The Detroit Tigers made the first splashy move of the free-agent season, agreeing with former Boston Red Sox lefty Eduardo Rodriguez on a reported five-year, $77 million deal plus incentives. Rodriguez can reportedly opt out of the deal after two years.
With the offseason off to a running start, it's time to hand out our first grade of the winter.
The Tigers needed a source of stable, veteran innings for their youth-laden rotation, and that is Rodriguez's MO. Detroit's hopes for moving from the improved team it was in 2021 to the contention tier in 2022 are largely tied to the development of its young pitchers.
A couple of years down the line, if the front of the Tigers' rotation is headed by Rodriguez, that's a sign of trouble, because it means that none of the group of Casey Mize, Matt Manning or Tarik Skubal has become a front-line starter. The Rodriguez signing aside, it's important to view this as a move to augment the staff the Tigers have been building, not as an attempt to sign an ace. Detroit's fortunes are still tied to the continued progression of their homegrown pitchers.
In the short term, Rodriguez can be relied upon for 160 to 180 consistent innings, perhaps more, frames that are likely to be characterized more by reliability than dominance. That's fine. There's a ton of value in that. At 28, Rodriguez is younger than all of the other top rotation options out there, with the exception of fellow lefty Carlos Rodon. And Rodriguez has a better record of durability than Rodon.
Still, let's not lose sight of the fact that Rodriguez posted a 4.74 ERA over 157 2/3 innings during his final season for Boston, which Baseball-Reference translates to an ERA+ of exactly league-average. However, he fared much better in measures of expected performance like FIP (3.32) and Statcast's expected ERA (3.52).
The culprit for that disparity was the whopping .363 BABIP Rodriguez allowed despite ranking high in limiting hard hits overall, and above-average in barrels. Call it bad luck or call it lousy defense by the Red Sox, but if Rodriguez's BABIP had been more in line with his career norms (.312), then that misleading ERA doesn't happen.
A quick note on the relevant park factors: Fenway Park has always been a tough venue for lefties, though it's not quite the doom zone it was once billed to be for southpaws. Rodriguez has indeed pitched a fraction better on the road during his career, though it's not much of a differential. However, Comerica Park has been no walk in the garden for lefties. Over the past three years, lefties have allowed the same wOBA in the venue (.328) as they have at Fenway, and Fenway actually fares slightly better if you focus only on visiting players.
The total value of the deal from the Tigers' perspective is a bit higher than the consensus of free-agency projections that have come out over the past few weeks. However, the length of the deal -- assuming Rodriguez doesn't opt out -- is longer than anticipated, so the $15.4 million to $16 million average annual value is more than a fair number for Detroit, if Rodriguez delivers on the field for what he's signed to be.
The deal is a no-brainer for Rodriguez, who now joins a rising team on a deal that likely met the upper end of the range of expectations his representatives had in place before the free-agency period started -- especially since Rodriguez was extended a qualifying offer by the Red Sox, meaning signing him would cost some extra draft-pick compensation. The Tigers will now forfeit a pick to the Red Sox that will fall somewhere after the Competitive Balance Round B in the next draft, pending alterations to that process via the ongoing CBA negotiations.
You have to give the Tigers credit for being bold, targeting the pitcher they wanted and getting a jump on the winter. The only real criticism would come in the form of opportunity cost. And given the scarcity of the kind of pitcher the Tigers needed -- an established, durable, still-young veteran -- they are probably on safe ground there as well.
All in all, it's a nice start for what is shaping up to be an exciting offseason for the Tigers and their fans.