Signing Skubal - and survey
Michael W
Jeffrey Withey
I think it’s worth pointing out that the Tigers current payroll not high. I also saw a table recently indicating the total revenue by team and the percentage they spend on payroll. The Tigers only spent about 49% of revenue on payroll. The Dodgers spent 73% on payroll (and obviously had much higher revenue as well.) https://i0.wp.com/twinstrivia.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/2025-MLB-Revenue-and-Payroll.jpg?w=513&ssl=1
-Jeff
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On Behalf Of Michael W
Sent: Friday, October 17, 2025 12:40 PM
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Subject: Signing Skubal - and survey
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Roger King
Peter Welch
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Subject: Re: Signing Skubal - and survey
Peter Welch
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Peter Welch
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Sent: Friday, October 17, 2025 1:06 PM
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Dave
Brad Smith
On Oct 17, 2025, at 2:56 PM, 'Dave' via Detroit Tigers e-mail list <detroit...@googlegroups.com> wrote:
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Peter Welch
Sent: Friday, October 17, 2025 2:56 PM
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Peter Welch
Sent: Friday, October 17, 2025 3:10 PM
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Michael W
Paul Meloche
Peter Welch
On Oct 17, 2025, at 8:00 PM, Paul Meloche <meloc...@gmail.com> wrote:
David Panian
Bradley Smith
Baseball America rated Anderson 1st among right-handed pitchers and 4th overall. Here was BA's top 10 published May 31, 1997 (I don't think they make BA look too good):
1. Ryan Anderson, LHP (Anderson was from Dearborn Devine Child HS. A lot of people assumed the Tigers would take the local kid, but He was not drafted until the 19th pick, when the Mariners took him. He never made the majors. For all we know, Randy Smith meant to draft Ryan, not Matt.)
2. JD Drew, OF
3. Troy Glaus, 3B (Drew and Glaus were easily the two best of this bunch, both very good players but well short of Hall of Fame).
4. Matt Anderson
5. Darnell McDonald, OF (Utility player for all or part of 8 seasons, career 1.4 WAR)
6. Jason Grilli, RHP (As Peter noted, a long but generally mediocre career: 34-47, 4.22, 4.5 WAR. All-Star in 2013 w/ Pittsburgh, when he had 33 saves)
7. Jonathan Garland, RHP (Serviceable. Best year was 2005, at 18-10, 3.50 for White Sox, made AL All-Star team. For career was 136-125, 4.37, career ERA+ of 77)
8. Tyrel Godwin, OF (totaled 3 major league career PAs, going 0-3)
9. Matt LeCroy, C (managed to play 8 seasons in the bigs, twice hitting 17 HRs. Career WAR of 0.4).
10, Eric Dubose, LHP (9-15, 5.21 for career)
The Associated Press rated the top prospects, alphabetically, as:
Matt Anderson
Ryan Anderson
Rich Ankiel, LHP (Ranked #12 by BA; 2d in ROY voting in 2000; after arm injury, converted to OF and hit 25 HRs in 2008; career WAR of 9.1)
Lance Berkman, 1B (#19 in BA's ranking--had a very nice career, 6-Time AS with 365 career homers)
Jason Dellareo, SS (Rated #13 by BA; Got 33 career major league ABs, with just 3 hits).
JD Drew
Eric Dubose
Chris Enochs, RHP (Ranked #11 by BA; taken by Oakland w/ 11th pick; never made majors)
Troy Glaus
Tyrel Godwin
Jason Grilli
Brandon Larson, SS (Ranked only #92 by BA; got 294 career ABs, WAR of -0.9)
Matt LeCroy
Darnell McDonald
Kevin Nicholson, SS (Ranked #17 per BA; Hit .216 in 97 career ABs)
Kyle Peterson, RHP (Ranked #26 by BA; 5-9, 4.71 in three ML seasons).
The AP projected that if Detroit took Ryan Anderson with the first pick, California would take Matt Anderson with the 3rd pick.
The Free Press reported a week before the draft that the Tigers were considering 4 players--the two Andersons, Drew,and McDonald--and suggested that Matt Anderson was the likely pick. Per the Freep, Anderson "fills the position ... that is the single most essential for an aspiring champion, yet the hardest to fill." I think this was conventional wisdom at the time, though both parts of that evaluation are almost certainly wrong. Post draft reports from elsewhere generally focused on the fact that the Tigers chose Anderson because they thought they could sign him, but nobody said that made it a bad pick. As for the other Anderson, the Mariners seemed ecstatic to get him so far down in the draft.
