Sellers at last year’s trading deadline, the Tigers symbolically — and financially — declared that was the most temporary of detours in the offseason when it literally was business as usual under go-for-it owner Mike Ilitch.
Detroit spent $271.75 million on free agents, the second most to the Cubs. Yet, if the Tigers make the playoffs, it will be counter-intuitively in spite of those signings. For they went 0-for-5:
1. Mike Aviles (one year, $2 million)
He hit .210 as a utilityman, was traded in August to the Braves as a financial counterbalance to Erick Aybar and immediately designated for assignment by Atlanta and has not played in the majors since.
2. Mark Lowe (two years, $11 million)
Lost his main righty set-up man role early (to former Yankee Shane Greene) with lousy pitching. Has a 2.41 ERA over his past 19 outings, but mostly in mop-up (Detroit is 3-16 in those games). His 7.29 ERA was more than a run worse than any other major leaguer with at least 50 appearances and nearly a run worse than anyone else in Tigers history.
3. Mike Pelfrey (two years, $16 million)
Detroit invested in a pitcher who, over the five previous seasons, was injury prone and was 18-40 with a 4.77 ERA. So perhaps only the Tigers are surprised that he is 4-10 with a 5.00 ERA, lost his rotation spot in the first half then went to the DL with a strained back.
4. Jordan Zimmermann (five years, $110 million)
Pelfrey came off the DL to start Thursday (and give up four runs in 1 2/3 innings) because Zimmermann — off two DL stints for a neck injury — has lost command and velocity and is doing side sessions to try to regain his stuff. Zimmermann was 5-0 with a 0.55 ERA in April. In 12 starts since, the righty is 4-6 with a 7.16 ERA.
5. Justin Upton (six years, $132.75 million)
At that deadline sell-off last year, the Tigers turned Yoenis Cespedes into Michael Fulmer (a burgeoning ace) and Luis Cessa (who helped them land Justin Wilson). But rather than re-sign the superior Cespedes for likely less, Detroit went with the streaky Upton, whose bad streak this year lasted 4 1/2 months (.226 average, .652 OPS and 13 homers). That led to him tumbling from second to fifth to sixth in the lineup. He finally has gotten hot over the past 24 games (.301/1.136/11 homers).
Now, what we don’t have is perspective with this. Perhaps, Upton still will hit the Tigers into the playoffs or Zimmermann will win a key game or two, and all of these free agents, except Aviles, are under the Tigers’ employ through at least next year. But the trend lines are not good. Do you expect Upton to become less streaky with age? Zimmermann to rediscover his best fastball? So it is possible this grand attempt to win now, not only will cost Detroit this year, but for seasons to come.
This is all a reminder that as the offseason approaches there again will be demands by media and fans to “go for it” — translation: Spend big money liberally — despite strong evidence that these mass importations of free agents more often go poorly — champs of the offseason regularly becoming chumps of the actual season.
Some of that may have to do with familiarity. Like the Yankees would have been better off, say, retaining Robinson Cano over spending similar total money on Jacoby Ellsbury and Carlos Beltran — the devil you know over those you really don’t — the Tigers would have been best served re-signing Cespedes last year and Max Scherzer the year before for a total that probably would not have been all that different from what they spent last offseason alone.
Among starters who have thrown at least 300 innings the past two years, just Clayton Kershaw and Jake Arrieta have a better ERA-plus than Scherzer, and only Kershaw has averaged more strikeouts per nine innings.