Bosox welcome Dombrowski with Aaron

The Henry Aaron Award and David Dombrowski arrived in Boston right at the same. With Dombrowski taking over as President of Baseball Operations for the Red Sox, the hub club has popped up with enough unlikely heroics to mount a second Aaron defense, and against the Kansas City Royals, even.

New Boston Red Sox baseball chief David Dombrowski doesn't have to like everything he's seeing from his club this week, but he has to be liking the wins (Cathleen Carrigan/Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license). 

As it happens, the Boston Red Sox began a defense of the Henry Aaron Award on Monday, and David Dombrowski arrived in Boston a day later. 

Not to say that prosperity comes in pairs, but the Red Sox made their first successful defense of the Aaron right as Dombrowski took the reigns as their President of Baseball Operations. Coincidence? You decide. (Hint: it is.)

Coincidence or not, it's still the high point of a disappointing Red Sox season. By the accounts, Ben Cherrington did everything as well as he could and as right as he could as the club's general manager before stepping down right after the Dombrowski hire. However, bringing Hanley Ramirez as the left fielder and Pablo Sandoval as the third baseman to a team playing half of its games in Fenway Park looked like a bad fit on paper, and it looks even worse on the field.

Even worse than that, though, is the Red Sox pitching staff. The Red Sox have one pitcher on the roster right now with any kind of achievement this season, reliever Koji Uehara. As a staff, the Red Sox entered Friday's games with a 4.59 ERA, nearly two-thirds of a run higher than the American League ERA of 3.94.

In their 121 games entering Friday, the Red Sox allowed 592 runs. If they had just a league average pitching staff/defense, they would have allowed 508 runs in those games and the team's Pythagorean expectation would be 63-58 instead of 56-65 (the Red Sox actually were 55-66). At 63-58, the Red Sox would be tied with the Angels for the second American League wildcard.

So, pitching has killed the Red Sox, and we can be sure that having Sandoval and Ramirez defend the left side against the opposing right-handed lineups recommended by Fenway Park hasn't helped. 

And it might even get worse for the Red Sox. Now, they don't have Clay Buchholz for the rest of the year, and he was pretty good (7-7, 3.26 ERA in 18 starts).

It's anybody's guess what Dombrowski will do now with the Red Sox, though upgrades for the pitching and defense are pretty clear priorities. Then again, it's anybody's guess why Detroit Tigers owner Mike Illitch let Dombrowski go less than three weeks ago, making Dombrowski available to the Red Sox. 

The Tigers won the American League Central four consecutive times before this season. This year, three circumstances overtook them. 

First, the Kansas City Royals. Second, the Tigers, in effect, and by various causes, lost big-time starting pitchers Max Scherzer and Justin Verlander this year, and replaced them with only one, David Price, acquired at the trade deadline last year. So, the Tigers needed to replace a 10-games-over-.500 starting pitcher. If all you've got in replacement is a 10-games-under-.500 pitcher, that's costing your club 20 games. If all you've got is a .500 pitcher, that's still 10 games. So (and third), the Tigers were looking for that top pitcher at the trade deadline and, when they saw what the Royals gave for Johnny Cueto, they knew they couldn't play in that market.

Dombrowski then recommended the sensible course to Illitch. Punt. You can't expect to score a touchdown every time you have the ball. When you have that bad year, you have to salvage it. And the Tigers did, particularly in their subsequent trade of Price to the Toronto Blue Jays.

Everyone knows Illitch wants to win the World Series before he dies, and he's 86, so he doesn't have forever. But it does seem that showing Dombrowski the door for this one poor season is a tad impulsive. Illitch might complain that when you look at the Royals doing what they're doing with a $113.6 million payroll, then the Tigers have plenty enough resources to win with their payroll of $173.8 million. But would an 86-year-old Illitch put up with the losing Kansas City has endured to develop its less expensive contender?

Anyway, Dombrowski never particularly had to worry about money with the Tigers, and that's not going to be a problem for him in Boston, either. 

Right now, his problem is pitching. And left-side defense.

But those problems haven't slowed the Red Sox on this present run with the Henry Aaron Award, which began when they took two-of-three from the Seattle Mariners at Fenway Park Aug. 14-16 to capture the prize.

