Winter Meetings Day 3: What’s the next shoe to drop?
posted in 2007-08 offseason, trade rumors |The Freep reports the blockbuster deal is official, and that Tigers are now shopping P Chad Durbin, LF/1B Marcus Thames and 3B Brandon Inge (!!) , both to ease payroll and because they’re starting to run a surplus of players and can’t keep them all.
Although my predictions (and see comments!) lately have been junk, I’ll keep at it!
- Thames doesn’t have much trade value. Yeah, he can hit home runs. But he’s limited in the field and isn’t all that unique of a player. Salary is fine at least. Someone might take him. Not much value in return.
- Durbin apparently isn’t being thought of as a viable relief solution. He can start. He’s not owed that much money. A cheap franchise somewhere should want him. I wouldn’t expect a lot of value in return.
- Inge is interesting to consider. He’s a stellar third baseman and some team may see him as an emergency catcher. He had bad season at the plate (80 OPS+) last year, but I believe he’ll bounce back. He really is closer to average (seasons of 109, 100 and 98 before that). So a team is getting a good fielder, average hitter with some power. Problem is, he’s owed like $18M for 3 seasons. That’s probably a pretty fair salary so long as he bounces back, but we do have to consider his season makes this a “sell low” year rather than “sell high.” Whoever misses out on Scott Rolen may want to look into this. We’ve as fans come to realize we overvalue our own players more often than not and are sometimes shocked at how little we get in return. Teams probably figure this is a dump of salary for a player squeezed out of a starting spot. I wouldn’t expect much though, I’ll hope for a reliever!
More on Inge though, I don’t know if the Tigers need to trade him. It depends on what they think of the payroll I guess. Most figure Miguel Cabrera will continue starting at third, which makes Inge a supersub or traded. That’s a step down in defense. Maybe some days against lefties though, it wouldn’t be bad to have Inge around to start at third and have Cabrera in left. Remember, the World Series winners aren’t always best in March, they’re the deeper teams that survive injuries. Inge is good insurance at multiple positions if they don’t mind paying the premium.
Finally, something I haven’t mentioned, so I’ll toss in here, the 40 man roster obviously isn’t a big deal. The Tigers added two to it, but four of the six traded players came off it.
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