There was a time when Justin Verlander only play for the Tigers. He was drafted by them with a second overall pick in 2004 and then established himself as one of the best pitchers in baseball in the following years. He has twice signed a contract extending the club’s control over his services, once 2010 and other in 2013. The contract then lasted all season at the age of 36 and was signed when the club was one of the best teams in the league. They only appeared at the World Series in 2012 and will eventually reach the 4th AL Central championship streak in 2014. It wouldn’t be strange to expect him to be a Tiger for life.
The franchise’s fortunes changed in later years, however, as they slipped into the league’s basement in 2015. They came back with a record of 86 wins in 2016 but still missed the round. knockout, then didn’t play well again in 2017. It was decided it was time to turn things around, with the Tigers making two big deals on that year’s exemption period. First name transaction Justin Upton to the Angels and then Verlander to the Astros. The later agreement was Verlander, a player who was later named and cashed in for prospects Franklin Perez, Daz Cameron And Jake Rogers. PTBNL is report later as a midfielder Juan Ramirez.
More than five years have passed since the pivot changed that franchise. The Astros went on to win their first World Series championship a few months after winning Verlander, though that title is now forever imprinted with an asterisk in the minds of many baseball fans due to the barrel-smashing scandal. garbage. But subsequent deals kept Verlander at Houston until 2022 when the club continued to be among the best teams in the league. They made it to the ALCS in each of those seasons, reaching the World Series again in 2019 and 2021 before claiming a second title last year.
As for the Tigers, they’ve been on the opposite side of the spectrum, constantly rebuilding all the time. 86 wins in 2016 is still their last winning season. They also gained little from their future-focused moves in 2017. Grayson longwho came in the Upton deal, headed at Double-A and retirement in 2019. PTBNL in the following deal report EQUAL Elvin Rodríguezwho made seven appearances with the Tigers last year but was dropped at the end of the season and now plays for the Rays on a minor league contract.
For the Verlander deal, Pérez was often seen as the frontrunner at the time because he was then a highly valued prospect. American Baseball put him in 54th place in their top 100 in early 2017 and pushed him down to 35th place in 2018. Unfortunately, injuries left him badly injured, mostly. is at the shoulder. He could only throw 19 and a half innings in the youth league in 2018 and 7 and a half in 2019. Minor tournaments were canceled by the pandemic in 2020 and then shoulder surgery wiped out 2021 for him. with Perez. He was released and re-signed by the Tigers, eventually hitting 25 thirds in the Mixed Tournament last year but with a 9.59 ERA. He still seems to be in the organization but it’s hard to trust him for anything now after so much missed development time. He’s 25 and still hasn’t hit a Double-A, aside from a brief stint at that level before trading.
Cameron is also a highly regarded young midfielder, having made it to BA’s top 100 players list in 2016. Despite his slump at the time of the transfer, he remains an exciting young player. . He goes to the big leagues but can’t do much with the chance. He’s played in 73 major league games over the past three years but only scored 0.201/.266/.330 and scored in 31.6% of his appearances. He was granted an exemption in November, claimed by Orioles and then completely.
That makes Rogers the last hope for the Tigers to salvage the deal in some way. Arguably the least important part of the deal at the time, Rogers was Houston’s No. 20 prospect at impending American Baseball in 2017. The catcher was unable to provide much value to the team. Tigers so far, but it’s not really his fault. He required Tommy John surgery in September 2021, causing his entire 2022 season to be wiped out. Before that, he showed some positive signs in a small sample. He’s entered 38 games in 2021 and hit six home runs. Although featured in 36.2% of his disc appearances, his 0.239/.306/.496 is still well above average, resulting in 116 wRC+.
Now he’s back from that long layoff and showing encouraging signs again in a small sample. His 28.3% strike rate this year is still high but it is an improvement over his previous work. He has also nearly doubled his walking rate from 8.7% in 2021 to 15.2% this year. His .237/.370/.447 hit during the season went up to 135 wRC+.
This is a small sample of 46 occurrences in 15 games and is bound to change. However, Rogers doesn’t have to hit like a superstar to be valuable as he is seen as a solid defensive stop. In his limited time in the major leagues, he saved four defensive runs. Both FanGraphs and the Baseball Prospectus gave him negative marks for his framing against Tommy John but he’s on a positive level so far this year. He’s eliminated 16 of the 39 base stealers in his career, a rate of 41%, well above average, even though he’s only caught one in six this year.
Rogers’ career so far has been so limited that it’s hard to draw any meaningful conclusions. Thanks to the failed season, he only had 88 big matches in the national championship despite being 28 years old. But given his reputation as a solid defensive catcher, even a foul near league average would make him a useful contributor. He’s shown potential for more, hitting 12 home runs in just half a season of accumulating work. He is yet to reach arbitration but is expected to get there this winter and is on track to achieve free agency after 2026.
It’s highly likely that the Verlander deal will end up being seen as a huge miss for the Tigers as a whole. Fans had to watch an iconic player win two rings elsewhere while the highly-rated youngsters they received in return failed to live up to expectations and the team as a whole had disastrous results. But if Rogers can continue to act as a solid defender behind goal who occasionally tosses the ball over the fence, then he can keep it from becoming a total disaster.
