Detroit Tigers: How My Free Agent Suggestions Are Faring This Spring

During the offseason, it is commonplace to develop wants for one’s team to improve and the different ways in which to do it. Of course, I had sights set on the likes of JT Realmuto for the Detroit Tigers. But it is one thing to reference what the club should do and another to keep in mind what they will do.

To keep it realistic and practical, I had chosen the route of simply re-allocating the salary of Jordan Zimmermann’s expiring contract–about $25 million in all. For me, it took four players to do that. For the Detroit Tigers, they decided to spread the wealth on more marginal players to address more needs with the club.

They would spend $5 million on Robbie Grossman, $4.5 million on Jonathan Schoop, $3.25 million on Jose Urena, $3 million on Julio Teheran, $2 million on Wilson Ramos, $1.75 million on Nomar Mazara, and $1.3 million on Renato Nunez (assuming he makes the club). That totals out to $20.8 million spent for 2021; so the line of thinking from December wasn’t completely out-of-question.

The point here is not to bash the Detroit Tigers for the routes they ultimately took instead of some measly blogger’s suggestions. I certainly wouldn’t be taking a victory lap for any Spring Training performance regardless.

The math from my December article was a bit fuzzy to begin with as I was using MLBTR’s free agent predictions article to come up with some of the dollar figures. Some of those predictions were close, others were on a different planet.

Truthfully, I feel the Tigers made their dollars go a bit further than me in my scenario. It is more to put the research and check-in I’d likely do on my own any way into writing; so why not take a reader or two with me along the way?