Detroit Tigers: Rick Porcello Trade Still Paying Dividends

Detroit Tigers starter Michael Fulmer has been exceptional this season. The pitcher was the centerpiece of the Yoenis Cespedes trade. Cespedes was previously the centerpiece of the Rick Porcello deal.

Detroit Tigers fans have seen great success from Michael Fulmer in 2016. Before acquiring Fulmer, the Tigers received excellent production in right field from Yoenis Cespedes. Additionally, two other players who have made an impact as of late for the Tigers have been Alex Wilson and Cameron Maybin.

What do the four players have in common? They were all more or less acquired as a result of former general manager Dave Dombrowski trading starter Rick Porcello to the Boston Red Sox.

Drafted in the first round of the 2007 draft, Porcello was (somewhat) rushed to the Major Leagues by Detroit. He spent just one season with Lakeland in 2008 before making the jump to the Tigers rotation.

Things started off well for the starter. He won 14 games and posted a 3.96 ERA in 2009, finishing third in the Rookie of the Year voting. Porcello would go on to win double digit games in each of his next four seasons with Detroit, but his ERA hovered somewhere between four and five. The 27-year-old didn’t seem to put all together until the 2014 season when he won a career high 15 games while posting a career-low 3.43 ERA. His WAR was a solid 4.0.

In much the same way that he dealt Curtis Granderson and Edwin Jackson before they became too expensive, Dombrowski flipped Porcello to Boston for Cespedes, Wilson and minor league pitching prospect Gabe Speier.

As a whole, the three players acquired for Porcello helped improve the current Detroit roster in a significant way. Here’s what the Tigers received for Porcello.