The Red Sox put the Aaron on the line against the visiting Cleveland Indians in a three-game set that started Monday with a 8-2 loss. The next day, though, the Red Sox introduced Dombrowski, the immortals Mookie Betts, Brock Holt and Blake Swihart each drove in two or more runs and Eduardo Rodriguez pitched an uncharacteristic good game (eight innings, one run) in a 9-1 victory. Then, the Red Sox won the rubber game on Wednesday, 6-4. The key was a four-run fourth inning featuring a three-run homer by Jackie Bradley, Jr., and a solo blast by Ryan Hanigan.

If you don't see the Red Sox' future in all of those names, you're probably not alone. Then again, they were playing the Indians.

But now the Red Sox have won the first two of a four-game series in Fenway against the Royals, enough to defend it once again.

Thursday, the Red Sox took the opener from the Royals, 4-1. The six, seven and eight hitters (Travis Shaw, Hanigan and Bradley) drove in all the runs and Lefty Wade Miley horsed up with 7 1/3 innings, allowing only one run. 

The Red Sox won again Friday, 7-2, roughing up Cueto with 13 hits in six innings. The bottom four Red Sox hitters (Rusney Castillo, Shaw, Swihart and Josh Rutledge) scored all the runs and drove in four of them.

In the last two days, then, the Red Sox won when their mediocre pitchers put up good games and their low-order hitters beat up Corey Kluber and Cueto. Probably not the formula the Red Sox can count upon long-term, but it's good for now, and it is bringing the Red Sox their best moments of this season.

Assuming the Red Sox hang on in this title defense, that will bring them up to two defenses and assure them of more than 10 games holding the title.

Can they make a run with it and challenge the Dodgers on top of the standings?

At this point, they've got nothing better to do.

Henry Aaron Award
Standings through games of August 21
	W	L	P	T	G	D	A
DODGERS	15	10	8	1	22	6	7
San Francisco	15	15	8	1	17	4	6
ANGELS	14	5	6	1	16	4	5
Texas	12	10	7	2	16	3	5
San Diego	10	7	5	1	13	3	4
Boston	9	9	6	2	8	1	2
Baltimore	7	6	4	1	7	1	1
Pittsburgh	6	3	3	1	6	1	2
Seattle	7	6	4	1	6	1	2
Milwaukee	5	7	4	1	6	1	2
Kansas City	5	4	4	1	5	1	2
Washington	2	2	1	0	0	0	0
Colorado	6	10	5	0	0	0	0
Arizona	2	7	3	0	0	0	0
New York (AL)	2	2	1	0	0	0	0
Chicago (NL)	1	2	1	0	0	0	0
Miami	1	2	1	0	0	0	0
Minnesota	1	2	1	0	0	0	0
Atlanta	3	4	2	0	0	0	0
Cleveland	1	5	2	0	0	0	0
Houston	0	3	1	0	0	0	0

Numbers in bold indicate league leaders.

W — Wins. L — Losses. P — Times played for title. T — Titles won. G — Number of games that team held title after winning it. D — Title defenses. A — Title defense attempts. Standings are given in order of games holding the title.

2015 Henry Aaron Award results 
(There is no tiebreaker for the Aaron. The champion keeps it unless the challenger wins outright. However, the runs are given for series ending in ties).

