Apocalypse Now: The Collection

Somewhere over the course of 3 hours, 45 minutes and 16 seconds (!) of mental solitude, I made a decision about what is to become of my Curtis Granderson collection.

I adapted this quote back when the Tigers were in turmoil and needed to come together as a team. Now it is fans like me that aren't quite sure what to do, so allow me to re-quote a part of this again:

No man is more important than the team. No coach is more important than the team. The Team, The Team, The Team. And if we think that way, all of us, everything that you do, you take into consideration what effect does it have on my Team.

Allow me to harken back to this blogs very first post, "Grand Cards: A History"

My story could probably be repeated by millions of people across the country--I am a baseball nut who collected everything as a kid, but just grew out of it as I got older. I had new interests, the Tigers were mired in a decade of obsolescence, none of my friends collected etc. Then, after the 2006 season, I thought that it would be fun to buy a Tigers team set to commemorate the season. I was hooked. I needed to have the 2007 set too--it acknowledged some of last year's success! I should probably get 2005, because those young players really set the table. Plus, I already had the 1984 set from when I was younger--I needed to be prepared for another championship. Before I knew it I was back in the thick of things.

With the "Who's Your Tiger" campaign in full swing prior to the 2006 season, I became a Granderson devotee too and in the last year or so have decided to add a player collection to my overall Tigers sets. With that, the idea of Grand Cards (it sounds so much better than Grandy Cards doesn't it? And so much more flexibility!) was born and we are off and running.

More flexibility indeed. In my heart of hearts, I am a team collector. I collect the Detroit Tigers. In fact, I have selectively chosen to pursue team sets from releases that I like, happily accept Tigers cards from other sets and satiated my interest in collecting even more sets by just pursuing the Granderson cards from those releases. This blog has always shared space between highlighting my Tigers cards and commenting on the team in general, and chronicling my Granderson collection--something that, admittedly, has received less space on this blog over the last few months than it did at the start.

Allow me to provide you with one more illustrative example of what I'm trying to say. Thanks to a regrettable absence of web savvy, I can't figure out how to embed this video and have it start at a specific point. Lucky for you, it is a great episode, so enjoy. Or, you can skip to my point, which runs from -13.13 to -12.37.

Simpsons - Natural Born Kissers! @ Yahoo! Video

Right now my Granderson collection is split in two: A binder for the regular cards and a box for the relics and autographs all in top loaders. They are, in essence, buried treasure. This Simpsons clip came to me, as they often do, sadly, when I'm looking to make sense of some real world event, and I realized that I knew the answer all along.

What if, instead of burying the treasure, I use it to buy things. You know, things I like.

Meaning, why don't I take this opportunity to focus my collection into cards that I want. I have been picking up any old Granderson card for my collection, and although I've become a bit more selective recently, there are hundreds and hundreds of cards that I want for my larger Tigers collections that have gone ignored.

It just so happens, also, that Granderson is now on the Yankees. I'm already quite familiar with what that does to the value of a player's items, something that Sooz first talked about back last January. The problem with Granderson going to the Yankees is that any attempt to continue collecting his cards will either be an effort in futility, or will be so expensive that I won't be able to pursue it to my satisfaction. I initially thought that I could pursue a Thorzul-collecting-CC type move, and go after Granderson's cards as a Tiger, but even that will probably be too expensive and seems like it will feel grossly unsatisfactory for some reason that I can't put my finger on.

Of course, this whole problem has a flip side--I may have just hit the jackpot, so to speak. Granderson's cards are likely to go up in value substantially, which will allow me to sell the cards that I've accumulated and use the money to buy cards that fit my overall collecting goals. I forgive you if you just gasped, or perhaps feel betrayed by someone who has been a Granderson devotee since the beginning. But sadly, this makes too much sense for me not to do. Part of me wishes that I have the resolve of The Hamiltonian, or Mario's Jose Canseco collection or the Jeremy Bonderman guy, which was actually my original inspiration for starting my Granderson collection, but I'm a company man and I have an opportunity to not only profit from the collection that I loved piecing together, but to use that money to enrich my life as a collector even more.

