The Granderson Trade

The Tigers beat the Yankees and the seeds of that defeat for the Yankees were sown back in December of 2009 when as part of a three-team trade Curtis Granderson was traded to the Yankees.

Here's what I wrote about the trade at the time.

Granderson supporters will say their guy hit 43 HR. Big deal! For the record - Austin Jackson had a .856 OPS with 260 total bases while Granderson had an .811 OPS and 293 TB. Let me also add that Jackson is under team control until 2016 and by the way he had a .353 batting average against the Yankees in the Tigers sweep of the series.

I'd say the Tigers won the trade even if it was just Granderson for Jackson but the Tigers also got Phil Coke (who had 2 saves against New York) and Max Scherzer (who beat the Yankees in game 4).

Justin Verlander

Let me say off the top that I'm not a supporter of Justin Verlander for AL MVP. I think Adrian Gonzalez is the best choice right now (though there's still a lot of games to play). I did want to comment on the idea that Verlander shouldn't get support because he's not a "everyday player". I think that argument is nonsense. And here's why.

The so called "everyday player" can play offense and can play defense. That's it. In regards to defense - there's a stat called put-outs (PO) to measure how many "outs" the player is "responsible" for (sorry for all the "scare" quotes - I can't help myself). Jacoby Ellsbury has 315 PO, Curtis Granderson has 287 PO and Dustin Pedroia has 231 PO. Of course Adrian Gonzalez has as of this morning exactly 1,000 PO on the season. His PO total is more than Ellsbury, Granderson and Pedroia combined but that's because Gonzo plays 1st base. It would be silly to say that even the worst fielding 1st baseman is more valuable than a Gold Glove caliber outfielder like Ellsbury or a Gold Glove winning 2nd baseman like Pedroia simply because the stone hands 1st baseman has more PO and is thus more involved with the defense. That would be like arguing that a pitcher shouldn't be an MVP because he's not as involved as an "everyday player".

Actually the point I was trying to make was the fact that Justin Verlander has 212 strikeouts plus 10 PO. That means he has been directly "responsible" for 222 outs this season on defense which would be fairly close to Pedroia's number of PO. So it can be argued that a dominating strikeout pitcher is almost as involved overall as any "everyday" player. So what about offense?

Well the argument against a pitcher for the MVP is usually that the pitcher is not as involved in a team's success as an everyday player. That he's only a factor every fifth game (which would be 20% of the time in a 5-man rotation). But if you think about it - on offense no matter who the player is they only get to be a factor once every nine at-bats (or about 11% of the time). The rest of the time the player is just watching from the bench or from the on-deck circle having just as much impact as the pitcher who started the game before and is hanging out on the bench. A player at the top of the order will naturally get more plate appearances than a guy batting ninth but even if he accounts for 15% of the team's plate appearances - how is that more important than a starting pitcher who is starting 20% of the games?

OK - you may argue that a starting pitcher may start a game but that doesn't mean he finishes a game and that point is fair enough. However, consider that the Tigers have played 131 games with a total of 1161 innings. Justin Verlander has accounted for 209.67 of those 1161 innings -which equates to 18% of all the team's innings pitched. Not even the best leadoff man is going to equate to 18% of the team's plate appearances.

So tell me again - why is a guy like Verlander less valuable to his team than a "everyday" player?

Flotsam and Jetsam

Miscellaneous thoughts and observations.

Joel Sherman with a nice little article today on Johnny Damon. Simply put - not re-signing Damon and trading for Curtis Granderson were both mistakes. Still early in the season and small sample size and all but consider the following - both Nick Johnson and Granderson have an OPS less than .700 and both have missed significant time being on the DL. Damon and Austin Jackson (the main player in the Granderson trade) have OPS's of .867 and .901 respectively. Damon has played in all 32 games so far for the Tigers.... OK - I'll say it! First Janet Napolitano and now Elana Kagan? You have to wonder if Obama has a thing for chubby white women (just kidding)... 15 Celebrities Servicing Invisible Men... If people are going to start retroactively taking back awards from people who used performance enhancing drugs then the 1988 AL MVP should go to Mike Greenwell. Jose Canseco admitted to using steroids that year and he won the award... "Let us cross over the river, and rest under the shade of the trees" famous last words of General Stonewall Jackson...

Granderson to Yankees

Curtis Granderson went to the Yankees as the main part of a three team, seven player trade. As a Red Sox fan - I like this trade. I like it a lot.

Granderson's defense is over-rated and his offense has been in steady decline the past three years (his OPS has declined from .913 to .858 to .780 this season). He plain can't hit lefties (.210 career batting average against lefties) and if the Yankees plan to use him as a lead-off hitter then this year's line-up will be a step down from last year's line-up that had Johnny Damon setting the table. On top of all that - Granderson has a career .728 OPS against Boston.

The Yankees greatly weakened their bullpen with this trade by sending Phil Coke who was a rock last season. They also gave up two of their biggest trading chips in Ian Kennedy and Austin Jackson - meaning that they probably cannot make another big trade this offseason without completely depleting their farm system.

The Yankees trading Austin Jackson is akin to the Red Sox trading Lars Anderson. It was a nice move by Detroit landing Jackson. I wouldn't be at all surprised if Jackson at least matched Granderson's .780 OPS from last season if the 22-year old Jackson is given the chance to start this season.

Adding Jackson also puts in question the Yankees determination to sign either Jason Bay or Matt Holliday.

As a Red Sox fan - I like this trade a lot.

The All-Disappointment Team

Going into the season many fans and fantasy baseball players had high hopes for certain players but not all the big names have pulled their weight. Here's my All-Disappointment team up to this point of the season.

C - Victor Martinez Indians - 0 HR before going on the DL
1st - Richie Sexson Mariners - .675 OPS
2nd - Freddie Sanchez Pirates - .236 BA - where's the guy who won a batting title?
SS - Troy Tulowitzki Rockies - .152 BA before going on DL
3rd - Ryan Zimmerman - just a .718 OPS before going on DL (yet still leads the Nationals in HR and RBI - that's how bad the Nationals are)
OF - Curtis Granderson Tigers - just 3 SB and a .246 BA
OF - Delmon Young Twins - Just 1 HR - the Twins would have been better off trading for the power hitting of Coco Crisp
OF - Gary Sheffield Tigers - .213 BA before going on DL - may be the end of the line
DH - Travis Hafner Indians - 4 HR before going on the DL
EDIT: As Donald pointed out - Andruw Jones should have been listed. He's the worst free agent signing this year.

SRHP - Roy Oswalt Astros - 5.06 ERA - really?
SLHP - CC Sabathia Indians - starting to turn things around but still no back-to-back Cy Young Awards
Closer - JJ Putz Mariners - 7 saves and a 5.21 ERA before going on DL
EDIT: As groug (what kind of name is groug?) points out - Barry Zito should be the SLHP. Mea culpa.