Three-way blockbuster done

Three-way blockbuster getting close
D-backs would get Jackson; Granderson would go to Yanks

By Steve Gilbert / MLB.com

12/08/09 1:55 PM EST

INDIANAPOLIS -- The D-backs were closing in on a blockbuster three-way trade with the Tigers and Yankees on Tuesday that would bring pitchers Edwin Jackson and Ian Kennedy to Arizona and send away pitchers Max Scherzer and Daniel Schlereth, according to sources.

Multiple news outlets reported that the three clubs have an agreement in principle and are reviewing medical records on the players involved, although none are reporting all the players in the deal.

The Yankees reportedly would receive center fielder Curtis Granderson and send left-hander Phil Coke and outfield prospect Austin Jackson to Detroit.

A source said that the Yankees were piqued by the idea of installing the left-handed-hitting Granderson into center field at Yankee Stadium, where his power bat could play nicely with the short porch and help reconstruct their lineup for a defense of their World Series title.

The D-backs entered the Winter Meetings searching for a starter to slot behind Brandon Webb, Dan Haren and Scherzer in the rotation and about $10 million to spend. Their plan seemed to call for them to spend the bulk of that money either on a free-agent pitcher or taking part of a large pitcher's contract off another team's hands via trade.

If the deal is indeed structured as believed, it would allow the D-backs to spend their remaining dollars on shoring up the bullpen and bolstering their offense, which has underperformed the past few seasons.

Kennedy missed much of last season after having surgery to repair an aneurysm under his right armpit on May 12. He pitched in four Minor League games for Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre last year and tossed a scoreless inning in his one appearance for the Yankees.

The right-hander pitched well in the Arizona Fall League and the D-backs appear to have favorable reports on him.

Jackson, 26, made $2.2 million last year and will be eligible for salary arbitration this winter for the second time, which could push his salary into the $5 million range. Jackson cannot be eligible for free agency until after the 2011 season.

Jackson was 13-9 with a 3.62 ERA in 33 starts last season for the Tigers. A former GM described Jackson's makeup as "off the charts."

Steve Gilbert is a reporter for MLB.com. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Baseball or its clubs.

Three-way blockbuster deal agreed upon
Granderson would go to Yanks; D-backs would get Jackson

By Steve Gilbert / MLB.com

12/08/09 3:40 PM EST

INDIANAPOLIS -- The D-backs, Tigers and Yankees agreed in principle Tuesday on a deal that would send Tigers center fielder Curtis Granderson to New York in the first major deal of this year's Winter Meetings, according to sources.

The D-backs would receive right-handers Edwin Jackson and Ian Kennedy from the Tigers and Yankees, respectively, while the Tigers would get pitchers Max Scherzer and Daniel Schlereth from Arizona and outfielder Austin Jackson and left-hander Phil Coke from New York.

A source said that the Yankees were piqued by the idea of installing the left-handed-hitting Granderson into center field at Yankee Stadium, where his power bat could play nicely with the short porch and help reconstruct their lineup for a defense of their World Series title.

Granderson hit .249 with 30 home runs, 71 RBIs and 20 stolen bases in 160 games for the Tigers in 2009. After earning an affordable $3.5 million this year, he is due for a sizable pay jump on a back-loaded contract, as he is scheduled to receive $5.5 million next season, $8.25 million in 2011 and $10 million in 2012.

Granderson is also largely neutralized by left-handed pitching. Last season, Granderson hit all but two of his home runs off right-handers, batting just .183 in 180 at-bats against southpaws.

Interest in Granderson was reported as early as the General Managers Meetings in November, and may have grown more attractive as the offseason continued.

The D-backs entered the Winter Meetings searching for a starter to slot behind Brandon Webb, Dan Haren and Scherzer in the rotation and about $10 million to spend. Their plan seemed to call for them to spend the bulk of that money either on a free-agent pitcher or taking part of a large pitcher's contract off another team's hands via trade.

If the deal is indeed structured as believed, it would allow the D-backs to spend their remaining dollars on shoring up the bullpen and bolstering their offense, which has underperformed the past few seasons.

Kennedy missed much of last season after having surgery to repair an aneurysm under his right armpit on May 12. He pitched in four Minor League games for Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre last year and tossed a scoreless inning in his one appearance for the Yankees.


BLOCKBUSTER BREAKDOWN

Team Acquires

D-backs	RHP Edwin Jackson (from DET) RHP Ian Kennedy (from NYY)
Tigers	RHP Max Scherzer (from ARI) OF Austin Jackson (from NYY) LHP Phil Coke (from NYY) LHP Daniel Schlereth (from ARI)
Yankees	OF Curtis Granderson (from DET)

The right-hander pitched well in the Arizona Fall League and the D-backs appear to have favorable reports on him.