Bottom line perusing reports and the careers of the top projected players seems to be that basically, 1997 was a crappy year for the draft, and Matt Anderson was not considered a bizarre or wasted pick by the Tigers, though most commentators thought Drew was the better player.
Oh, a great coda: Here is a Ryan Anderson quote from September 10, 1997: "I feel that I am going to be the best pitcher ever in major-league baseball." Yes, we could've done worse that Matt.
Peter Welch
Sent: Friday, October 17, 2025 9:41 PM
To: Peter Welch <pw...@hotmail.com>
Cc: detroit...@googlegroups.com <detroit...@googlegroups.com>
Peter Welch
Sent: Friday, October 17, 2025 11:50 PM
To: Peter Welch <pw...@hotmail.com>; detroit...@googlegroups.com <detroit...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: Signing Skubal - and survey
Baseball America rated Anderson 1st among right-handed pitchers and 4th overall. Here was BA's top 10 published May 31, 1997 (I don't think they make BA look too good):
1. Ryan Anderson, LHP (Anderson was from Dearborn Devine Child HS. A lot of people assumed the Tigers would take the local kid, but He was not drafted until the 19th pick, when the Mariners took him. He never made the majors.
For all we know, Randy Smith meant to draft Ryan, not Matt.
LOL!
Sometimes I wonder if Randy was smokin' the same stuff as Jeff Weaver and Rob Fick in the back of the plane (that Matt Anderson would later partake in).
2. JD Drew, OF
The Tigers didn't want to pay him a $10 million bonus, but nobody did. The Phillies thought they could negotiate Boras down but it didn't work.
Drew was a good hitter. It would have been nice to have him on the Tigers. Drew should have taken the Phillies' offer. He kind of wasted a year of his career in the independent league when he might have been in the majors. I guess he got more money in the end so Boras was happy.
3. Troy Glaus, 3B (Drew and Glaus were easily the two best of this bunch, both very good players but well short of Hall of Fame).
I would have gladly taken Glaus over Brandon Inge at 3B during that era. ;-)
4. Matt Anderson
Tigers probably drafted him #1 overall because he was cheaper to sign than, say, Glaus and they weren't going to pay Drew what he wanted. Randy Smith and the scouts were mesmerized by the 100-mph fastball even though it was dead straight and lacked movement.
5. Darnell McDonald, OF (Utility player for all or part of 8 seasons, career 1.4 WAR)
Drafted out of high school but didn't make the majors until he was 25.
6. Jason Grilli, RHP (As Peter noted, a long but generally mediocre career: 34-47, 4.22, 4.5 WAR. All-Star in 2013 w/ Pittsburgh, when he had 33 saves)
Jason's dad, Steve, was regarded as a decent pitching prospect with the Tigers in the mid-70s. He never panned out because he had poor control.
7. Jonathan Garland, RHP (Serviceable. Best year was 2005, at 18-10, 3.50 for White Sox, made AL All-Star team. For career was 136-125, 4.37, career ERA+ of 77)
Garland managed to throw 2,151 innings in the majors. He was a serviceable, if mediocre, innings eater and had a couple of good seasons.
8. Tyrel Godwin, OF (totaled 3 major league career PAs, going 0-3)
3 PAs for the Nationals in 2005.
9. Matt LeCroy, C (managed to play 8 seasons in the bigs, twice hitting 17 HRs. Career WAR of 0.4).
LeCroy had good power, but I think he was regarded as poor defensively.
10, Eric Dubose, LHP (9-15, 5.21 for career)
Pitched (mostly poorly) with Orioles from 2002-2006.
The Associated Press rated the top prospects, alphabetically, as:
Matt Anderson
Ryan Anderson
Rich Ankiel, LHP (Ranked #12 by BA; 2d in ROY voting in 2000; after arm injury, converted to OF and hit 25 HRs in 2008; career WAR of 9.1)
Lance Berkman, 1B (#19 in BA's ranking--had a very nice career, 6-Time AS with 365 career homers)
Jason Dellareo, SS (Rated #13 by BA; Got 33 career major league ABs, with just 3 hits).
JD Drew
Eric Dubose
Chris Enochs, RHP (Ranked #11 by BA; taken by Oakland w/ 11th pick; never made majors)
Troy Glaus
Tyrel Godwin
Jason Grilli
Brandon Larson, SS (Ranked only #92 by BA; got 294 career ABs, WAR of -0.9)
Matt LeCroy
Darnell McDonald
Kevin Nicholson, SS (Ranked #17 per BA; Hit .216 in 97 career ABs)
Kyle Peterson, RHP (Ranked #26 by BA; 5-9, 4.71 in three ML seasons).