So what does this mean for this blog, and, by extension those of you who have spent your precious time reading what I have to say?

Very little.

The name of the blog will remain the same (I knew the flexibility would come in handy!). I will likely figure out a new logo, and already have an idea that I'm going to play with--not like the logo was an integral piece of the site, so no big deal there. It will be more Tiger-centric, obviously, but if you look back over the year's posts, there has always been more Tigers related stuff than Granderson-specific stuff anyway.

Most importantly, there will probably be MORE Granderson card related content than there has been up to this point.

That's right. I love Granderson as a player and for what he means to the game. I fleshed it all out when I started this blog a time when I actually lamented that all of my previous Tiger favorites were short lived Tigers as well.

Why Granderson? All of my previous favorites were based on some experience or some memory--all wonderful, valid reasons to love a player. But Granderson is different. Sure, I made him “my Tiger” at the start of 2006 during the “Who’s Your Tiger” campaign, but there is more than that. Unlike any other past favorite, he is the player that most kids think they can be. Fast, but not the fastest. Strong, but not the strongest. You hustle and practice and try hard. A leader on and off the field, a team player, a nice guy, articulate, well educated. He signs autographs at games, he writes things on his hat, he engages his teammates during rehab assignments. He has a foundation. Curtis Granderson is a genuinely good person, the type that would make a mother proud, and he is a tremendous baseball player. Add all of those things together and you get a future face of the franchise, someone who Michiganders can look up to for a generation.

I still have fond feelings for Lou, and Milt and Fryman and well, Granderson, and that is not going to change. While I won't be following the day to day news of Granderson's career, I would like to combine my newfound enjoyment of creating card galleries with the "Ultimate Checklist" posts that were the original centerpiece of this blog. I plan on digitally chronicling every Curtis Granderson card out there. From a reader point of view, this will appear as more Granderson content than ever before, the only difference is that I won't actually be collecting his cards any more. I think that this will end up as being the best of both worlds--I get the enjoyment of following Granderson's career via baseball cards, but with the freedom to pursue collecting the cards that I care about most.

And, it's not like I'll be selling all of my Granderson cards. I'll probably sell something like this:


But keeping something like this:


Sell:


Keep:


I'll have to go through on a case by case basis, but anything that I can incorporate into another collection, or would just prefer to hold onto, for that matter, will stay, as a remembrance of things past.

So that's it. That's the plan. It is sad that it had to come to this, but I'm happy with the direction that I've decided to take things. The more things change, the more they stay the same, I guess--and as this blog is concerned, I really enjoy blogging, collecting, talking about the Tigers and blogging about collecting the Tigers too much to stop.

Postscript I'm sorry that was so long. To preempt your question--it does not matter to me that Granderson was traded to the Yankees. It is possible that I would have continued my collection had he gone to a franchise that I was neutral towards, or even had positive feelings about (he sure would have looked nice as a Cub, no?), but I'm not sure that I would have. I'm a Tigers fan, first and foremost. I continued to root for and follow Travis Fryman for the remainer of his career as an Indian, and still pull for him today as he pursues his managing career. I will feel the same way about Granderson to do well. I want to see him succeed, play well and become a player of high repute nationally--something that he'll have ample opportunity to do in New York. And yes, if he has the chance to win a World Series and is facing a team that I have no affiliation with or feelings towards, I hope he wins. Even as a Yankee.

Apocalypse Now: The Plan

While I was busy all day yesterday, Mack Avenue Tigers, the Detroit Tigers Weblog and Tigers by the Numbers apparently channeled my thoughts and put in some leg work to reach the same conclusion: This trade doesn't make sense.

Which just begs the question: what is the Plan for the organization on this?

Michael Rosenberg over at the Free Press doesn't think they have one.

But this is what I find disconcerting about the Tigers: The plan keeps changing. They seem to be caught between doing what their owner wanted three months ago, what he wants now, and what he might want next year. They are caught between their GM's past mistakes and his need to make up for them as quickly as possible.

