Cheesy Leavin’
posted in Random |The correct answer to yesterday’s question — who gets squeezed out of Detroit when Francisco Cruceta comes to town — was Jason Grilli. The reliever was sent to Colorado in exchange for 23-year-old, high-a pitcher Zach Simons. I’m going to echo Bilfer’s surprise in this move.
Relief pitching at the major league level is sort of random. Jason Grilli, while having a bad week here or there, is that not that bad of a pitcher. He is a major league caliber reliever. In 2007 after June 1, he had no month worse than 3.86 ERA. This year, he stumbled badly the first week but since got his ERA down to 3.29. He is not a close-and-late reliever, but he pitched fine for his mop-up role. You do need a guy like that.
So my real problem with this move is, it took a major league reliever out of the Tigers’ system, because Zach Miner did have an option to go to Toledo. And Grilli was basically given away. No offense to Zach Simons, and I hope he proves us wrong, but based on his minor-league stats, his chance of becoming daily major leaguer is pretty low.
I get that the Tigers had to make a corresponding 40-man roster move to get Cruceta to Detroit — something that totally slipped my mind yesterday. And trading Grilli allowed that to happen. But I don’t know. I’m just not a real big fan of this move at the moment.
Sphere It
I don’t love the trade either, but I’ve got no problem with it. I think that it shows how much the Tigers trusted Grilli. Sure his ERA is decent now, but everyone knows he’s prone to big innings and that he very seldom comes through when the team NEEDS outs.
Grilli Traded To Rockies for Some Guy
New York (AP)–
Jason Grilli was traded to the Colorado Rockies for some guy yesterday. According to sources close to the deal, negotiations for the deal were quite heated.
Colorado initially offered to take the oft-booed Tigers middle reliever for a left-handed catcher who had been dead for three years. Detroit then countered by asking for Eduardo Dominguez, a 21-year-old Coors Field peanut vendor who has the ability to throw bags up to 15 rows with a 94% accuracy rate. Hesitant to part with such a prospect after last week’s career-ending rotator cuff injury suffered by veteran peanut tosser Jimmy “The Nut Man” Thomas, Colorado then sealed the deal by putting the names of a bunch of so-so prospects on a dart board and allowed a tourist from Michigan who happened to be visiting the ballpark last night to make the trade-completing dart toss.
When asked for a comment on the trade, Tigers skipper Jim Leyland first responded by asking the questioning reporter, “A major league team wanted Grilli?! Have you been drinking again?” After being assured that the scribe was completely sober, Leyland fell on the floor, laughing uncontrollably and had no further comment.
Rumors that Tigers G.M. Dave Dombrowski has pictures of Rockies G.M. Dan O’Dowd caught in a compromising position with a underage batboy surfaced soon after the deal was made, but the Rockies deny all such claims. Dombrowski just winked and gave a sly smile when asked about the rumors.