Interesting, Vernon Wells wasn't on that list. Wells was drafted #5 overall by the Jays.
That was a good pick as Wells was pretty good for a few years.
The AP projected that if Detroit took Ryan Anderson with the first pick, California would take Matt Anderson with the 3rd pick.
The Free Press reported a week before the draft that the Tigers were considering 4 players--the two Andersons, Drew,and McDonald--and suggested that Matt Anderson was the likely pick. Per the Freep, Anderson "fills the position ... that is the single most essential for an aspiring champion, yet the hardest to fill." I think this was conventional wisdom at the time, though both parts of that evaluation are almost certainly wrong. Post draft reports from elsewhere generally focused on the fact that the Tigers chose Anderson because they thought they could sign him, but nobody said that made it a bad pick. As for the other Anderson, the Mariners seemed ecstatic to get him so far down in the draft.
Bottom line perusing reports and the careers of the top projected players seems to be that basically, 1997 was a crappy year for the draft, and Matt Anderson was not considered a bizarre or wasted pick by the Tigers, though most commentators thought Drew was the better player.
Oh, a great coda: Here is a Ryan Anderson quote from September 10, 1997: "I feel that I am going to be the best pitcher ever in major-league baseball." Yes, we could've done worse that Matt.
Well, Ryan was confident anyway. Delusional confidence, but good for him. 🙂
Peter
Roger King
Bradley Smith
There was a conventional wisdom in the 90s (and really, from the 70s through about the 2010s) that relief pitching is much more valuable and more difficult to find than is the case. The 90s was the peak of that era. As the Freep put it in the piece I quoted earlier, both the "most essential" and "most difficult to fill" position on a championship team. In fact, both parts of that equation seem terribly wrong.
In the old days, most relievers were simply failed starters, usually because they didn't have enough pitches in their repertoire. Good relievers were recognized as such, but often they were guys who just had a good year or two, in relatively few innings. Dick Radatz, for example, put up three monster years for the Red Sox from 1962-1964, making 2 all-star teams and finishing 5th and 9th in MVP voting in '63 and '64 even though Boston finished 7th and 8th in the league. Jim Konstanty won the MVP for the Phillies in 1950. But those guys didn't put up the enormous save numbers we'd see in the 1970. Konstanty is retroactively credited with 22 saves that year; Radatz with a peak of 29. What both did was pitch a bunch of games and a ton of innings. In '63, for example, Radatz pitched in 58 games, throwing 132 innings and going 15-6 with a 1.97 ERA (and 162 Ks). The next year he threw 157 innings in 67 games, going 16-9, 2.29 with 181 Ks. :Konstanty in 1950 was 16-7, 2.66 in 152 IP over 74 games.
Guys like that were true "closers" in my mind--they truly "closed out" the other team, as opposed to just finishing the game. They often coming in with the game on the line and men on base, and routinely pitched 2-3 innings. Both Radatz and Konstanty faded quickly. By 1966 Radatz was 0-5 with a 4.64 ERA. He hung around a couple more years--including pitching in 11 games for the Tigers in 1969, his last season. Konstanty, a 33-year old mediocrity at the start of 1950, returned immediately to mediocrity with ERA + numbers below 100 the next three years.
There were a few guys who made long careers out of being "star" relievers: Elroy Face appeared in over 800 games over a 16-year period as a reliever, includiing an 18-1 record out of the pen in 1959. His first 15 seasons were all with the Pirates. Calculated retroactively, his high in saves was 28 in 1962. At age 40, Face pitched in 2 games for the 1968 Tigers. Another guy like that was Don McMahon, who appeared in 872 games in relief (and 2 as a starter) from 1957 through 1974, with a credible 22.5 career WAR and a 2.96 ERA. McMahon, who pitched for the Tigers in 1968 and 1969, had a career high 19 saves with the Giants in 1970, when he was 40 years old. Al Worthington epitomized both the failed starter and career reliever. He washed out of the majors at age 33 in 1960 with a career record of 33-47 and a 101 career ERA +. After 2 years pitching in the PCL, he returned with the Reds, who made him a relief specialist. Over the next 6 years, with the Reds and Twins, he averaged 16 saves a season with a 2.55 ERA. But through all this time, relievers was something of an afterthought as one assembled a team.
