Around little-league parks, and even on the back fields of certain schools and organizations, you might hear a common refrain from the batting cages. “Chop wood, chop wood,” is how Bryce Harper mimics the coaches he’s heard before. The idea is that a quick, direct path to the baseball — like an ax chop — is the best way to get quickly to the ball and create the backspin that fuels the power.

Turns out, pretty much all of that is wrong.

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The Houston Astros acquired right-hander David Paulino and outfielder Danry Vasquez from the Detroit Tigers at the trade deadline in 2013 for a two-month rental of reliever Jose Veras. At the time Vasquez was a rising prospect for the Tigers and the centerpiece of the deal. Paulino was nothing more than a rail-thin project to sweeten the pot.

A lot has changed since then: Paulino has bulked up, his fastball has gained velocity and the breaking ball has taken a step forward developmentally. Across three levels of A-ball this season, the 21-year-old boasts an impressive 72:19 strikeout-to-walk ratio over 67.1 innings. Here are my notes from seeing Paulino in extended spring training this year.

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The Tigers selected right-hander Beau Burrows, one of the hardest throwing prep arms in the class, out of Weatherford High School in Texas with the 22nd-overall pick a few months ago. After quickly signing for just over slot value ($2.1 million), Burrows was assigned to the Tigers’ Rookie-league affiliate in the Gulf Coast League. The 18-year-old right-hander put together an impressive professional debut, with above-average numbers but, more importantly, Burrows’ pre-draft stuff and command were present and he showed the aptitude to adjust to pro instruction. I observed two of Burrows’ starts, on August 13 and August 27.

Physical Description
Generously listed at 6-foot-2 and 200 pounds, Burrows is likely closer to an even six-feet tall and has a mature build for his age. There’s solid strength in Burrows’ upper body and core. His lower half is exceptionally strong with fairly thick tree trunk legs; there’s minimal physical projection remaining. That being said, Burrows’ frame already resembles that of a potential innings eater.

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A little over a month ago, Dave ran through his annual trade value rankings, and as he likes to do, after all the good bits, he wrote up the bad bit, addressing the game’s least-valuable players. Ranking third on his list was fallen Tigers ace Justin Verlander, whose contract is steady even when the pitching isn’t. Verlander ranked worse than Matt Kemp. Worse than Shin-Soo Choo. He’s making $28 million a year through 2019, and when Dave wrote the post up, Verlander looked like a wreck, after a season in which he also looked like a wreck. Verlander’s contract has been used as one of the reasons why the Tigers might be headed for disaster.

And, the Tigers might be headed for disaster. So might you and I be, I don’t know. Who knows anything? One thing I think I know, though — Verlander has turned things around. As the Tigers have faded out of the race, Verlander has seemingly re-emerged, and now it’s worth wondering what he actually is. Just as the world was getting used to the idea of an underwhelming, under-performing Justin Verlander, he’s showing signs that he…might…be…back? What if that were true? Are we open to the chance that that’s true?

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It’s not uncommon for a narrative to develop around a great team — nor, specifically, for it to develop around the particular player on that great team who best represents the collective identity. For a club that exhibits a lot of power, the most powerful player is the focus. When a team is full of idiots, the most idiotic player garners a lot of attention. For a young team, the youngest, a gritty team, the grittiest, etc. These portrayals might not be entirely accurate, but they help tell stories and mold perspectives about a club’s identity as they march closer to the end of the season and, subsequently, the playoffs. Repeating the exercise for a disappointing, mediocre team can be an interesting process. So it is with this season’s Detroit Tigers and the one player who most embodies their season: Anibal Sanchez.

Injuries to players like Miguel Cabrera and Justin Verlander have played a role in Detroit’s disappointing 54-57 season, but Cabrera hit incredibly well for half a season and has already produced an above-average line. Verlander, a focal point for the club in the past, has barely pitched at all this season, lacking the requisite presence to represent the 2015 Detroit Tigers. Ian Kinsler has had an odd, but effective season. J.D. Martinez has had another great year, and Yoenis Cespedes had played very well before his trade to the New York Mets. The offense has not been the Tigers’s problem this season with one of the better run-scoring teams in the majors and a 109 wRC+ to back it up. The defense has been average overall so the onus shifts to the pitching.

The bullpen has been bad, ahead of only Boston’s and Texas’s while sitting at essentially replacement-level. If you are looking for someone to blame for the season, the bullpen is an easy target, having recorded just 27 saves against 14 blown saves — and their ranks for both Shutdowns and Meltdowns are near the bottom third of all bullpens. Simply being the weak link on the Tigers does not make the bullpen representative of the team at large, however. Despite the mess of a bullpen, the team is still close to .500 — and Detroit has succeeded in previous years despite similarly weak collection of relievers. So we move to the rotation. David Price was phenomenal, Alfredo Simon exceeded his projections, Justin Verlander has been bullpen-level bad, and none of the other starters had any expectations on them heading into the season, leaving Anibal Sanchez as both a player with decent expectations and a failure to reach them.