San Francisco 2, Arizona 1 — April 6-8 at Arizona.
San Diego 3, San Francisco 1 — April 10-12 at San Diego.
San Diego 2, Arizona 1 — April 13-15 at San Diego.
San Diego 2, Chicago (NL) 1 — April 17-19 at Chicago.
San Diego 2, Colorado 2 — April 20-23 at Denver (San Diego, 26-16).
DODGERS 2, San Diego 1 — April 24-26 at San Diego.
DODGERS 2, San Francisco 1 — April 27-29 at Los Angeles.
DODGERS 3, Arizona 0 — May 1-3 at Los Angeles.
DODGERS 2, Milwaukee 2 — May 4-7 at Milwaukee (DODGERS, 28-16).
DODGERS 2, Colorado 0 — May 8-10 at Colorado.
DODGERS 2, Miami 1 — May 11-13 at Los Angeles.
DODGERS 2, Colorado 2 — May 14-17 (Colorado, 16-12).
San Francisco 3, DODGERS 0 — May 19-21 at San Francisco.
San Francisco 2, Colorado 2 — May 22-24 at Denver (Colorado, 31-26).
San Francisco 3, Milwaukee 0 — May 25-27 at Milwaukee.
San Francisco 2, Atlanta 2 — May 28-31 at San Francisco (Atlanta, 17-16).
Pittsburgh 3, San Francisco 0 — June 1-3 at San Francisco.
Pittsburgh 2, Atlanta 1 — June 5-7 at Atlanta.
Milwaukee 2, Pittsburgh 1 — June 8-10 at Pittsburgh.
Milwaukee 2, Washington 2 — June 11-14 at Milwaukee (Washington, 20-16).
Kansas City 2, Milwaukee 0 — June 15-16 at Milwaukee.
Kansas City 2, Milwaukee 0 — June 17-18 at Kansas City.
Boston 2, Kansas City 1 — June 19-21 at Kansas City.
Baltimore 2, Boston 1 — June 23-25 at Boston.
Baltimore 3, Cleveland 0 — June 26-28 at Baltimore.
Texas 3, Baltimore 1 — June 29-July 2 at Baltimore.
ANGELS 3, Texas 0 — July 3-5 at Arlington.
ANGELS 2, Colorado 0 — July 7-8 at Denver.
ANGELS 2, Seattle 2 — July 9-12 at Seattle (Angels, 20-19).
ANGELS 4, Boston 0 — July 17-20 at Anaheim.
ANGELS 2, Minnesota 1 — July 21-23 at Anaheim.
Texas 2, ANGELS 1 — July 24-26 at Anaheim.
Texas 2, New York (AL) 2 — July 27-30 at Arlington (New York, 35-19).
Texas 2, San Francisco 1 — July 31-August 2 at Arlington.
Texas 3, Houston 0 — August 3-5 at Arlington.
Seattle 2, Texas 1 — August 7-9 at Seattle.
Seattle 2, Baltimore 1 — August 10-12 at Seattle.
Boston 2, Seattle 1 — August 14-16 at Boston.
Boston 2, Cleveland 1 — August 17-19,at Boston.
Boston 2, Kansas City 0 — August 20-21, at Boston, continuing.

Is the extra pitcher worth it?

Like the Oakland Athletics, the Detroit Tigers added a premium pitcher to a deep rotation at the non-waiver trading deadline and took a player out of their daily lineup to do it. Again, the questions about the Athletics' deal apply to the Tigers, even if Austin Jackson isn't as big of a loss as Yoenis Cespedes.

The Detroit Tigers made a deep starting rotation deeper by acquiring David Price from the Tampa Bay Rays. Is it worthwhile to deepen a deep starting rotation for the postseason (Keith Allison [original], UCinternational [crop]/Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license)?


By BILL PETERSON
Big Leagues in Los Angeles

The non-waiver trading deadline passed last week with quite a lot of smoke. Where there's smoke, there ought to be fire, but it remains to be seen if any of these deals will wind up so hot.

We've already discussed the deadline deal between the Oakland Athletics and the Boston Red Sox, in which left-handed pitcher Jon Lester and left fielder Yoenis Cespedes switched coasts. We don't believe it will add up as a plus for the Athletics, who added the pitcher at the expense of the mid-lineup hitter.

Another deal in much the same spirit occurred between three clubs – the Detroit Tigers, the Tampa Bay Rays and the Seattle Mariners. At the All-Star break, the Rays were nine games down in a division without a great club, which led us to believe the Rays would ride it out and take a crack at winning. But Thursday's three-wheeled deal perhaps was more than the Rays could refuse. They gave up left-hander David Price, their top pitcher, who wound up with the Detroit Tigers. The Rays brought in middle infielder Nick Franklin from the Mariners, while lefty Drew Smyly and 18-year-old Class A shortstop Willy Adames came in from Detroit. The Mariners bagged center fielder Austin Jackson from the Tigers to complete the trade.

Again, we scratch our heads. This time, it's about the Tigers, though not so much as we scratched them over Oakland's acquisition of Lester. The Tigers wound up giving quite a lot for Price – a good starting pitcher, their center fielder and a good prospect. But the Tigers already had depth in their starting rotation, more than any other club in the American League, including Oakland, and it is puzzling that they would pay the price they paid to add depth to a deep rotation when the postseason specifically doesn't reward depth in the starting rotation. The Tigers already had Justin Verlander (9-9, 4.79, 0.4 WAR), Max Scherzer (13-3, 3.27, 4.2), Rick Porcello (12-5, 3.24, 3.7) and Anibal Sanchez (7-5, 3.57, 2.4), along with Smyly (6-9, 3.93, 1.8). They have replaced Smyly with Price (11-8, 3.11, 2.7) at the immediate cost of Jackson (.730 OPS, 1.8 WAR).