The emphasis on relievers as a a particularly valuable part of the team appears to have sprung in part out of the introduction of the "save" as an official stat in 1969, which coincided with the start of trends among managers to use a single "closer" who would start the 9th inning. Because in days gone by teams would not use one person as a closer, save numbers--to the extent they existed as an informal stat or were retroactively calculated to compare to "modern" relievers of the 70s--had always been relatively low. Further, the definition of a "save" is a relatively low standard, merely requiring an inning of work with the team leading by 3 or fewer runs. In the old days, the starter typically pitched until he was getting hit hard, which means relievers usually came in with men on base. Enter a game with nobody out, a 2-run lead, and men on 2nd and 3rd, you can strike out 2 batters, then give up a bloop single and the game is tied, with a "blown save," before striking out the 4th hitter. With the use of closers to start the 9th, a lot of saves are cheap saves: Entering a game at the top of the inning with a two-run lead, you can give up a line drive to the first baseman, a fly ball to the warning track, that same bloop single that scored two runs in my previous example, followed by a routine can-o-corn, and come away with a save that never even felt threatened.
Thus, mind-boggling save numbers began to appear--pitchers "saving" 40% or more of a team's wins. I mean, wow! But for your ace "closer," it suddenly looks like you could have 20 fewer wins. But this was always overblown. Radatz--probably the best relief pitcher ever between 1962 and 1964, was 2nd, 3rd, and 3rd in the AL in pitcher's WAR. But he was more the exception than the rule. Even a guy like Konstanty, in his big season, was only 9th in the NL in pitcher's WAR. Clay Carroll-an established "ace reliever" (he averaged 63 appearances per year from 1966 through 1971, and made the All-Star team 1971) put up a then-astounding 37 saves for Cincinnati in 1972, but wasn't even in the top 10 in the NL in WAR.
Nonetheless, by the mid-70s we were seeing guys groomed as career relievers who were perceived as top pitchers, guys such as Sparky Lyle. But their value, and rarity, seems to have always been overrated. Lyle, for example, never was in the top 10 in the league for pitcher's WAR. The Tigers' John Hiller was a really, really good reliever, who bested Carroll's mark with a then-record 38 saves in 1973. But even pitching 125 innings with a 1.51 ERA, certainly one of the 5 greatest single seasons by a reliever to that point, Hiller only 2d in pitcher's WAR in the AL, and he was never again in the top 10. In Willie Hernandez's big 1984 MVP season, he was only 6th in the AL in WAR. Mariano Rivera, perhaps the greatest career reliever of all time, was never higher than 10th in pitcher's WAR. Goose Gossage was 2d in the AL in pitcher's WAR in 1975, but he pitched 140+ innings.
Basically, a guy pitching 75 innings a year is just not that valuable, certainly not relative to a Verlander or Skubal or even a Paul Skenes, and no where close to an Aaron Judge or Shohei Ohtani--scarcely in the same ballpark. Save totals are not worthless as a measurement of value, but with the modern habit of bringing a guy in to start the 9th any time the team ahead by as many as 3 runs, even I could probably pick up a save or two, and I'm 67 years old and can barely throw a ball to the plate. A guy like Todd Jones--a good pitcher, but not really exceptional--can rack up 35 saves with an ERA+ and WHIP barely above the league average.
The idea that closers are "exceptionally" hard to find may have come about precisely because they are relatively easy to find. Most position players who have MVP or MVP-type seasons, tend to be very good for at least several years. But there is a litany of relief pitchers good for just one or two years. So people think, "boy, a good, reliable, career reliever like Gossage or Sutter or Rivera is a rare commodity." And that's kinda true. But the more relevant point is that if you don't have a Gossage or Rivera, you can probably find someone who will do the job fine for a year or two; or go back to the old "collective" bullpen style, without much falloff--certainly not as much as when you lose Tarik Skubal to free agency or Mike Trout goes down with an injury. And that's why there are more closers who are just "hot" for a year or two.
The pick of Matt Anderson was probably "peak reliever." FWIW, my recollection is that that pick drew a lot of scorn on this list at the time. But it was conventional wisdom. Given that, I don't think you can much blame Randy Smith for the pick, but one thing that separates the great GMs is recognizing when the CW is wrong.
Brad
-----Original Message-----
From: Peter Welch <pw...@hotmail.com>
Sent: Oct 18, 2025 12:10 AM
To: detroit...@googlegroups.com <detroit...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: Signing Skubal - and survey
Sent: Friday, October 17, 2025 9:41 PM
To: Peter Welch <pw...@hotmail.com>
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Subject: Re: Signing Skubal - and survey
Peter
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Subject: Re: Signing Skubal - and survey
Dakari
Roger King
Paul Meloche
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Peter Welch
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Michael W
From: Brad Smith
Sent: Friday, October 17, 2025 3:10 PM
To: Dave
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Subject: Re: Signing Skubal - and survey
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Smith, Bradley
On Oct 19, 2025, at 3:28 PM, Michael W <miw...@gmail.com> wrote:
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