And you're not alone. Taking a look at The Haul from the trade this seems like a money move all the way. Assuming all four players make the major league roster, you essentially fill up two holes in the bullpen, and swap for a cheaper starting pitcher and center fielder. But even with that, you need to ask why. Granderson and Jackson were not going to break the bank next year. From MAT:

The Tigers appeared set to have a payroll around $125 million, $130 or so if the Tigers want to play a closer. At the Detroit Tigers Weblog, Billfer projects that payroll at around $115M right now. The savings in 2010 of $9 or $10 million is truly not that significant -- about 8 percent. Now it's true, Granderson will cost $8.25 million in 2011 and $10M in 2012. But given the Tigers' payroll nosedives to $43 million in 2011 obligations, this doesn't appear to be a contract the organization needed to shed to assure its long-term health.

This is a club with a TV contract worth 400 million over 10 years, that receives anywhere from $20 to $35 million in revenue sharing (thank Scott Boras for sharing that), that likely brought in $60-65 million in ticket revenue (based on the average ticket price of $25 per Forbes, and 2.56 million tickets). Assuming the minimums, that's $120 million in those three revenue streams alone in 2009. (Hat tip to Billfer and Phil Wezner of TigsTown for getting the first line of research on the topic).

So, I'm sorry. I just don't buy it being caused by money. In the big picture, the savings weren't that great, and could just as easily have been accumulated by trading Edwin Jackson, moving catcher Gerald Laird and non-tendering lefty specialist Bobby Seay. And if a billionaire baseball fan/owner can't absorb a loss for 2010, then he'd better stop enjoying the nice press given to him.

So yeah, maybe money would have gotten a little tight for Mike Illitch next year, but it would be a one year problem. A big ol' chunk of that comes off the books after 2010--conveniently right when Granderson starts to get more expensive, which is something that was obviously an intentional move by an intelligent GM at the time.

Here's what I said about it last month, when the Granderson trade rumors first started:

Here's where things don't add up for me.

In 2009 the Tigers:

• had the 4th highest attendance in the American League


• Turned down sponsorship of the fountain in Center Field to place a "Supports Our Automakers" sign instead


• Allowed Magglio Ordonez's $18 Million option to vest


• Had the 4th highest TV ratings among MLB clubs


• Saw a 10% raise in TV ratings in 2009

This all comes amidst the worst economic recession in decades, with all indications that everything is now turning up--even in Michigan.

Billfer and Kurt fill that out even more by adding in specific revenue sharing numbers and TV contracts etc. and I just keep coming back to the same conclusion: This couldn't just be about money, because they're not saving enough of it, especially when they had opportunities to save/earn more last season.

So then, the plan must be about rebuilding the organization. Great! The Tigers do need to do that, with no heir apparent at SS or 3B apparently. So it's a good thing that they got...a SP, two RP and a center fielder who will attempt to fill the whole that you created by...trading your center fielder. Hmmm.

Let's harken back to a fangraphs article that I linked a month ago:

This just doesn’t pass the smell test. Granderson is a star and a massive bargain. When you’re cutting costs, you don’t start with the guy producing the highest return on investment on the roster. It doesn’t make any sense.

Arrgh. I'm generalizing, but you can run a franchise in one of two ways: There is the "win at all costs" attitude that the Tigers have adopted in recent years. There is also a Moneyball-style approach that the A's, Twins, and everyone who has ever made money in life tend to follow. It involves making smart investments, picking up undervalued assets and generating a better-than expected Return on Investment.

That was Granderson. Trading Granderson was you buying Apple stock and selling before the iPod came out. Let me give you one more dose of pessimism before I turn the tables. MAT again:

And this is the problem with the trade. The Tigers spent 2008 and 2009 drafting several relief pitchers with low-to-middle major league ceilings who were close to the majors. Perry was a 2008 first-rounder. Cody Satterwhite was the second-round pick. Weinhardt a ninth rounder. Oliver a 2009 second-rounder. (In theory, he is a starting pitcher, but he translates much better as a reliever and will keep the role warm only until 2009 first rounder Jacob Turner matures a season or two later.)