Jackson, 26, made $2.2 million last year and will be eligible for salary arbitration this winter for the second time, which could push his salary into the $5 million range. Jackson cannot be eligible for free agency until after the 2011 season.

Jackson was 13-9 with a 3.62 ERA in 33 starts last season for the Tigers. A former GM described Jackson's makeup as "off the charts."

Yankees vice president of baseball operations Mark Newman said last week that the club was enthused to see the 22-year-old Jackson succeed at Triple-A, batting .300 in 132 games, and many in the pipeline expect that Jackson will eventually be a dependable Major League player.

"He's a lot like [Robinson] Cano was as a Minor League player -- good hitter, uses the field," Newman said. "He's a guy who's going to get stronger as he matures into his body physically. We think he's going to hit some home runs. He's a pretty good hitter now and the power will emerge over time."

Jackson would have come into camp competing for the center field job but easily could have started the year at Triple-A. The Yankees have never declared Jackson untouchable, but rather have been waiting for the right offer -- one that now appears to have presented itself.

Scherzer, 25, was the D-backs' first-round selection (No. 11 overall), out of the University of Missouri, in the 2006 First-Year Player Draft. He broke into the Majors in 2008 and was a regular in Arizona's rotation last season. The right-hander went 9-11 with a 4.12 ERA, striking out 174 in 170 1/3 innings.

Schlereth, a 23-year-old left-hander, was also a first-rounder, going 26th overall in the 2008 Draft. He joined the D-backs during last season and appeared in 21 games, all in relief. He struck out 22 batters in 18 1/3 innings, but he walked 15 and had an ERA of 5.89.

Kennedy, taken 10 picks after Scherzer in the 2006 Draft, burst upon the Yankees scene in late 2007, climbing from Class A through the Minors in a single season and making three impressive starts. That gave the Yankees belief that he could be a part of their starting rotation in 2008, but he went 0-4 with an 8.17 ERA in nine starts and one relief appearance.

Coke, 27, evolved into a reliable left-hander in the Yankees bullpen last season and pitched well in five of six postseason appearances.

Steve Gilbert is a reporter for MLB.com. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Baseball or its clubs.

Granderson, Jackson deal agreed upon ... now the wait
BECK'S BLOG
Posted on December 8, 2009 at 4:23 PM

The Tigers, Diamondbacks and Yankees have agreed in principle on their trade, sending Curtis Granderson to New York and Edwin Jackson to Arizona. For now, however, the trade is still pending final reviews. Granderson hasn't yet heard from the Tigers, much like Andrew Miller didn't hear from the Tigers after he was in the Miguel Cabrera trade. In fact, Granderson hasn't heard from the Tigers for a while now, which wasn't a good sign in itself.

I think everybody anticipated the fallout from this deal was going to be big. Judging from what I'm hearing from folks back in Detroit, it's huge. How that follows over the coming days as the reports and the interviews unfold is going to be very interesting.

Last Updated: December 08. 2009 5:27PM
Tigers close to sending Granderson to Yankees
Lynn Henning / The Detroit News

Indianapolis -- Maintaining their recent tradition of bombshells at baseball's Winter Meetings, the Tigers were on the verge Tuesday of completing a three-team trade with the New York Yankees and Arizona Diamondbacks that was nearly wrapped up Monday.

According to multiple national reports, the Tigers will send center fielder Curtis Granderson to the Yankees and right-hander Edwin Jackson to the Diamondbacks in exchange for three pitchers and outfield prospect Austin Jackson.

The pitchers are impressive, particularly the two coming from Arizona: a pair of young, hard-throwers — right-hander Max Scherzer and left-hander Daniel Schlereth, who were first-round draft picks from the past two Arizona drafts.

The Tigers will also get 27-year-old left-hand reliever Phil Coke from the Yankees. He was 4-3 with a 4.50 earned-run average in 72 games for New York in 2008.

Jackson, 22, is a speedy, athletic outfielder who was considered for several years one of the brightest prospects in baseball. He has not hit the way some anticipated, and his power is no match for Granderson's. But the Tigers will view him as a likely leadoff batter who will bring speed, defense, and potentially robust hitting to their lineup.

Jackson batted .300 with a .354 on-base average in 132 games at Triple-A Columbus in 2009. He had four home runs, 65 RBIs, nine triples, 23 doubles and stolen 20 bases.

Scherzer, 25, will be viewed as Jackson's replacement in the Tigers' rotation, while Schlereth will be groomed for back-end bullpen duty.

Scherzer is 6-foot-3, 215 pounds, and throws hard. He was 9-11 for the Diamondbacks in 2009 with a 4.15 ERA. He struck out 174 batters in 170 1/3 innings, but walked 63. Control will be his issue as he moves to the Tigers and to the tutelage of Tigers pitching coach Rick Knapp.

