| The Detroit News
With the understanding J.T. Realmuto isn’t compatible with the Tigers’ taut budget and likely wouldn’t be terribly interested in the Tigers even if they could offer him a gaudy free-agent check, and with further belief that neither are high-gloss pitchers in Detroit’s cards (see: last week’s signing of one Jose Urena), it’s necessary to ponder the case for hiring two Tigers golden oldies.
Rick Porcello and Alex Avila.
They make as much sense as any of the plausible available help the Tigers are looking to add during a pandemic-chilled MLB shopping season that for Detroit fans is harsher due to their team’s stated payroll diet.
Yes, it was argued here last week that the Tigers should make an exception and shoot, perhaps, for a long-shot: a hefty one-year deal that blessed outfielder George Springer might – emphasis on “might” – consider as he and other free agents wait out the COVID-19 scourge and look toward a friendlier market a year from now.
Even if that prayer of an investment could happen, it would leave the Tigers well shy of parts they hope (rather, must) collect between now and whenever 2020 spring camp convenes.
A part-time catcher and a full-time starter are among the mix there.
So, why not opt for familiarity? For a reunion with players who represent better baseball times in Detroit?
It’s not so much a matter of sentiment as practicality.
Alex Avila is a left-handed hitting catcher who can handle a glove and who works in commendable fashion with pitchers, a bunch of whom figure for the Tigers in 2021 to be on the tender side and who would benefit from Avila’s patience and expertise.
Porcello is a right-handed starter who is a nice bet to get you five innings, anyway, during a particular start. They won’t be shutout innings, but the Tigers aren’t expecting miracles when they’ll be remaining, to a great extent, in survival mode in 2021 as kid pitchers continue to infiltrate Comerica Park ahead of what is expected to be a more stable, more talent-infused, and more free-agent-enhanced roster in 2022.
So, why not dust off those old lockers Avila and Porcello manned during their collective 14 years in Detroit?
It adds up, here anyway.
The case for Avila
Consider these gents individually as the free-agent bazaar begins its expected January thaw and as players grab offers ahead of what should, and could, be a more normalized baseball experience than the one they endured in 2020.
►Avila: He turns 34 in a month, which is no surprise, although this number might jolt you: Avila has played 13 big-league seasons. That’s a lot of meaningful time in the MLB world. He also has made $30 million along the way, and would figure to make something along a pro-rated amount if he were to work again for the Tigers and for a certain father who happens also to be the team’s general manager.
No one really knows what the Tigers will do at catcher in 2021. The outlook, frankly, isn’t thrilling. Austin Romine is gone, for now, and like Avila is a free agent. The Tigers have right-handed batters among their resident cast of Grayson Greiner, Jake Rogers, and Eric Haase, who last week was designated for assignment.
Avila, of course, bats left-handed. That in itself would be helpful, even if Avila’s MLB projected numbers for 2021 are less than showy: .203 batting average, .323 on-base, and .363 slugging, which is worth an OPS estimate of .687, according to MLB’s computer printout.
He also is expected to strike out 30-some-percent of the time, which won’t come as a total shock to those who remember his whiff tendencies with the Tigers. You’re worried that instead of a Tigers cap he’ll spend 2021 wearing a Golden Sombrero?
Hey, it’s doubtful he’ll even bat four times a game on any given day. Which, granted, might or might not be a thought fans will find comforting.
More important is that the Tigers get real about the kind of catcher they can reasonably add for 2021. The free-agent warehouse is rather thin, now that James McCann has signed a somewhat absurdly high-retail deal with the Mets, and Realmuto waits for a big, megabucks package he can count on even in this market.
As for those other guys in MLB’s bargain aisle: Wilson Ramos is a stronger hitter than Avila but doesn’t play a lick of defense. Tyler Flowers and Mike Zunino are no better — and in Zunino’s case is a lot worse — than Avila.
So, why not reintroduce Avila to the Tigers’ gene pool as they wait and see if Rogers becomes the surprise package a ravaged team and baseball town probably deserves, or Haase re-emerges as stopgap help more likely to assist than Greiner?
Look: After a year of COVID it will be nice to see friendly faces again. Yes, it’s agreed that such a friendly face must also be able to play baseball. Avila can. He has a career .742 OPS.
He’s good for another year at his old home. Or, maybe he’s old for another year at his good home. Hey, it’s still 2020 and it’s an imperfect world out there.
Fishing for pitching
►Porcello: You know why he should sign with the Tigers?
Fly-fishing.
Porcello loves it. He knows he can have plenty of adventure here, even in Detroit. He can hop on a boat, skim across Lake St. Clair, and fly-fish for everything: smallmouth bass, bluegills, pike, even muskies.
True, he’s a trout guy, a stream fisherman by habit, so Lake St. Clair won’t be his first choice. But on an off-day, he can always head for Grayling or Roscommon or someplace on the AuSable or Manistee rivers and drop a dry-fly and be back at the ballyard in plenty of time the next day.
Of course, the Tigers aren’t adding him because he can flick a Muddler Minnow onto a spot a feeding brook trout just turned into ripples 25 yards away.
They’re in need of a starting pitcher who can wield enough innings with enough firepower to warrant making him part of that dozen-plus starting stable manager AJ Hinch knows he’ll be using in 2021, whether Hinch likes it or not.
Porcello pitched for the Mets in 2020 and really needs to get his tail back in Detroit. The National League isn’t good for him. It just isn’t. Look at those numbers from 2020: 12 starts, 59 innings, 5.64 ERA, 1.51 WHIP.
Terrible stuff, totally undeserved.
And why? Because he played for the Mets. Pitching for the Mets last season, or most seasons during the past decade or so has been like getting relentlessly nasal-swabbed. To wit: Note that Porcello’s FIP (fielding independent pitching) ERA last year was 3.33. Yes indeed, his excellent FIP was probably a lot closer to Porcello’s true, personally controlled performance than that shoddy 5.64 ERA.
It pointed to, not only a lot of shoddy defense at-large but to a good many ground balls the Mets infield never handled for a celebrated ground-ball pitcher.
The Tigers, of course, have been no oasis on defense. Not during these recent Dark Ages seasons. Neither will they likely be vacuum-cleaners in 2021.
But what they need is dependability. Porcello-grade reliability, to be specific. He turned 32 on Sunday and the fuel-tank needle leans toward full.
His sinker, slider, and change-up retain pretty much the speeds he’s carried since his days in Detroit.
Bring him aboard and let him do his thing. Keep the ball on the ground, or miss in the middle and watch as some poor devil from an opposing team hits one of those 430-foot outs to the cut-out in right-center.
Truly, the Tigers will be fine with Porcello as a repatriated starter. He won’t cost anything the Tigers can’t afford in 2021. He makes too much sense, especially if the Tigers remind him that as much as he and they need a Detroit reunion, so does his prized fly-rod.
Lynn Henning is a freelance writer and former Detroit News sports reporter.