The Tigers' cup overfloweth with relief pitching -- either that or with wasted draft picks, your call. And yet, relief pitching is notoriously fickle. They're failed starters basically. If they weren't failed starters, they have a higher value to the team as, well, actual starters. Sure, there are crazy teams like the Astros out there who overpay for it, but as a rule you can put together an effective bullpen fine without spending like crazy. And, oh yes, I'm not sure this bullpen screams at me "best in the league." Actually, I'm sure it doesn't.

Yet, this was the haul for the trade?

So, remind me again, exactly, how did this trade benefit the organization in the long run?

The Tigers knew that they wouldn't afford to bring back either Fernando Rodney, Brandon Lyon or both, which opened up two bullpen slots. Perhaps by adding two arms to the mix of young talent they have in the minors the Tigers are taking a shotgun approach to filling holes on the roster. With this many options, they can't miss. We can only hope.

So that brings us back to the plan. What is the plan? To me, it is clear that there has been a transition from "win now" to "win soon," but concedes 2010 in the process. That's ok--that's what rebuilding takes. But the big concern that I have, is will this team be ready by 2011? If not, you need to wonder if they wouldn't have been better off holding on to Granderson and filling some of the holes in Free Agency in 2011 once Illitch's pocketbook is millions of dollars heavier.

On the flip side, maybe this is the organization-changing move that was both warranted and prudent. From Steve Kornacki at mlive.com:

Detroit will trim about $7 million in payroll by adding these four and trading its two All-Stars. Granderson will make $5.5 million in 2010 and Jackson likely $4-5 million after arbitration. None of the players coming to the Tigers have more than two years of major league experience and aren't arbitration eligible. Each will likely make about the league minimum and could come in under $3 million as a group.

But the savings will become greater with each year.

Granderson is due $18.25 million in 2011 and 2012, and his club has a $13 million option for 2013 with a $2 million buyout.
Jackson will become a free agent after 2011 and his agent is hard-bargaining Scott Boras. If he keeps pitching like an All-Star, you do the math.

Meanwhile, the Tigers won't have to offer anything beyond arbitration to their four new players over the next five years.
The savings will be significant for a team in a financially-strapped town.

Detroit4Lyfe has an excellent breakdown of the implications of the trade and at one point says this:

There's potential here that the Tigers can wind up with a better pitcher than EJax, a better OF than Curtis, and two quality relievers to boot. The key word there is potential, but that's all in addition to saving enough money where they can go out and buy needed players in a few years should these guys not pan out.

To which I say, humbug. The problem with potential is that there is a risk premium associated with it. The new guys are cheaper because they're not proven and might not work out. If you're going to assume that they might not work out and can replace them with the money you've saved, why not just keep the proven commodity and use the massive savings elsewhere in your organization to fill holes elsewhere. And, thanks to Detroit4Lyfe's nice breakdown, I certainly don't think that we're in a position to say that Austin Jackson will be better than Granderson? Oh, he's younger sure, and the Tigers will have him for longer, but a side-by-side comparison of stats reveals far less power and way more strikeouts, among other things. But you know what? It's in the eye of the beholder, as they like the trade over there. Perhaps my bias is clouding things in these parts.

An important argument support of the trade is that the Tigers do trade 5 years of team-controlled salaries for 22 years with this deal. And the players aren't schlubs. 22 years of team control is as good of a rebuilding step as any. Let's take it from maestro himself in the Free Press:

“It’s difficult to make deals when you know players. I used to do this on a regular basis (most notably in Florida). We just haven’t done this in Detroit as much. It’s tough to trade people who you know and like and represent you well. You’ll always get some people who second-guess that part of it.

“But I remember in the winter of 1984, I was with the White Sox. I was the assistant GM, and Roland Hemond was the general manager. We traded La Marr Hoyt (who had won the Cy Young in ’83) to the San Diego Padres. We had scouted very thoroughly, and the young guy we got back who was the key guy was named Ozzie Guillen.

“I remember Roland was crucified. He was absolutely crucified.”

Guillen, a shortstop, became the next season’s American League rookie of the year. He had a long and distinguished playing career with the White Sox and now manages them.

