Tigers Dodge A Bullet By Letting Scherzer Walk

     By now, you've heard the news that a beloved Tiger player has signed elsewhere this offseason. You've no doubt seen the countless tributes, from Tigers news sites and your Facebook friends alike, exalting his name and singing his praises as if he were the second coming.

     I'm talking, of course, about Don Kelly. You thought I was referring to somebody else?

     Judging by the reactions within Tigers' blogosphere, you'd think Kelly was the Cy Young-winning pitcher who just got signed for a ridiculous sum by the Washington Nationals. But that aside, Max Scherzer did just that, receiving $210 million over the next 7 years from the Natinals, half of which is deferred for the seven years after the contract expires.

     And if you're a Tigers fan, you should be thankful it didn't happen to your team.

     Only one other pitcher in the major leagues makes that much money annually; that'd be Clayton Kershaw, whose current deal places him in the range of $34-35 million a year til 2020. And no one can doubt that he's done enough to earn that deal, having won three of the last four NL Cy Young awards, having the lowest ERA and WHIP in the league four years running, and 16 more complete games than Scherzer for his career.

     Now, that's not to say that the 6 years and $144 million offered before last season was necessarily 'fair,' especially given the salaries commanded by other top-line pitchers, including his own teammate Justin Verlander, who is being paid $28 million a year through 2020 to be the third-best starter on his own team. But a deal that will pay out $30 million a year at age 37, when he'll be worth nowhere near that, seems a bit excessive, to say the least. Even with the deferrals in Max's contract, for luxury tax purposes it still works out to around $26 million a year.

     If there's one thing that should have been learned by now, it's that handing out those kinds of deals to any pitcher is, in most cases, a terrible idea. Remember that you just paid your former ace $28 million to have his worst season statistically since 2008, after all.

     The question now is, what do the Tigers do to replace him? Certainly few think that the rotation as it stands now is set for 2015; Shane Greene had a surprisingly good rookie season, but there's no much to suggest whether or not that will translate into long-term success at this level. Alfredo Simon had a lights-out first half last year, but has been hot garbage as a starter outside of that. One could make the argument that now he should be sufficiently stretched out in that role to last deeper into the season as an effective starter, but considering his past in any role with the Orioles, that's not necessarily a given. If anything, it wouldn't be surprising to see him back in the bullpen, where he thrived with the Reds in 2013, with last season's pleasantly surprising revelation in Kyle Lobstein or one of several minor-league arms (or even recent signing Tom Gorzelanny) filling out the rotation.

     The options in free agency this year aren't much better. At this point, the only true upgrade from what's already here would be James Shields. But at 33, the risks of signing him to a four or five year deal are many, and while he has proven to be a workhorse in the regular season, throwing over 200 innings every year for the last seven, "Big Game James" hasn't exactly lived up to the nickname in the postseason. There's also the fact that locking up Shields, whose price has only gone up now that he's the last remaining top-tier starter in free agency, would prevent the Tigers from going after younger, better, and presumably somewhat cheaper options next year, when several high-quality starters project to be available.

    The trade market could land a viable option, in theory, assuming that other teams would find much of value in Detroit's depleted farm system. A few names have been thrown about that would be free agents next year, including Cincinnati's Johnny Cueto or even the Nationals' Jordan Zimmermann; the Nationals find themselves with a surplus of starters going into 2015, with two starters in Zimmermann and Doug Fister that will be eligible for free agency after this season.

     Unfortunately, in the short term there simply isn't much the Tigers can do to shore up their starting five going into 2015. But that still wouldn't have been any reason to hamstring the team's ability to bring in free agents for years to come.