Detroit Tigers: Miami Marlins trade ideas

Detroit Tigers general manager Al Avila should consider absorbing contracts in order to improve the team for the future. One team who could match up with the Tigers in this regard is the Miami Marlins.

Detroit Tigers fans aren’t going to see a Giancarlo Stanton trade this offseason.

Let’s just get that out of the way first and foremost.

Stanton would cost too much in both the monetary sense and the sense in which Detroit would have to give up a king’s ransom in terms of prospects to acquire the slugger.

Plus since the team is rebuild, the on-field fit isn’t really there.

Now that we’ve gotten the obvious out of the way, there are actually a number of Miami Marlins who could be trade fits for the Tigers.

The Marlins, according to a recent article in the Miami Herald by Clark Spencer, are looking to cut payroll.

Spencer wrote the following:

“According to a Major League Baseball source, Jeter and fellow owner Bruce Sherman proposed cutting the team’s 2018 payroll to around $90 million – down from last season’s franchise-record $115 million – as part of the operating plan they submitted to league owners during the approval process.”

If the Fish look to offload some of the team’s more substantial contracts, Detroit could look to extract a prospect or two in return for absorbing the deals.

New-found payroll flexibility

The Tigers probably shouldn’t take on any serious cash contract-wise.

However, with salary commitments to Justin Upton, J.D. Martinez, Alex Avila, Justin Wilson and Justin Verlander completely or mostly off the team’s hands, Detroit has some financial flexibility.

What’s more, the franchise will see past financial commitments to Mike Pelfrey, Mark Lowe and Francisco Rodriguez come off the books after the World Series.

Here’s a look at some trade ideas involving the Detroit Tigers and Miami Marlins.

Bolstering the pitching staff

Right off the bat, Miami is in a rough situation with most of the team’s hefty contracts.

Starting pitchers Wei-Yen Chen and Edinson Volquez are both far from locks to pitch in 2018 due to injury.

Because of that, the team may obviously find it hard to move the duo.

There’s also Stanton’s monstrosity of a contract that, per Spotrac, comes with a full no-trade clause and could run through 2028 if all of the options are exercised.

Additionally, Miami doesn’t have the deepest farm system known to mankind.

This would conceivably make it difficult to package a high-end prospect with a bloated contract in order to get the salary off the books.

Still, the team does have some conceivable trade chips that could be useful to the Detroit Tigers.

Brad Ziegler

The most prominent among them are relievers Brad Ziegler and Junichi Tazawa.

Both were signed from Boston last offseason and things didn’t exactly go swimmingly for the ex-Red Sox.

Ziegler had the worst, and arguably first, down season of his career in 2017.

The fact that the reliever is just now turning in a struggling season says a lot about his successful career. However that doesn’t take away from the ineffectiveness.

A side-arm hurler, Ziegler struck out just 4.98 batters per nine innings while surrendering 3.06 free passes per nine frames.

He also had a career-high 1.55 WHIP and a career-low 12.3 strikeout percentage in 47 innings.

Still, some of the issues with base runners can be somewhat attributed to a sky-high .346 BABIP.

Ziegler will enter 2018 on an expiring contract, according to Spotrac, making $9 million.

Fellow reliever Tazawa will also be pitching on an expiring deal, with his salary (according to Spotrac), checking in at $7 million.

While Ziegler’s struggles were in part due to the BABIP, Tazawa was a different story entirely.

The pitcher turned in a 5.69 ERA, a 5.30 xFIP, a 4.96 FIP and a 4.94 SIERA in 55.1 frames despite a seemingly-low BABIP of .280.

The Marlins pays the premium to get out from Martin Prado’s contract

The Miami Marlins probably wouldn’t mind being rid of Martin Prado’s contract. That’s obviously purely speculative, but the veteran does have some serious cash left on his deal.

With $28.5 million owed to the veteran over the next two seasons, per Spotrac, the Tigers would need to receive some significant pieces in the deal to take on the rest of Prado’s deal.

His value isn’t exactly helped by the fact that he batted just .250 with a .279 on-base percentage.

Prado also turned in a .107 ISO, a .274 wOBA and a 67 wRC+ in just 147 plate appearances last season.

Surpassed by both Brian Anderson (0.2 fWAR with a .706 OPS in 95 plate appearances in 2017) and Derek Dietrich (1.5 fWAR, 40 extra-base hits in 464 plate appearances last year) on the depth chart in Miami, Prado would be a bench piece at best in Detroit.

The (hypothetical) deal

While he could always regain the form that helped him turn in fWARs of 3.4 and 3.3 in the last two seasons, the real value in this hypothetical trade would be the pieces the Tigers acquired in order to absorb Prado’s salary.

The Detroit Tigers could send Jose Iglesias to the Fish for Prado’s contract, reliever Kyle Barraclough and pitching prospect Tyler Kolek.

Again, this is purely hypothetical, but it would benefit all sides.

The Marlins would be able to shed salary while adding a capable shortstop in Iglesias.

If Gordon is eventually moved, Miami can shift Miguel Rojas to second base while plugging in the slick-fielding Iglesias at short.

The Detroit Tigers (hypothetical) trade return

In exchange, Detroit would nab a controllable reliever with swing-and-miss stuff in Barraclough. The Tigers would also acquire the second-overall pick in the 2014 draft in Kolek.

Just 27 and controllable through 2021 (per Spotrac) Barraclough will be eligible for arbitration for the first time following the 2018 campaign.

The reliever wasn’t as dominant in 2017 (4.14 SIERA, 10.36 strikeouts per nine innings, 11.9 swinging strike percentage in 66 frames) as he was in 2016.

Just a season ago, the ex-St. Louis farm hand pitched to a 3.06 SIERA, 14.00 strikeouts per nine innings and a 13.8 swinging strike percentage.

However, he was a valuable late-inning arm nonetheless.

Bullpen potential

Long term, he’d form an imposing, late-game bullpen troika with Shane Greene and Joe Jimenez.

Rounding out the deal would be Kolek. In this situation, he’d purely be a lottery ticket in the sense that he’s been limited to just 3.2 innings over the past two seasons due to Tommy John surgery.

Yet to pitch above Single-A, Kolek still has time on his side at 21.

Now back on the mound, he’s still got plenty of potential moving forward.

Miami doesn’t exactly have a deep farm system, so parting with Kolek wouldn’t be easy.

That being said, the franchise started to take steps in restocking their farm system with mid-season trades of A.J. Ramos and David Phelps.

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If the likes of Stanton, Yelich, Gordon and Marcell Ozuna are also moved, the Marlins could have a number of premium prospects on hand, making the hypothetical loss of Kolek a little easier to deal with.