Tigers had better options available than Jose Valverde

unfortunately the yankees can sustain twice the salary of the tigers, which is why a lot of people are so mad about overpaying

Over and over the reasons closers are not key players have been gone over. Anecdotal evidence, which is what you are urging to use with the watch games plea, is not reliable. The numbers tell the truth: closers are not as valuable as defense. This move is a bad move and done to give folks who believe closers are necessary something to latch onto.

but it doesn’t mean I’m a negative, pessimistic fan, so please don’t speak for everyone here. I’m excited to go to spring training and see how this is going to shake out, and even more excited for 2010. I can understand your points, though. as much as I hate the way he twists words around to make it sound like he’s saying something when he’s not, I’m pretty sure DD wants to win, as does the rest of the front office. when DD makes moves I don’t support, sure, it’s discouraging, but nobody’s switching allegiances to the Yankees or anything. it’s the off-season, things are changing. 2010 might be a great year, it might not. it’ll be ok, either way.

but I think crazy carl’s right.

a) We’re entitles to our opinions. You get yours and we get ours. 4 posts about how wrong we are is a little bit unnecessary.

b) What’s the point in drafting all those relievers if you’re just gonna sign another guy to provide relief pitching, even if it is a closer? It’s a season in which the Tigers are probably expected to be decent, not great. Wouldn’t it make more sense to see if we have a closer within our own ranks during a season in which there isn’t much expected of us? See what you got in 2010 so you can accurately spend the money you’re going to have in 2011.

I think quite a few would have been dismayed at signing Kerry Wood.

I would’ve hated the Kerry Wood deal way more than this deal. So that is a false assumption.

Any of the guys that were listed above are professional pitchers. Any of them could be “professional closers” whatever that may mean.

Well his K rates that are lower than career averages, while being 32 years old, would indicate there is a decline in the near future.

There were cheaper options, in house options and there is a lack of position players in the farm system. The contract for Valverde means he will be taking innings away from players that could fill the role and we lose out on a chance to draft a player that could actual help on the field at a regular position.

A draft pick is younger, may not likely be yet another reliever and could fill a glaring need (SS, 3B, OF) in the organizational depth chart.

The addition of the value is showing what is lost and the math is in a link to hardball times. I believe Beyond the Boxscore also did something on drafted player value. In losing that draft pick the Tigers have actually weakened their overall organizational strength thanks to a lack of positional player depth that a first round draft pick could address (or even starting pitcher or the 1000th reliever).

Because the pick in the last half of the first round is $5 million in value (on average). If you want to look at it as trading the draft pick, fine. But that means it’s Valverde at 2/$14 + giving the Astros $5 mil for doing business with him. Like a surcharge. We had a pick that nets around $5 million in value through the history of the draft that we no longer have today. We’ve sacrificed that for Valverde which now makes his cost increase by $5 mil. Whether you just want to tack that on or assume we “traded” it, it’s all the same.

What winning team would’ve had Bobby Jenks closing out games before 2005?

Well, Valverde isn’t striking out every hitter he faces, therefore he’ll need to be recording outs. If Valverde is on the mound for 60 innings, at 3 outs an inning that’s 180 outs. Curtis Granderson, last year for instance, was on defense for 400 outs during the season. Now, how many of those outs is Valverde getting, directly by himself? 60? Those 400 for Grandy? Those are all put-outs — balls he caught that were an out.

So, Granderson, on defense was out there for over 6 times the amount of outs that Valverde would be. And this isn’t just a Granderson-lover here. I advocated trading him and even like the return we got for him. But relievers just aren’t worth all of that much.

Now, Valverde will be on the mound in crucial situations and that can be judged by Leverage Index. I’m not denying that he’s out there in crunch time, but it also isn’t the only inning in which there is a crucial point in the game. Teams don’t win because of great closers. They win because their set-up men are lights out.

Remember 2006? Why was the bullpen so good? Was it Todd Jones at the end? Not really. It was Joel Zumaya and Fernando Rodney in the 7th and 8th innings before him. Because those 6 outs are often high-leverage as well and 6 outs of high-leverage baseball is more than 3 outs of high-leverage baseball.

Add in that the average reliever/closer in baseball converts something like 80-85% of all leads of 2 or more runs and what closers do gets less and less impressive.

I didn’t say BA and ERA mean nothing, it’s just that with the variance from year to year, they aren’t entirely a good predictor of future success.

Oh, I know. I was just going off the projection. If you want to bump that to 70 innings the number still remains the same.

But I hear what you’re sayin’.