Reading Renteria’s Palm
posted in 2008 season |Jon Paul Morosi tackled this topic over the weekend: Who will be the Tigers’ shortstop next season? Will it be Edgar Renteria, who is bound to the club by an opition, or will they decide against exercising that option and search elsewhere? So here’s my glance into Renteria’s future with the club.
Up front, the 2009 cost to retain Edgar after this season is $11M and the cost not to retain Edgar is $3M. Now that the Tigers have clawed their way back into the division, I am 95% confident they won’t be selling him (or anything) at the trade deadline, but there is still 6 weeks or so until that time and you never know what could happen so I leave 5% possibility the team falls apart. ANYWAY,
So first we look internally. It’s better to fill a position with a guy who has no bargaining power and works cheap, right, so long as he’s pretty competant at what he does. We have to look at Santiago first. While at first he doesn’t really strike me as a guy who should play shortstop in the big leagues every day, I leave open the possibility he could do it. He plays great defense and he’s hitting the ball this year. Can he do it for a full year? It’s hard to say. But if he could, that would be an excellent money-saving solution. A little asist from Eddie’s look at shortstops in the system at Tiger Thoughts shows not much to like in Toledo. Danny Worth is in Double-A Erie, but Eddie feels like he’s overrated. And Cale Iorg in High-A Lakeland also has some hype, but failed to impress Eddie.
Matt at Take 75 North also investigated the middle infield. He concurs with Eddie. Worth, at best, is a late-order defensive whiz. At worst, he’s not playing great defense right now either. Iorg is still an unknown.
Conclusion? The system is weak at short. If there’s a position the Tigers would benefit at filling externally, it’s probably that one. So I’ll just make a glance at the list of shortstops available after this season, via MLBTradeRumors.com and Cot’s Baseball Contracts:
Orlando Cabrera CWS
Alex Cintron CWS
Alex Cora BOS
Craig Counsell MIL ($3.4M 2009 club option)
Adam Everett MIN
Rafael Furcal LAD
Cristian Guzman WAS
Cesar Izturis STL
Ramon Martinez LAD
Edgar Renteria DET ($11MM club option for ‘09 with a $3MM buyout)
Juan Uribe CWS
Omar Vizquel SFG ($5.2MM club option for ‘09 with a $0.3MM buyout)
Two names that jump out to me as guys I would like to see in Detroit are 33-year-old Orlando Cabrera, who is playing excellent defense for the White Sox (but whose OPS+ is 86) and 30-year-old Rafael Furcal (whose OPS+ is a whopping 169!) Cesar Izturis, is of course, a respected shortstop, but his bat is rather lacking so I just end up with a Ramon Santiago vibe. I haven’ seen the Cardinals this season so I can’t really comment on his defense, but he of course is pretty good at it. So, you know, there are guys out there available. Problem is, they’re aging so they’ll probably want multiyear contracts and produce less and less. Of course, the Tigers might want to think about testing the free agent waters is the crop of guys who’ll be free agents after the 2009 season isn’t that impressive. The oft-injured A’s shortstop Bobby Crosby is on the list, as is former A Marco Scutaro.
It’s kind of a bleak scenario for Detoit all around, I’d say.
So what do I see happening? Detroit keeps Renteria around in 2009. And they definitely want to keep Santiago around for 2009 and try to keep him around for 2010 as well while watching Iorg’s development and the trade market for any possibilities. Maybe offer Santiago a deal after this season buying out his last year of arbitration and adding a year or two to it. I don’t think it would take a lot of guaranteed money to do that.
Sphere It
I love Furcal. I love the way he plays and his speed would be great for the Tigers. However, I know he’s been out for well over a month already this season with a back injury. I know that those sorts of injuries are notoriously tough to recover from. It’ll be interesting to see what they do.
Where’s Sheff?
Wasn’t he supposed to be back by now?
Do you think the brass is trying to talk him into hanging him up?
Wasn’t he like 1-10 so far in the minors?
Furcal would be amazing but he would be very expensive on the free agent market. I would expect LA to try to keep him around anyways. The rest of the guys mentioned don’t seem like an upgrade at the position. It’s the same issue as we had with Pudge last year. It’s a lot of money, but good shortstops and good catchers are hard to find.
I hear Sheff is getting called up today.
Agreed Joe. I’m sure most of the names you’d want from that list will either be resigned or want more than Renteria. It’s pretty much a no-brainer at this point to keep him in 2009. 2010 is worrysome, however.
Well by 2010 hopefully someone out of Hollimon, Worth or Iorg is MLB ready, if not, hopefully we will parlay our added revenue from the two consecutive WS titles to sign a high-profile free agent.
Seriously though, the advent of the Tigers as a franchise committed to winning from top to bottom makes me worry a lot less about these kinds of things than I used to be. Ilitch has proven he will do whatever it takes to put a winner on the field (this stage of the Tigers is very reminiscent of the early to mid-90s Red Wings that were talented and poised to finally break through and win a championship) and he has the front office in place to make it happen. I remember wondering when the Tigers were ever going to have a decent center fielder or hoping we’d get a catcher that could hit better than .220. DD beat the bushes to get Carlos Guillen to this club. People focus on signings like Maggs and the Cabrera trade but it is nothing short of remarkable how DD has been able to build a team through shrewd trades, good drafting and quality FA signings.
Check out the free agents available for 2010 though. It’s ugly. Mostly utility cabliber guys. That’s why if they want to go that direction, I pretty much feel like they’ll need to sign one of the guy’s available after this season.
I think we just have to hope Iorg progresses smoothly or Santiago proves he can play daily in 2010.
You are right. I do worry a lot less with Dombrowski and his scouting team’s ability to find under-the-radar guys to acquire. I think that may be more likely than Iorg.
Is Jim Walewander available?
I still would take Iorg over a really stiff Renteria. Let the kid develop and see if he can play.
Maybe we could pry a SS prospect from somebody in a trade deadline deal.
Remember Jack Wilson? Anyone have any regrets we didn’t get him.