no team of their ilk had gone before. Of the worst 50 teams by winning percentage in baseball history, none had ever started the following season 4-0 until Steve Colyer closed out the game yesterday.
Like most teams, they can ill afford injuries to their key personnel, most notably Carlos Delgado and Roy Halladay. While Delgado has had some minor knee problems in the past, he is not taxed often with much running and keeps himself at a very low yellow. Given more to write about, I might try to make more of a case for keeping him as a green. Playing first helps, though the inflexibility at DH works against him slightly. In a pinch, the Jays could DH Delgado, playing Phelps or Myers at first, but this is certainly not a problem they hope to face. The injury to Eric Hinske last year showed that the drop to replacement level is, at almost every position, probably enough to push the Jays from contention. With Halladay, we deal with a pitcher that is arguably the best in the game. (Way to go out on a limb for the reigning Cy Young winner, Will!) Among Halladay’s plusses is his ability to work a high number of innings. This in turn is the result of his focus on pitch efficiency. He had only six outings of 110 pitches or more, his highest (122) coming in a complete game in his last outing. Having attended that game, I think it would have taken a team of mules to get him off the mound; seldom have I seen a pitcher willing himself a win to that extent, even going so far as to block the plate on the potential tying run.
Shane Reynolds goes down in Arizona. The Buffalo Bisons pick up Franklin Gutierrez in the Milton Bradley dump. Matt LeCroy goes down in Minnesota, adding insult to injury (literally). And Michael Young becomes the next beneficiary from the Alex Rodriguez salary dump in Texas (yeah, right). All this and much more news from around the league in your Friday edition of Transaction Analysis.