OriginalUsername

As a Tiger fan throughout the Dombrowski era, I'm not happy to see him leave. He took a team that had gone over a decade without a winning record and made it into the winningest team in the AL the past 9 years. People point to the Prince Fielder contract, but that is not on him. Before Fielder signed, Dombrowski said he wouldn't be a good fit. Scott Boras than calls Mike Illitch, Illitch has an emotional attachment to Prince since Cecil played in Detroit and Illitch knew Prince since he was a kid. Prince Fielder was an Illitch signing. There's also the Cabrera trade, The Granderson and Edwin Jackson trade that netted them Austin Jackson and Max Scherzer, He traded Ramon Santiago for Carlos Guillen, Ugeth Urbina for Polanco, a minor leaguer who never made the bigs for Peralta. He traded Porcello for Cespedes and then flipped Cespedes for a decent pitching prospect. He picked up Iglesias for a replacement level OF. He also plucked JD Martinez off the scrap heap. Dombrowski was rarely on the wrong side of a trade. It's also hard to fault him for the Verlander extension since he was coming off two Cy Young caliber seasons and an MVP.

Porcello didn't have any arbitration years after this season so the 80 million contract is all free agency.

Porcello is not the type of pitcher that is hard to replace. The Tigers replaced Porcello with Shane Greene who is having a fantastic start and is only 1 month older than Porcello but under team control through 2020. I also like the AL Central vs AL East even though the AL Central scored more runs per game than the AL East last year and that does not include Detroit.

Verlander and Hernandez both signed 5 year contracts during their prime years.

As a primary Tiger fan, I'm glad he didn't sign that contract with Detroit. I just don't like pitchers who can't generate a swing and miss. I liked him as the 5th starter. If the Red Sox were into gambles, I would rather gamble on Shane Greene. Ground ball pitcher like Porcello but with better stuff. The trade off is, he doesn't have the track record that Porcello does.

He was starting to leave the ball up. The next hitter hit it hard but to deep CF. I've seen this happen all too often with Porcello. Most nights I would take 6 innings and 3 ER.

It was a pretty typical Porcello start. Cruising early with a lot of ground balls. Started to fade after 80 pitches. Gets a couple runners on and has to pitch out of the stretch and starts leaving pitches up and gets hammered.

Harang signed that contract after 3 years of 200+ innings and a WAR of 4.6 and above. He was a better pitcher than Porcello when he signed that contract. The contract was also a 4 year $36 million contract that was back loaded so it had an annual amount of $9 million. Not the $20 million Porcello is set to receive. Edit- He signed it prior to the 2007 season so he was coming off 2 seasons of 200+ innings and 4.6+ WAR. His season prior to signing that contract he had a 5.7 WAR (Over double Porcello's) and 234 IP.

Harang and Porcello both had a 2.7 WAR last year. Harang had a 3.57 FIP and Porcello a 3.67 FIP. Harang is a bum and Porcello is making $20 million.

I watched about every start of his as a Tiger. He is not 94-95. On occasion he will touch 94. He's usually 90-91 and down to 88 by 100 pitches.

Verlander was not good last year. Price had to pitch the final game of the season. It was worthy of debate whether Porcello should have started game two or not.

I think all along Porcello wanted to play in Boston. He's from the east coast and has family in Vermont. Also judging by the way he waxed poetically about the Red Sox ability to win as if he never played on a winning team before, he really wanted to be a Red Sock. The Tigers did try to move him before 2014 but nobody would offer anything so they traded Fister. One year later they're able to get a pretty decent player. A lot of Tiger fans feel Shane Greene can replace Porcello. I'm not sure about that but I would rather gamble on Greene. Porcello is always going to be a guy who can hammered or pitch a shutout. Despite having a good defense, there will be games where he will be BABIP to death. He was hit pretty good towards the end of last year and was the Tigers number 4 going into the playoffs.

Cabrera was also hit twice that game so it was retaliation. I thought it was silly he attacked a 20 year old Porcello but didn't go after Edwin jackson who hit him the previous night. I also thought it was funny Porcello originally tried to hit Victor Martinez only to become teammates later.

But only one can be an original.

A 4.3 UZR is terrible?

I'm glad the Tigers did not make the offer and I think a lot of other Tiger fans agree. Porcello has been a disappointment because he has not lived up to his hype coming out of the draft so that clouds my judgement. He's too inconsistent for me to want to commit to.

Kinsler had a UZR of 13 and a DRS of 20. They were both elite defenders at 2B. Any difference is going to be negligible. My point being is the Tigers infield defense is not as bad as people thing.

Bogaerts was -2.7 and had a DRS of -9. He's young and there is reason to believe he will be better but SS is a wash. Kinsler and Pedroia are a wash. Cabrera was actually pretty good at 1B and would be a wash with Craig although going forward I would expect Craig to put up better defensive numbers. The only truly bad position was Castellanos at 3B and I'm not sure how long Panda is going to hold up.

Suarez and Romine were adequate at SS although Iglesias would have helped for sure.

I don't post often because I'm only a fringe Red Sox fan. I'm a Tiger fan first so this topic interests me and I have watched Porcello since he broke into the league. My favorite Porcello moment was when he threw at Youkilis and his game 163 start.

The only bad defender on the Tigers defense last year was Castellanos. The right side of the defense was much improved with Cabrera replacing Fielder and Kinsler playing 2B. Porcello has been usually bad against lefties but was much improved last year which could very well be due to the improved right infield defense. I think last year was his ceiling. Edit- I should say the only bad defensive infielder. The OF was still a dumpster fire.

None of the other Tiger pitchers had such extreme differences in ERA and FIP. Porcello actually outperformed his FIP last year and one of the years his FIP was barely under 4. Pitchers who only K 5 per 9 tend to be volatile in ERA. I think it is being overblown how bad the Tigers defense and how much an improved defense will help him.

He starts to lose velocity at about 80 pitches and is usually done by 100. When Porcello loses velocity, it's not a good thing since his fastball is only about 10-12 MPH more than his off speed stuff. There's a reason he never pitched more than 182 innings until last year.

Fister's two full seasons in Detroit he had a 54.3 and 51% ground rate. Porcello in the last two seasons was at 49 and 55.3%. Fister did have a higher K rate which helped. He also had a higher LOB%. For his entire career he was over 70%. Porcello had one season over 70% which was his best year. A lot has to do with the sequencing of hits. Porcello also isn't very good with runners on base, giving up an 800+ OPS. He only K's about 5 per 9. Even a great defense won't prevent the inevitable BABIP death he has experienced at times in his career.

Fenway was 104 last year. Comerica is pretty neutral. Fenway ranked 3rd in terms of hitter parks in MLB and Comerica 10th.