Tigers' Offseason Mission: Fix 'Horrible' Pitching
By Ashley Scoby
@AshleyScoby
Tigers general manager and vice president of baseball operations Al Avila did not mince words: His club's pitching was "horrible" this past season. Making that pitching core less horrible has been the top priority heading into winter meetings and the rest of the offseason.
Detroit has officially signed three pitchers in the past few weeks – Francisco Rodriguez, Jordan Zimmermann and Mike Pelfrey. And if reports from ESPN and CBS are accurate, a fourth could be next, in reliever Mark Lowe.
"Last year the pitching really was self-explanatory; it was horrible," Avila said in a meeting with reporters Sunday during the first day of MLB winter meetings in Nashville. "We feel if we fix our pitching, we have enough hitting."
In the 2015 season, the Tigers were 28th in MLB (and last in the AL) in team ERA (4.64), 26th overall in opponents' batting average (.268) and third-worst in MLB in strikeouts (1,100).
To contrast that, Detroit wasn't half-bad when it came to batting, especially considering Miguel Cabrera missed a significant portion of summer from injury. The Tigers were 15th in MLB in runs scored (689) and actually led all of baseball in batting average (.270), with a slugging percentage of .420 (sixth in MLB).
Injuries didn't exactly help the Tigers' pitching situation: Ace Justin Verlander only got in 20 starts, Anibal Sanchez was shut down early because of a reoccurring shoulder problem, Bruce Rondon was sent home prior to the end of the season because of "effort" issues and the bullpen was up-and-down, to put it lightly.
Now, Avila is making it his offseason mission to give the Tigers a stronger foundation on the mound. Part of that included signing Pelfrey on Sunday, who Avila said provided the kind of veteran presence that's necessary in order to develop young talent.
"That's the whole intent, to have a veteran guy who has the good makeup that's gonna go out there and battle his butt off every day, show the young guys the way of how to do it," Avila said. "It also gives us more time for those young guys to keep getting work in and then eventually we'll plug them in as needed."
Young talent, especially young pitching talent, is something Avila is comfortable with – so much so that he has apparently refused to trade those pieces this offseason.
Pitchers Daniel Norris (22 years old), Matt Boyd (24) and Michael Fulmer (22) are the three that Avila said were getting the most attention on the market. Yet even with trade offers coming, all three remain on the Tigers' roster.
"One of the priorities that we had coming into this winter was keep those guys and not to trade them away," Avila said. "It was very tempting. We were in conversations with the top closers out there, including a guy with the Yankees but the temptation of trading some of those, a group of those young guys, we resisted it and we feel we went the way where it could work out for us hopefully this season and then beyond."
The plan heading into spring training and the 2016 season is to develop one, possibly two, guys into a back-end bullpen option, according to Avila. Signing veteran pitching – including Zimmermann, Pelfrey and, reportedly, Lowe – is crucial to allow that talent to develop, while also giving the Tigers more options than they had last year. Depth was an issue, especially once injuries hit.
"One of my beliefs as far as being able to win this year is quality depth in pitching," Avila said. "You're gonna need more than the five starters. We feel that this year at least we have some guys that are quality arms that if we need a starter or we need a reliever, we're gonna have a quality arm come up and be a lot better than what we had last year."
