MLive.com's Steve Kornacki reports the Tigers may be in the early stages of a trade discussion with the Cubs with the goal of acquiring left-handed pitcher Tom Gorzelanny. According to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette's Dejan Kovacevic, the Cubs are actively shopping Gorzellany.
Depending on the cost, this is the kind of move that makes sense for the Tigers. Not only do they acquire a southpaw, they get one with a projected ERA of 4.06 (by Bill James Online, available at Fangraphs). Last year, the 28-year-old Gorzelanny walked too many for my liking (11.3 percent of plate appearances), but struck out batters in nearly 20 percent of plate appearances. He gets a pretty even distribution of groundballs (40 percent) and flyballs (40 percent).
In July, Fangraphs wrote of him:
His control still isn’t where it needs to be, and that will be an important component of his game going forward. Yet Gorzelanny’s peripherals, both in the minors and the majors, make him look like a better case for permanent recovery.
Gorzelanny is under club control through 2012 according to Cot's Contracts and earned $800,000 last season.