Detroit Tigers: Three players who should not be traded this offseason

Michael Fulmer

There may come a day when the Detroit Tigers trade Michael Fulmer.

He’s only 24, has already racked up a 6.5 fWAR in his first 323.2 innings and isn’t yet eligible for arbitration.

According to Spotrac, the hurler won’t hit free agency until after the 2022 season.

With the Tigers going through a rebuild, the team may not be in a position to contend while Fulmer is still under team control.

In that scenario, it’s plausible to see the team trade him considering his value.

However, by the same controllability token—as it were—Detroit could be back into the thick of things by 2022, if not much, much sooner.

Detroit’s rebuild was painful at first, and may continue to be painful for the next short while.

Head start on the rest of the league

However, the team has a number of top prospects relatively close to the Majors, notably Franklin Perez, Christin Stewart and Beau Burrows.

What’s more, the Tigers may have gotten a head start on a number of other American League teams with worse farm systems who could be rebuilding soon.

Kansas City, a franchise with a significantly worse franchise than Detroit’s, could see a rebuild as early as this winter as much of their World-Series winning core hits the free agent market.

Baltimore will have to navigate a similar situation next offseason with Manny Machado, Adam Jones, Zach Britton and Brad Brach all playing the final years of their contracts.

Elsewhere, Anaheim and Seattle don’t have enviable farm systems.

Meanwhile, the Blue Jays could be stuck in a transition phase from the Jose Bautista era to the next phase of the franchise likely to be headlined by Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and Bo Bichette.

Ace

With Fulmer, Detroit has one of the better, young franchise building blocks in the league. It makes sense to keep him.

That being said, if the organization does trade him, now is not the time to do it with the ace currently making his way back from an injury that cost him the tail end of the 2017 season and required offseason surgery.

James McCann

As it stands, there are a probably a handful of other young players who might be more valuable to the Tigers like Shane Greene or Mikie Mahtook, but Detroit should hang on to James McCann for the time being.

It would  be a different story if Jake Rogers was closer to the Majors. However, the younger backstop prospect just wrapped up the 2017 season at the Advanced-A level in the minors.

Until Rogers is ready, the catcher’s position is McCann’s to lose.

Detroit’s starter had a bit of a down year from a defensive metrics standpoint, seeing his DRS dip from +9 to -4 and his rSB plummet from +7 to 0.

While he wasn’t the same from a statistical standpoint defensively, McCann took some significant strides forward at the plate.

Offensive improvements

After logging 373 plate appearances in 2016, McCann notched 391 this past season.

In those 391 plate appearances, he cut his strikeout percentage from 29.2 to 22.8 while upping his walk rate a smidgen from 6.2 to 6.6.

He also set a career high with a .162 ISO (up from .162), a 94 wRC+ (up from 66) and a .316 wOBA (up from .273).

McCann still struggles with pitch framing, as his -30.2 runs above average was, according to StatCorner, the worst rate in the league among backstops.

However, if he can continue to take steps forward at the plate and regain his form defensively, he’ll give Detroit above-average production at a premium positon.

Nicholas Castellanos

For all the things that went wrong for the Detroit Tigers, the one thing that seemed to go right—at least towards the end of the season—was Nicholas Castellanos’ development into a middle-of-the-order run producer.

Castellanos has flirted with breaking out at the dish in the plate in the past.

He logged a 118 wRC+, a .212 ISO and a .350 wOBA in 447 plate appearances in 2016. However, his 2016 season was cut short due to injury. The 25-year-old also got off to a slow start in 2017.

In the first half of the season, Castellanos turned in a 25.1 strike out percentage with a 95 wRC+, a .746 OPS and a .318 wOBA. He also hit .248 with a .313 on-base percentage and a .433 slugging percentage.

However, the slugger turned things around significantly in the second half with a stat line befit of an All-Star.

Run producer

Castellanos made more contact, and made it more often as his strikeout percentage dropped to 16.9 in the second half.

His walk rate actually dropped as well, going from 7.8% to 4.2%. However, things seemed to work out for the ex-third baseman.

He notched a 129 wRC+, a 882 OPS and a .367 wOBA. He also logged a .299 batting average, a .329 on-base percentage and a .553 slugging percentage.

Notably, Castellanos upped his ISO from .186 in the first half to a .254 mark in the second half that checked in at 28^th in the Majors during the time period.

The reality is that the Detroit Tigers are going to need someone to hit behind Miguel Cabrera next season.

While stats and the team’s record may not be at the top of the priority list, having a productive offense would help Detroit speed up the offense significantly.

Next: Seung-hwan Oh is intriguing buy-low candidate for Tigers

Having a resurgent Cabrera and the productive Castellanos hitting in the heart of the order would go a long ways towards the Tigers’ offense turning things around.