Like Justin Morneau, the Twins may have beaten the Yankees if it had not been for the back problems and who knows how far the Mariners would have gone if Branyan did’nt have his back problems that shortened his season. Teams need their sparks in the lineup.

Based on the Fangraphs pitch type values, he survives on his slider. It’s been a money pitch for him the last two seasons. The velocity on the fastball obviously sets it up really well. You’d think a guy who can throw as hard as he can would get a lot of mileage out of a curve or a change up, but he doesn’t have either as a reasonable offering.

Naturally, with a fastball / slider combo, he eats right handers alive. Wait, what? He doesn’t? That’s weird.

Generally, his splits are about even. Righties have posted a .793 OPS against him and lefties a .780 for his career. In 2009, righties were on track with a .774 OPS against while lefties were .688. Obviously we’ve found our fluke. 1.7% of PAs resulted in home runs against lefties, while 4.6% against righties. Otherwise, there was no measurable difference between his probability stats for either split.

Since he’s never shown a measurable level of success against lefties before, I think we can probably chalk this up as bizarre and unsustainable. Unless someone has a rationale for why a right handed fastball / slider thrower posted a reverse platoon split.

Here is a list of Detroit players with significant money attached to them in 2010:

Unmovable:
Magglio Ordonez: 1 Year, 18 Million
Dontrelle Willis: 1 Year, 12 Million
Nate Robertson: 1 Year, 10 Million
Jeremy Bonderman: 1 Year, 12.5 Million
Carlos Guillen: 2 Years, 26 Million

Movable:
Miguel Cabrera: 6 Years, 126 Million
Brandon Inge: 1 Year, 6.6 Million
Curtis Granderson: 3 years, 23.75 Million (Option Not Included)
Justin Verlander: Arbitration 2 (3.675 Million last year)
Gerald Laird: Arbitration 3 (2.8 Million last year)
Edwin Jackson: Arbitration 2 (2.2 Million last year)
Bobby Seay: Arbitration 3 (1.3 Million last year)

Like Jeff said, we don’t even know if the Mariners would be getting anything from the Tigers period in the supposed three-way trade let alone a player with a sizable contract.

Miguel Cabrera: rumors have been inferred by the knowledge that the Tigers want to shed pay-roll, but nothing specific. He really doesn’t make sense for the Mariners even if he were available. That is a monster contract, we have a spot open at first base but Cabrera is a righty and this past year he provided ~3 million dollars in excess value over a free agent. It just doesn’t feel like a Jack Z. move even if Cabrera is available
.
Brandon Inge: I could see but would still be very unlikely. Inge is nifty with the glove and a short commitment. The problems are that Inge is also a righty and strikes out a ton. Inge’s power is pretty good, he hit 6 non pull homeruns this year and looking at Hit Tracker most of his homeruns would be out of any park. I could see this happening but at the same time I don’t think that Inge would be in high demand by most teams and therefore Z wouldn’t rush into a deal for him unless it was too good to be true.

Curtis Granderson: I know a lot of people here are Curtis Granderson fans (as a human being I like him, as a player I am suspect of him.) Regardless, my analysis of this possibility starts and ends with Granderson’s marginal value to the M’s is lower then it would be for other teams because of the presence of Guitierrez and Ichiro.

Justin Verlander: Sure, in magic land maybe

Edwin Jackson: I am a fan of Jackson, but he is one of those players I would rather see someone else take the risk on. It’s hard to know what Jack’s style is when it comes to risking money & prospects. The Putz trade was worse case scenario all the players we got busted with non-performance. The Snell trade he gave up a questionable value in Clement and for worse case scenario Snell would cost us 4.3 next year and Wilson walks. But to get Jackson it would cost prospects and we would have to pay him ~4.5 million next year and at least 6.5 the next. It hasn’t been Jackk’s style so far but he also hasn’t been in this situation so far either so I feel it is hard to say.

Gerald Laird: I suppose it is possible since catcher is kind of a question mark but Laird is bad…and fat…and ugly. I think it’s a waste of resource that Zduriencik wouldn’t make. I figure with Alvila and Ryan, Gerald Laird is a non-tender candidate.

Bobby Seay: About the most significant thing Seay done in his career is circumvent the draft. Seay doesn’t seem likely since I can’t imagine the Mariners wasting money on mediocre relievers at this point and Detroit has needed every reliever they could get since .

So what can you take from all of this? Absolutely nothing. It was just me kind of working through the process of a hypothetical trade with puzzle pieces missing. Sorry for wasting your time

Hypothetically.