A fourth consecutive American League Central title for the Tigers is all but a fait accompli. They entered Monday's games with a five-game lead on the Kansas City Royals and no one seriously believes the second-place club here can mount a challenge unless the Tigers were to entirely collapse. In any case, the Tigers are too far along to be selling out for division championships. They're trying to make that step they haven't made since 1984. They're trying to win the World Series.

So, this trade, for the Tigers, is about the playoffs. And the same kind of analysis that we applied to the Athletics applies to the Tigers. We can figure now that the front three pitchers for the Tigers during the postseason will be Price, Verlander and Scherzer. The fourth man will be Porcello. In that case, Sanchez becomes a non-entity during the postseason.

Again, we raise the question: Is it worth it for the Tigers to add Price to their postseason rotation if it means 1) Fewer starts for a fine pitcher in Porcello; 2) No starts for a fine pitcher in Sanchez, and; 3) Jackson has to be replaced in the every day lineup by someone who isn't as good?

Price is a terrific pitcher. No one can or should dispute that. The question isn't whether Price is worth having, but whether he's worth having for a club that already had enough good starters already, and whether it's worth Price to take starts away from, for example, Porcello or Sanchez. And the Tigers also have deprived themselves of a decent center fielder whose offense and defense will not be easily replaced.

We've been rather hammering on this lately. We argued on July 31 that the Dodgers should not make this sort of trade, we argued on Aug. 1 that the Athletics should not have made that sort of trade, and we argue here, today, that the Tigers should not have made this sort of trade.

We have here two instances of the wrong kind of club making the wrong kind of trade. To credit Oakland general manager Billy Beane and Detroit general manager David Dombrowski, at least they traded for top quality pitchers, unlike so many general managers we've seen at trade deadline. The criticism here is that both clubs already had enough quality and depth in their rotations to prosper in the postseason, so they ended up paying heavily for entities they do not need, and to the detriment of their offensive and defensive platoons.

The good news for the Tigers is that Price is under contract for 2015, so, unlike Oakland's deal for Lester, this one isn't a rental. The Tigers have Price in 2015, and they can build their 2015 club with that in mind.

As always, baseball is unpredictable. Among the game's pleasures is that it invites us to make predictions about the future, then, in time, tells us if our predictions are on target.

In the weeks leading to the trade deadline, for example, it required absolutely no ingenuity to find commentaries bemoaning that expanded playoffs and recent changes to draft compensation rules were killing this non-waiver trading period. In July, it turned out, five players were traded right as or after they were named All-Stars in their leagues – Cespedes, Price, Lester, Jeff Samardzija (from the Chicago Cubs to Oakland) and Huston Street (from the San Diego Padres to the Angels).

Lots of interesting changes here. We're predicting that the Angels will emerge from the clearing smoke better than anyone involved in an All-Star trade, that the Tigers didn't help themselves and that the Athletics hurt themselves. Perhaps the next few months will prove us wrong. Or not.

Detroit Tigers do it with smart money

We hear a lot about big league baseball teams spending foolishly. We do not hear that about the Detroit Tigers, who spend intelligently even when their contracts don't work out. Which means that the smart money is picking the Tigers to prevail in the American League Central.

Miguel Cabrera, the 2012 American League triple crown winner, is one example, among many, of the  Detroit Tigers being smart with their money (Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license).


By BILL PETERSON
Big Leagues in Los Angeles

The Detroit Tigers of 2013 stand to illustrate two central, recurring questions about baseball.

How important is defense? And how important is the relief closer?

However, the Tigers are raising no questions about who will win the American League's Central Division. It's going to be them. No other club in this group of Midwestern markets combines local resources with a commitment to winning so completely as the Tigers, who won the 2012 AL pennant before getting themselves swept out of a four-game World Series by the San Francisco Giants.

Between owner Mike Ilitch and general manager David Dombrowski, the Tigers have quite an ambitious combination in their front office. Ilitch is 82, he's worth $2.7 billion and he would rather win a World Series than take it all with him. Dombrowski is at the top of the heap as general managers go. But for the 1994 players strike, a cash-strapped Montreal club that he played a large part in developing as their former general manager could have won it all. He did win it all in 1997 with the Florida Marlins. When Dombrowski moved over to the Tigers in 2002, looking to revive a feckless operation, he left the Marlins with key elements for their 2003 World Series winner. That very year, 2003, as Dombrowski's old team won it all, his new team finished 43-119, most losses in American League history. Three years later, the Tigers were prohibitive favorites in the World Series, though they lost it to St. Louis. The Tigers were back last year and lost again. But they seem to be getting closer.

