Leading OFF
Tigers weigh risks, rewards in considering Fulmer deal
Michael Fulmer shut down the Toronto Blue Jays on Saturday at Comerica Park. He allowed one run, two hits and one walk over eight innings.
In the start before that, he gave up two earned runs to the firstplace Cleveland Indians. In the three starts before that, he held opponents to seven combined runs. He was named the American League rookie of the year last season. He makes just over $500,000. He is only 24.
He is, in short, the best pitcher the Detroit Tigers have, and the team’s best contract. And he is likely to get better.
Which means the Tigers absolutely have to consider trading him. At the least, they have to listen.
Because baseball isn’t basketball, where superstar players are scarce and one player can change a franchise. Nor is this football, where general managers rarely consider trading a promising young quarterback.
Baseball GMs do, however, flip high-level skill players or defensive difference-makers for draft picks, much like in the NFL.
It’s about volume. It’s true that swapping a single, established asset for a handful of potential contributors is a gamble.
And no Tigers asset is worth more than Fulmer.
Yes, the Tigers could ship him off and get prospects who don’t turn into serious major league players. Or, they could do what the Kansas City Royals did in 2010 and ship off a 2009 Cy Young Award winner in the early stages of his prime to remake their roster.
When the Royals traded Zack Greinke to the Milwaukee Brewers, they knew they were several years away from competing for a World Series. Kansas City knew it needed more than one star pitcher — Greinke, then 27 — to compete.
In return, the Royals got shortstop Alcides Escobar, outfielder Lorenzo Cain and two pitching prospects — Jeremy Jeffress and Jake Odorizzi.
Escobar and Cain went on to become integral position players for the Royals’ World Series teams in 2014 and 2015. Odorizzi was sent to the Tampa Bay Rays in 2012 for starting pitcher James Shields and relief pitcher Wade Davis.
Shields settled the Royals rotation and helped lead them to the World Series in 2014, where they lost to the San Francisco Giants. Davis emerged as one of the best relievers in baseball and was critical to the 2014 run and the 2015 World Series championship.
In other words, the Royals turned one of the best pitchers in the game into a shortstop, an outfielder, a top-of-the-rotation starter and a dominant reliever, all of whom contributed to the best two-year run in franchise history.
Not all trades work out so well. And Kansas City had to gamble twice. First by moving Greinke, then by moving Odorizzi, a topshelf prospect at the time.
If the Tigers hear an offer they can’t refuse, there is obviously no guarantee the return prospects, and established players, will make that sort of difference. But winning doesn’t come without risk.
Fulmer says he doesn’t want to be traded. He was asked about the speculation involving his name and said he didn’t think he was going anywhere.
“So I’m not really worried about it,” he said. “We’re trying to keep the whole team together right now. So we’ve got to start the second half off on a winning streak and just keep going up.”
You have to admire his optimism. That belief is partly what makes him such a special pitcher. Mentally, he is 24 going on 34. That is why he has followed up his excellent rookie season with a dominant year so far.
That is rare among young pitchers and another reason to balk at the idea of trading an ace. It’s not just that it sounds ludicrous on some level to give up on such a young talent, it’s that most teams that trade star pitchers do so when the pitcher is a bit older. Like Greinke was. Or like Jose Quintana is. The Chicago White Sox just shipped their 28-year-old starter to the crosstown Cubs for a package of prospects. The Cubs are trying to give their World Series-hungover clubhouse a jolt. They reportedly had inquired about Fulmer, too.
It’s fine that the Tigers brass didn’t feel comfortable with whatever they heard. It has to be the right deal.
It’s also fine if that deal doesn’t happen before the non-waiver trade deadline July 31. This kind of gamble requires careful consideration.
It’s a deal, by the way, that shouldn’t be the only one. Tigers President Al Avila has many pieces to rearrange. That won’t be easy.
But then, rebuilding efforts rarely are.
Because the truth is, Fulmer isn’t the only pitcher on the roster with promise. It’s still too soon to tell what Daniel Norris will become. Or even Matthew Boyd.
Surely there is some part of Avila and his staff that might want to keep those three young pitchers together for the next couple of years and see how they develop.
The problem is that Norris and Boyd might not, and if a rebuild ends up taking five or six years, and the Tigers keep Fulmer, then the trade value of a chunk of his prime is wasted.
So, yes, letting Fulmer go would be a sizable risk.
Yet the bigger risk might be keeping him.