skyking162

JC Bradbury made a great point about the Marlins trading Dontrelle Willis to the Tigers: Willis wouldn’t have been a Marlin in the first place if not for another Florida “salary dump” deal in 2002. Prior to that season, the Cubs decided they needed some top notch pitching, trading for Antonio Alfonseca and Matt Clement. The Marlins received Willis and Julian Tavarez in return. Not bad.

Nobody likes when big name players get traded away and nobody likes counting on unknown players producing down the road. But it usually works.

(In researching this post, I discovered that Florida once plucked Johan Santana from Houston in the Rule 5 draft, then immediately flipped him to Minnesota in a pre-arranged swap. Oops.)

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To properly grade the Tigers-Marlins blockbuster, you have to project all six of the prospects the Marlins acquired. I could take a stab at Cameron Maybin and Andrew Miller, but I definitely have no idea about the other four beyond what I’ve read recently. Therefore I won’t try to comment on them. I do, however, want to discuss the two players acquired by the Tigers, because they’ve create two important questions.

One, What Do The Tigers Do With Brandon Inge?

It’s sort of a foregone conclusion that Brandon Inge will be traded. After all, $6 million is a lot of money for a utility infielder who shouldn’t play much behind the infield Guillen, Polanco, Renteria, and Cabrera. But after a poor offensive season (.236/.312/.376), the Tigers would likely have to eat some of Inge’s salary or not receive anything in return. For a guy who owns an excellent glove (+15 runs) and before 2007 had posted three consecutive seasons of at least a 98 OPS+, that’s not a smart move. Considering that Cabrera’s main weakness is his defense (-15 runs), it’s worth finding an option where Inge mans the hot corner and Cabrera is moved to a less demanding position. What’s available?

First base: Carlos Guillen is scheduled to play here. Guillen could play third, but that’s where we want to put Inge.

Left field: Cabrera’s played here before. According to the Fans Scouting report, Miggy’s hands are better than his range, but has an innacurate arm. Left fielders are five runs less valuable than third basemen. On the other hand, the Tigers are still searching for a left fielder (unless they give Jacque Jones the full time spot) and Cabrera could fill that need. Jones would be come a super-sub, getting an occasional start against righties in place of Cabrera/Ordonez, and coming in as a defensive replacement later in games. Jones could even be part of a strange three-way platoon, pinch-hitting for Inge in important spots and playing left field while pushing Cabrera back in to play third base for the rest of the game.

Designated hitter: Putting Miggy at DH would certainly fix his defensive shortcomings. It would, however push Gary Sheffield into the outfield, which is also not a pretty sight.

My vote is for option two, pushing Cabrera to the outfield and getting creative with Jones and Inge. Cabrera’s a great hitter, 60 runs better than Inge in 2007. But Inge was 30 runs better with the glove. Isn’t it worth finding a way to leverage both their strengths?

Two, How Good Is Dontrelle Willis?

Here are Willis’ ERAs since 2003, his first season in the majors: 3.30, 4.02, 2.63, 3.87, 5.17. 2007 was not a good one, but Dontrelle’s still only 26 years old and has shown seasons of brilliance, so let’s see if there are any positive factors hiding behind that 5.17 ERA.

BABIP: .329 (.309 career)
The Marlins had one of the worst defenses in 2007, highlighted (lowlighted?) by Miguel Cabrera (-15), Hanley Ramirez (-20), and Dan Uggla (-10). Even though Willis is a flyball pitcher, he was obviously hurt by his fielders.

HR/FB: 13% (9% career)
Inducing flyballs is a skill, but the frequency at which they leave the ballpark is much more unstable. League-average homeruns per flyball rate is about 9%, and Willis was well above that in 2007. Going forward he should be closer to his career rate of .8 homeruns per game than 2007’s 1.3 homeruns per game.

LOB%: 70% (74% career)
Stranding runners isn’t directly a skill, but more of a reflection of other things a pitcher can control like walks, hits, and homeruns. The second two have already been discussed, but I’ll also point out that Willis’ walk-rate has steadily increased over the past few seasons from 2.1 to 3.8 per game. By allowing fewer baserunners and giving up fewer homeruns, Willis surely won’t have an ERA over 5.00 again.

So what can we expect from Dontrelle is 2008? 200 innings is a given. He’s only 26 and has shown he can handle that workload. If we account for fielding and the flukey HR/FB rate, here are Willis’ expected ERAs (accounting for lack of DH) since 2004: 4.33, 3.82, 4.69, and 4.76. A weighted average is probably around 4.50, worth about 30 runs above replacement over 200 innings. Of course, the AL is a significantly tougher league beyond the DH, but the Tigers have the fielding to cover that up. If Willis can figure out how to bring his walk-rate back down, he’ll post an ERA somewhere around 4.00.

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