Meanwhile, the 28-year old Hoyt was out of baseball one All-Star appearance and four seasons later. Bravo for your apt comparison, sir.

So this leaves me with one thought: The Tigers are in rebuilding mode. They have 26 year old Miguel Cabrera locked up long term He is the centerpiece. They NEED TO, absolutely no question must, sign Justin Verlander to a longer term contract. Scherzer is 25. Porcello is 21 (!) and there are a few highly touted arms in the minors that could break through to the majors in the next 2 seasons. Meanwhile, there will be a rookie at 2B, possibly a rookie in CF (can I put in a vote right now for starting Jackson at AAA? Raburn can play in Center.) and a general youngening and cheapening of the entire team.

That's the plan. It has to be. Personally, I thought that Granderson and Jackson fit into the plan, although I like the Scherzer add. Even so, I still wonder whether the Tigers gained so much in this trade that they are better of as a rebuilding club than they would have been with Granderson in the mix. I'm not so sure.

And that's where I have to defer to the professionals, for now. Dombrowski built a champion in Florida, then dismantled it and put together the pieces to build another Champion. I don't like this trade. I don't. And personally, I won't be happy with a six-year rebuilding process, which is what it took in Florida (1997-2003). But, as much as I'd like to have him on the short leash for this, I think that he has squarely set himself up for a rebuild, with no turning back. You can't half-ass a rebuild by trading the face of the franchise. No allegiances, no remorse, just baseball. And that can hurt.

But I hope he's right.

Apocalypse Now: The Haul

Let's dive right in.

When looking at three team trades, I like to think of things as happening in sequence, and not simultaneously. In so doing, this trade emerged:

For Curtis Granderson:

• CF Austin Jackson


• LHP Phil Coke


• RHP Ian Kennedy

For Edwin Jackson and Ian Kennedy:

• RHP Max Scherzer


• LHP Daniel Schlereth

That's the haul. At the end of the day the Tigers end up with Jackson, Coke, Scherzer and Schlereth. Let's take a look at these players one at a time.

Max Scherzer
Scherzer is the gem in the trade. The solid (6-3, 213) 2006 first round pick (11th Overall) burst onto the scene in 2008 with a scintillating big league debutin which he went four perfect innings and struck out seven. With that he was given the informal "untouchable" tag by the Diamondbacks, who had a power-armed star in the making. How'd that work out for them? Not bad. Here's 2009:

9-11 4.12 ERA, 111 ERA+, 1.344 WHIP, 170.1 IP, 174 SO, 2.76 K/BB Ratio

That's the makings of a nice young pitcher, in my opinion. In fact, it looks much better than Justin Verlander's age 25 season in which he was worse in every statistical category, although you can take that with a grain of salt, as Verlander was terrible in 2008 and had a stronger track record to predict a rebound. Whatever you think, Scherzer is a 25 year old power arm, that has been respectable in his first two seasons in the major leagues and is under team control for five more years. In my opinion Scherzer is an upgrade over Edwin Jackson and can be a long-term piece of a great Verlander/Scherzer/Porcello rotation.

How did the Tigers end up with him? Apparently, the Diamondbacks thought that he projects as a reliever, with faulty mechanics and a herky-jerky motion dooming him for an injury prone career. I'm hoping that's not the case, for obvious reasons, but even two good years out of Scherzer is an upgrade over the same from Edwin Jackson, for cost considerations alone.

Disconcerting is the revelation that the D-backs may have proposed Scherzer for Jackson straight up (h/t Mack Avenue Tigers)

Daniel Schlereth
Dude is marrying a girl from Michigan with a family full of Tigers fans. That's good enough for me.

Schlereth was a teammate of Ryan Perry at Arizona and was actually drafted by the D-backs after the Tigers drafted Perry in the first round of the 2008 draft. He was on the Tigers' short list at the time, so you know that they're familiar with him. The hard throwing lefty is reliever all the way but could be an impact arm in the Tigers bullpen. Some projected him as the future D-backs closer, and he was pegged as the #3 prospect in their system going into last season (h/t Detroit Tigers Weblog).

