The Detroit Tigers have had quite the offseason this year. Between signing big ticket free agents or trading for others, the Tigers have a spent a ton of money with the hopes of winning the World Series next year. However as seen last year with the Padres to is not always the team with the biggest offseason spending spree who wins the World Series. If the Tigers don’t win this year have they ruined their team for the future?
The Tigers do not have a strong minor league system, so if the players they have just signed do not bring home a World Series the Tigers future will not be bright. Besides having a mediocre minor league system the contracts that the Tigers handed out to these players they have just acquired are not easily dumped in a trade if the signings don’t pan out. The Tigers may not see the risk of these moves in the short run, but in the long run it may hurt them if they don’t come away with a World Series trophy.
The Tigers started off their offseason by signing Jordan Zimmermann to a five year 110 million dollar contract. This is a large commitment to a player who enters his age 30 season, and is coming off his worse career season when throwing at least 100 innings. That being said he does move to a drastically better pitcher environment in Detroit with the large outfield and improved defense over what the Nationals had.
The other big ticket free agent that the Tigers went after was Justin Upton whom they signed to a six year 133 million dollar contract. When you look at Upton’s numbers from the outside this doesn’t loo like a bad deal, but each year Upton’s season is a tale of two halves. Upton looks like the MVP for the first half of each season, but as soon as the second half comes around Upton does a 180 and for as good as he looked he looks equally awful. If the Tigers expect to win they need Upton to not fall off the face of the Earth in the second half when it matters most.
On a smaller scale the Tigers have also signed Mark Lowe, Cameron Maybin, Jarrod Saltalamacchia, Mike Pelfrey, while trading for Justin Wilson, and Francisco Rodriguez. Off all these acquisitions the Pelfrey signing is the most confusing as he has been irrelevant for the last three seasons yet he is scheduled to make 16 million over two years. Wile none of these contracts are massive when added up they become quiet massive and this may really handicap the Tigers if what they have is not good enough to win.
I don’t think that the Tigers really made any great moves as every signing or trade they are have just as many risks as possible rewards. In fact if I am the Tigers I would’ve invested the money in Chris Davis, and not Upton due to the fact that they have an extremely right handed heavy lineup now.
The Tigers lack any sort of power from the left side, and the lack of diversity may really haunt them in the later innings when teams can stack right handed relievers. However if they are able to to get solid production out of everyone for at least one or two years, with the talent they already have on the roster they may be good enough to win after all, at least in the short run.