Schlereth, the son of Mark Schlereth, the ex-NFL lineman who now appears on ESPN, pitched in 21 games for the Diamondbacks in 2009. He was 1-4 with a 5.89 ERA, with 22 strikeouts in 18 1/3 innings and 15 walks.

As with Scherzer, the Tigers will try to refine the control of a 23-year-old, 6-foot, 210-pound fireballer. He throws a fastball into the upper 90-mph range and has a pair of impressive breaking pitches.

"I have to make Detroit the winner," said Keith Law, who heads the baseball division of Scouts, Inc., for ESPN, and who said Tuesday that Scherzer and Schlereth were the difference-makers in the whopping three-team package that became the biggest deal through two days of the Winter Meetings.

The Tigers will deal with fan fallout in saying goodbye to Granderson, 28, who became a vital and high-profile athlete in Detroit.

They will also miss Jackson, a dominant right-hander whose only problem with the Tigers is that he is two years from free agency, and from a potentially untenable negotiation with agent Scott Boras.

But the Tigers have made it clear they like the four players they got from two different clubs Tuesday -- providing the medical reports are affirmed Wednesday.

lynn.henning@detnews.com

Shouldn't have dealt either. We needed Jackson, and probably could have gotten Scherzer and kept him.

Tigers teammates react to trade
BECK'S BLOG
Posted on December 9, 2009 at 11:15 PM

Can't say what Justin Verlander and Miguel Cabrera -- or Carlos Guillen, for that matter -- think of the Curtis Granderson and Edwin Jackson trade, but got a sampling from a couple current Tigers.

Why does this matter, you ask? Because it matters to manager Jim Leyland.

"I think one of the big keys is how well our veteran players react to this," Leyland said Wednesday. "If they react the proper way, with a positive attitude and the proper approach, I think this is gonna work out great. I really do."

Catcher Gerald Laird, himself the subject of trade rumors this offseason, tried to put a good face on it. He talked with his younger brother Brandon, a Yankees prospect, about the talent coming over from New York.

"It's tough to lose two guys like that, to lose one of your top of the rotation pitchers and your starting center fielder which was a big part of our success and a big face-of-the-franchise type guy with the community and the team," Laird said. Obviously, it's a tough trade because they're two really good guys. But I'm sure Dave [Dombrowski] and the organization have their mind set on a direction they want to go, and I'm sure they're making decisions they feel is best for the team."

It's a direction change Laird wasn't completely foreseeing when the Tigers lost their AL Central tiebreaker two months ago.

"You look at it and, yeah, we didn't get to where we wanted, but we felt like we had a really good year," Laird said. "We felt like we had a really good core of guys. To lose those two guys, that's when you think, 'Wow.' [Granderson] is a big time player, and he's definitely going to help New York out. He's a tough player to lose. The guy is a remarkable talent and a remarkable person. But I feel we have a good group of core guys that I think can help us win.

"It's one of those things where guys are going to step up now. I'm sure Nate's ready to bounce back and Bondo. I think we're still going to be a solid rotation, but to lose a guy like [Jackson], it's definitely tough."

With the shift towards youth, Laird said, comes some added responsibility.

"It's going to be up to the veterans to welcome these guys and help them out as much as we can. The better they fit, the better they're going to be."

Laird was playing golf when he heard the news.

"I kind of just shook my head and said wow," he said.

Reliever Zach Miner, now potentially an elder statemen in a young Tigers bullpen, took a pragmatic look at it.

"I think all of us understand the way the business of baseball works," Miner wrote in an email. "It would be naive of any of us players to think we would have the same teammates all of our career, and if management and the coaching staff feel this was necessary to keep our team moving in the right direction, then we have to trust their judgment.

"That being said, it will be hard to replace Curtis and Edwin's production for our team, and in my opinion impossible to replace Curtis' leadership in the clubhouse, on the field, and in the community."

"That being said, it will be hard to replace Curtis and Edwin's production for our team, and in my opinion impossible to replace Curtis' leadership in the clubhouse, on the field, and in the community."

Couldn't have been said better.

gdennis59 wrote:

"That being said, it will be hard to replace Curtis and Edwin's production for our team, and in my opinion impossible to replace Curtis' leadership in the clubhouse, on the field, and in the community."

Couldn't have been said better.

Now we know who the "Team Capt." actually was.

Come to think of it. Everyone else's rep makes me feel inferior.

Do we not even use that anymore?

gdennis59 wrote:

Come to think of it. Everyone else's rep makes me feel inferior.

Do we not even use that anymore?

GoGetEmTigers wrote:

gdennis59 wrote:

Come to think of it. Everyone else's rep makes me feel inferior.

Do we not even use that anymore?

The reputation thing under the names.

Don't feel that way, you are very important! Post more articles, do your blog, and it will go up!

I have been bloggin'. Just haven't put em all here. I should maybe do that.

This whole thing makes me nauseaus!