The Tigers are spending $150 million on players for 2013. In this division, the Tigers act like the big market team, and they do it effectively. They've taken up a habit of signing a good free agent every winter, and their track record in recent trades is hard to surpass.

The larger market is in Chicago, where the White Sox spend enough to win ($120 million this year), but they don't go the extra mile to stay with the Tigers. The White Sox have put together their usual "good enough" team this year. If the ball bounces their way, they'll win 90 and contend for a playoff spot. If the ball bounces the other way, they'll win 78, which is about fourth place. If the bounces are about even, they'll finish in the low 80s. That's always the prediction for the White Sox.

The White Sox like to go with their own guys, which, everyone agrees, is cost effective and morally upright. And it's true that there's no correlation between spending and winning. However, that's only because there's a big difference between smart money and dumb money. The correlation between smart money and winning is very high.

A study of some sort would be necessary for truly making that case, but the Tigers are a fine example of what "smart money" means (For a discussion of “dumb money,” we’ll soon enough consider the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim). The Tigers’ money hasn't been especially lucky, but it has been effective and well considered.

For example, they played in the World Series last year with more than $15 million gone bust between the injured Victor Martinez and the ineffective Jose Valverde (Insurance reportedly covered about half of Martinez's $13 million salary, and the Tigers were out the $9 million that went to Valverde). But even in hindsight, knowing that Martinez wasn’t around and Valverde clunked so badly that Tigers manager Jim Leyland didn’t want to use him in the World Series, those were smart contracts.

In 2011, Valverde tossed a 2.24 ERA with 49 saves, leading his league in saves for the third time in five years. Due largely to Valverde’s performance, the Tigers won 95 games, easily captured the AL Central and advanced to the league championship series. The Tigers had a $9 million option for Valverde in 2012. Who wouldn't have picked up that option? So, it didn’t work out. And the Tigers took almost no nick last year with the Martinez contract. After insurance, he cost around $6.5 million, about a nickel of the Tigers payroll. Martinez drove in 103 runs in 2011, he’s back now for the last half of his four-year, $50 million contract, and he gives the Tigers a switch-hitting producer in the designated hitter slot, where a surprising number of teams lack any kind of juice.

The story of the 2013 Tigers really begins with the 2008 Tigers, who were basically the same team as the 2006 Tigers who went to the World Series, except the 2008 version finished last in the AL Central and paid out $138 million instead of the 2006 club's $82 million payroll. Knowing a bloated loser when they see one, the Tigers didn’t blow up the whole thing, slink into youth mode and plead with their fans for patience. Instead, they retrenched quickly at the major league level.

Within two years, the Tigers turned over their whole pitching staff, except for Justin Verlander. Within three years, they turned over their entire batting order, except for Miguel Cabrera, which started them on two straight division titles with a clear shot at a third. And their 2012 payroll that went to the World Series was $132 million, less than the Tigers paid for a last-place team four years earlier.

The Tigers are making progress, going to the AL championship series in 2011 and going to the World Series in 2012. They have to go right with the Texas Rangers and New York Yankees as the top AL clubs of the last three years, and those other two clubs are looking a little down this year, but the Tigers aren't. Like the Tigers in 2012 and 2011, the Tigers in 2013 look better than the year before.

Before the 2010 season, the Tigers made one of the master trades of recent years, moving Curtis Granderson to the New York Yankees and Edwin Jackson to the Arizona Diamondbacks in a three-way deal that brought back Austin Jackson from New York and Max Scherzer from Arizona. The same deal also gave the Tigers two relievers, Phil Coke and Daniel Schlereth. The implications of that trade for the Tigers are as deep as the implications of any trade for any club in at least this century.

Not only did the trade make the Tigers younger and better, not only did it more than replace Granderson in center field and Edwin Jackson as a No. 2 starter, but it also saved the Tigers more than $40 million in payroll over the next three years. With those savings, the Tigers had some of the flexibility to sign Valverde in 2010, Martinez in 2011, Prince Fielder in 2012, and Torii Hunter in 2013.

When the Tigers made the three-way deal, they owed Granderson $23.75 million through 2012 and $38.75 million through 2013. Edwin Jackson was due for three years of arbitration, for which he earned $24.35 million. Add them together, and the Tigers would have paid Granderson and Jackson $48.1 million for the three seasons through 2012. Instead, the Tigers paid the four players they received a nudge less than $8 million, total, for those three seasons. And, unlike the Yankees or Diamondbacks, the Tigers played in two LCSs and one World Series in those three years.

