Not long ago, it would not have been at all wishy-washy to see the trade that brought Curtis Granderson to the Yankees as a three-way tie.
After all, as recently as 2011, Ian Kennedy was finishing fourth in the NL Cy Young vote for the Diamondbacks, Granderson was finishing fourth in the AL MVP tally and the triumvirate of Austin Jackson, Max Scherzer and Phil Coke were helping the Tigers to the ALCS.
Win. Win. Win.
But, with more precincts weighing in, we can more accurately declare a winner of that December 2009 trade. All three teams made the playoffs in 2011. The Yankees and Tigers made it in 2012. And it looks as if just the Tigers will qualify in 2013.
The defending AL champion Tigers are close to nailing down their third straight AL Central title while Kennedy — following a brutal year and a half with Arizona in 2012-13 — is now a Padre and Granderson is completing an injury-marred season before free agency.
Perhaps we should have seen this coming. The Tigers, under general manager Dave Dombrowski, can lay claim to being one of the most successful traders in the sport. If you want to give a nod to the Rays under GM Andrew Friedman, you will get minimal argument here.
But the current Tigers are a tribute to mastering the art of the deal. A GM who wins even 60 percent of his trades should be viewed as a virtuoso. Dombrowski is better than that. His masterpiece came in December 2007, when he turned six prospects, notably Cameron Maybin and Andrew Miller, into Miguel Cabrera and Dontrelle Willis. Willis was a bust, but this trade would have worked just six-for-Cabrera or even eight or 10.
In Cabrera and Scherzer, the Tigers might have the MVP (for a second straight year) and Cy Young winner.
In the past three Julys, Dombrowski has obtained Doug Fister, Anibal Sanchez and Jose Iglesias. Sanchez is leading the AL in ERA (and Detroit got second baseman Omar Infante in that trade, as well). Fister is in the top 20 in ERA. Iglesias was a bold move to solidify the infield after Jhonny Peralta was suspended 50 games for his involvement with Biogenesis.
What makes Detroit’s chess work so impressive is the franchise annually goes unloved by those that rank farm systems. Yet, whenever the Tigers need to make a trade, Dombrowski has a) the pieces necessary and b) the nerve necessary, which should not be understated in an era when teams are so protective of their farm systems.
When I recently asked Dombrowski about why he always has prospects at the ready when the perception is he doesn’t, he told a story about being with the Expos in spring 1992 and reading a publication that had his outfield ranked as the worst three-man unit in the NL. That outfield was Moises Alou, Marquis Grissom and Larry Walker.
“I learned not to care what others thought, only what we thought,” Dombrowski said. “The guys who are ranking, they have never seen our players.”
Dombrowski said Detroit tends to low-key its prospects, not overtout them just to get notice. But, vitally, the Tigers also do not overhype the youngsters to themselves. When they have a keeper, such as Justin Verlander, they keep him. Aside from that, they are open-minded because, Dombrowski explained, “The title is ‘prospect.’ ”
In addition, Dombrowski tends to focus on what makes his team better rather than obsessing on making a slam-dunk deal. I cannot tell you how many GMs I hear complain about the market being frozen because so many of their counterparts will not move unless they have a no-brainer, kill-the-other-side move.
With the Tigers, for example, the cost for Iglesias was the well-regarded outfielder Avisail Garcia. But Detroit is trying to win now and had a giant hole coming at shortstop.
“We didn’t want to trade Avisail Garcia,” Dombrowski said. “We think he is going to be a very good player. The question for us is how good is the player we are getting back. We think Jose Iglesias is going to be a very good player, too.”
Such was life when Detroit dealt Granderson. Dombrowski understood Granderson would help the Yankees. There should not be a heavy dose of Monday Morning Quarterbacking here. The Yankees knew they were buying for today and risking tomorrow, especially when it came to surrendering Jackson. They had lost the lefty heft of Johnny Damon and Hideki Matsui following the 2009 championship and projected Granderson to have an ideal swing for the right-field porch.
From 2010-12, Granderson was fourth in the majors in homers (108) and had 10 more than anybody (84) between 2011-12. Give the Yankees just a healthy Granderson for all of 2013 — rather than losing him to two freak hand injuries from being hit by pitches — and it is very possible they would lead the wild-card race right now. It remains possible the Yankees will re-sign Granderson after the season.
This trade was not a bust for them.
But the team that has received the most to date from that heralded deal and promises to get more is the Tigers. Coke became a liability this year and could get non-tendered in the offseason. But Scherzer cannot be a free agent until after next season, Jackson until after 2015.
Don’t bet against Dombrowski, the master of the trade, finding their replacements, if necessary.