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Every so often, someone asks where I got my start. My first online conversations about baseball took place on the ESPN message boards, and I’m a Mariners fan, and that was back when the Mariners mattered. Around the turn of the millennium, the Mariners were entering the best era in franchise history. Between 2000 – 2003, the Mariners racked up more regular-season wins than anybody else. They ultimately crashed, and crashed hard, but four strong teams were built. Four competitive teams were built. It was terrific, except for the thing that was missing. In 2003, the Marlins of all teams won that thing. There was much debate over what a fan really wants. Say what you will about the Marlins, but they’ve brought home a couple trophies.

Here, I ask you what some might consider a fundamental question. There’s a poll at the end of this, and I want you to try to answer honestly, as a fan who’s presumably something more than just a casual observer. I’m going to go ahead and update my Mariners and Marlins examples. There are current(ish) teams who can fill the same roles. We’re all more familiar with what’s current!

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This breakdown starts with the Scott Kazmir deal on July 23, but there weren’t any trades from the 16th to the 23rd, so this covers the whole second half of the month, trade-wise, up until now. I count 25 total trades with prospects involved in that span that add together to have 58 prospects on the move. Check out the preseason Top 200 List for more details, but I’ve added the range that each Future Value (FV) group fell in last year’s Top 200 to give you an idea of where they will fall in this winter’s list. Also see the preseason team-specific lists to see where the lower-rated prospects may fall within their new organization.

40 FV is the lowest grade that shows up on these numbered team lists, with 35+ and 35 FV prospects mentioned in the “Others of Note” section, so I’ll give blurbs for the 40 FV or better prospects here. I’ve also linked to the post-trade prospect breakdown for the trades I was able to analyze individually, so click there for more information. Alternately, click on the player’s name to see his player page with all his prior articles listed if I didn’t write up his trade.

I opted to not numerically rank these players now, but I will once I’ve made the dozens and dozens of calls necessary this fall and winter to have that level of precision with this many players. Look for the individual team lists to start rolling out in the next month, with the 2016 Top 200 list coming in early 2016. Lastly, the players are not ranked within their tiers, so these aren’t clues for where they will fall on the Top 200.

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Just minutes before the non-waiver trade deadline, the Mets finally landed the offensive spark plug they were looking for. They swung a deal for outfielder Yoenis Cespedes from the Detroit Tigers in exchange for pitching prospects Michael Fulmer and Luis Cessa. Here’s what my fancy computer math has to say about these two minor league hurlers and their respective big league futures. Read the rest of this entry »

We know that the Tigers aren’t pleased to have wound up in this position. They’ve been one of baseball’s most win-now organizations in recent years, and nothing about the 2015 roster construction really conveyed an impression of “building for the future!” Rather, there’s been concern that the Tigers are headed for a cliff, on account of all the money they have tied up in declining players. And when that’s what the future looks like, you at least hope that you can win soon. This year, the winning hasn’t happened. The Tigers had to acknowledge their situation, and sell. There’s no way that was an easy call for them to make.

There is a silver lining, though, one other than simply understanding that sports are frivolous entertainment and there are far more important things in the world. That’s the steady and constant silver lining in the background. There’s a particular silver lining to the Tigers having dealt David Price to the Blue Jays. If the Tigers had their wish, they would’ve given the ball to Price in Game 1 of the ALDS. They got him for two years for a reason. But the return package the Tigers got from the Blue Jays is strong. The group, headed by Daniel Norris, instantly helps the Tigers’ system, and the return seems at least equivalent to what the Tigers gave to get Price in the first place. Which was a year ago, when Price was available for two playoff runs, not one.

Put it another way: Dave Dombrowski traded for Price. Price helped the 2014 Tigers win the AL Central by one game, and then he pitched in the playoffs. Granted, the Tigers got swept, but they got to use Price for their opportunity. Then they had Price for another four months. Now he’s been traded, for a strong group of young players. Even though Price himself has lost some value, given his imminent free agency, it looks like the Tigers managed to turn a profit here, overall.

Read the rest at Just A Bit Outside.

In yet another blockbuster deal, the Toronto Blue Jays have landed David Price from the Tigers in exchange for lefty hurlers Daniel Norris, Jairo Labourt and Matt Boyd. More pitching prospects on the move! Once again, I’ve applied my fancy computer math to these players to try to get some sense of these pitchers’ futures. If you’re looking for scouting reports on these players, check out Kiley’s write up of this trio. (Note: WAR figures denote WAR through age-28 season.)

Daniel Norris, 4.8 WAR

The centerpiece of the players headed to Detroit is easily Daniel Norris, who was widely considered to be one of the top-20 prospects in baseball heading into the year. Norris enjoyed a meteoric rise through the Blue Jays farm system in 2014. After 13 dominant starts at High-A, the Blue Jays bumped him up to Double-A for eight starts, and then Triple-A for four starts, before giving him a taste of the big leagues last September. Norris pitched to a 2.53 ERA and 2.57 FIP in the minors in 2014.

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