We can half-legitimately add 2013 to that equation because Granderson was under contract for it and Jackson was due for free agency. If we want to play that game, we can figure in Granderson's $15 million for this year and Jackson's $13 million, which is his annual salary for his four-year free-agent deal with the Chicago Cubs. Comparing that $28 million in 2013 with the $12.565 million the Tigers are playing the four players they received in the trade, that's more than $15 million in additional savings, if we want to look at it that way. If, for 2013, we just want to consider Granderson and not Jackson, which is more honest, then the Tigers still saved an additional $2.435 million in the exchange.

Following the 2010 season, another big salary, $17 million, came off the Tigers' books with the expiration of their contract with Magglio Ordonez. The Tigers re-signed Ordonez for $10 million in 2011, but then that number came off their balance sheet, as well.

By these adjustments, we can safely say the Tigers trimmed $50-55 million from their 2010-2012 payrolls. During those same three years, they paid Verlander, Cabrera and Fielder a combined $122 million, for which they received seven individual seasons of Hall of Fame productivity. Not that it's exactly the same thing, but any team presented with a veteran Hall of Fame quality free agent at seven years for $122 million before the 2010 season would have signed that paper before the player's agent sobered up.

And when you consider that the Tigers defrayed at least $50 million of that, mostly through the Granderson trade, they come out even better. By comparison, the best free agent contract of 2010 probably would have to be the eight-year, $136 million deal the St. Louis Cardinals signed with Matt Holliday. The worst was the New York Mets and their five-year, $80 million contract with Jason Bay.

We hear a lot about bad contracts in the game, but we don't hear much about the Tigers signing them. They pay players top dollar and the players return it with top dollar production.

Entering the 2008 season, the Tigers signed Cabrera for eight years at $152.3 million, right after they traded four players of minor distinction (the best was Cameron Maybin) to pick him from Florida along with Dontrelle Willis. The Tigers also immediately signed Willis, for three years at $29 million, and he's only won four games in the big leagues since then. Well, there's an exception to every rule. But Cabrera has been so good that the Tigers have easily won that trade, anyway. His worst year under that deal was 2008, when he hit 37 homers with 127 RBI and a .292 average. In the middle of a contract like that, a lot of guys might pace themselves a little. Last year, in the middle of his contract, Cabrera won the triple crown.

Last winter, the Tigers knew they would be out Martinez. But Prince Fielder was on the market. So was Albert Pujols. The Angels ended up signing Pujols, a right-handed hitter entering his age 30 season after declining in 2011. They gave him 10 years at $240 million. The Tigers signed Fielder, the consolation prize, a left-handed hitter entering his age 28 season and coming off an uptick performance in 2011. They gave him nine years at $214 million. Pretty easy to argue right now that the Tigers made the better signing.

Torii Hunter is 37 now and he isn't Spiderman, anymore, but he's still pretty strong in the outfield and he has been a better and more consistent hitter in his thirties than he was in his twenties. The Tigers signed him before this season for two years at $26 million. By comparison, they certainly could have played for B.J. Upton, who wound up with the Braves for five years at $72.5 million. The Tigers made the better deal.

This spring, the Tigers signed Verlander to a five-year contract extension that will pay him $28 million per year from 2015 through 2019. A lot of money that is, but Verlander is a franchise player, probably in the very broad sense of becoming an historically great player for that franchise. The Tigers might gnash their teeth fearing an injury, but they have no worries about his value otherwise. He clearly wants to be that guy, and he apparently knows how to be that guy.

The standard worries about the Tigers are their infield defense and their bullpen. Fielder is notoriously lucky to field a hotly batted ball at first base, Omar Infante made nine errors in 61 games he played for them at second base last year, Jhonny Peralta is in the bottom half defensively at shortstop and Cabrera exceeded very low expectations last year at third base. But Fielder and Cabrera hit so much that they almost made up for all of that.

It’s common to point out that the Tigers were second to last in defensive efficiency last year at .678. But it's less common to note that the Tigers had fewer defensive chances (5,872) than any other American League club last year, which is largely because the Tigers pitching staff was second in strikeouts (1,318). Tigers pitchers got so many hitters out by themselves that the shabbiness of their defense almost came out in the wash.

For now, the bullpen is a problem, 1-4 with a 4.53 ERA in 2013 through April 21. Only three saves, which comes to one each for Coke, Drew Smyly, and Joaquin Benoit. For now, Leyland is just trying to piece it together. But if he can't make it work, don't worry. They'll find somebody.

That's because the Tigers are smart money.