This is a good addition to the bullpen--6 years of team control, excellent arm, left handed. The addition of Schlereth makes the more-expensive Bobby Seay expendable, with Fu-Te Ni holding down the other lefty spot in the pen. Great pitching prospect addition who can make an immediate impact and can be the core of an fireballing young bullpen corps in Detroit for years to come.

Phil Coke
He's not Phil Hughes. It'd be nice, but he's not. If sample sizes weren't an issue I'd point to his ERA+ of 724 (!!!) in 2008, but alas, we're limited by the conventions of statistical measure. I'm not so sure about Coke. The lefty has been a serviceable reliever out of the bullpen for the Yankees, but at age 27 the 26th round draft pick from 2002 doesn't seem to have a very high ceiling. This looks like the Tigers trying to fill some pieces more than anything, which would make sense, if they didn't already have a lefty reliever in this trade, two others in their current bullpen and a free-agent signed the day before.

Unless...he can start, which is something that he did with reasonable success throughout his minor league career. If Coke can become a reliable left handed starter, then this is a whole different ball game, and the Tigers have given every indication that they'd give him the chance to compete for that spot. At only 27 and 5 years of team control left, he could be your Nate Robertson circa 2006 without the price tag.

Austin Jackson
The other reason this whole thing went down. The Tigers felt comfortable dealing Granderson as long as they got a major-league ready position player in return. Jackson is that guy. Last summer the NY Times profiled him as "a star under construction." He was the Yankees' #1 overall prospect in 2009 and is considered by many to be the real deal. On top of all of that, he has the moral character, maturity and great personality that we've come to expect from our Center Fielders.

But man, I'm not sold. Here's the good stuff: Jackson is 22 and is under team control for 6 more years and he is way cheaper than Granderson, who was already cheap. But does anyone else see that 800 lb. gorilla? No, just me?

Here are Jackson's stats in the Minors. Here are Granderson's. Maybe I'm nuts, but Granderson's stats were so superior to Jacksons at every level that it is kind of ridiculous.

Jackson hit .300 in the minors with no power and only ok speed on the basepaths. I had said before that in a best case scenario, Jackson develops into Curtis Granderson and the Tigers have him for 6 years. I'm actually not sure that's possible. I think the best case scenario is that he develops into Chet Lemon, which hey, great. Chet Lemon was an excellent player in his day and I'd be happy to have his equivalent on my team for a decade or what have you. But you don't build a team around Chet Lemon, you add him to the mix to fill in the holes. I'm very, very afraid that Jackson's ceiling isn't nearly as high as people think.

Summary
This is just the overview of the players in the trade--I'm not getting into the implications for the franchise until the next post, and I have a feeling that this deal will make more sense, but I do have some preliminary thoughts.

The more I think about it, the more I dislike this trade. I'm going to assume that Scherzer for Jackson was not offered straight-up, because if it was, then this would be a horrendous trade. Even so, I'm just reaching for a reason that the Tigers needed to include the Yankees in this at all.

You want Scherzer? Fine--here's Edwin Jackson and another mid-level pitcher. You can keep Schlereth. I just don't think that giving up Ian Kennedy was painful for the Yankees or particularly helpful to the D-backs. Remove that from the mix the Yankees portion makes no sense.

As for Austin Jackson. I like him and I hope that he turns out to be good, but I don't think that people are recognizing how talented and productive Curtis Granderson was. At least Joe Posnanski has his head on straight. From a talent standpoint, I think the Tigers lose. Granderson will spend the next three years as one of the three best center fielders in the American League. He may hit 40 Home Runs with the Yankee Stadium short porch. Simply by virtue of being a Yankee he will be a perennial All-Star and win 2-3 Gold Gloves. Meanwhile, the Tigers will take a prospect that was less regarded and less talented than Cameron Maybin and hope that he turns into someone who is way better than Cameron Maybin.

I'm not sold. And this doesn't even touch on the fact that the fanbase is furious, the face of the franchise is gone and merchandise sales will be down. Nope, this just tells me that the Tigers won't be as good without Granderson on it than they would be with him.

Tomorrow, we'll look at how this fits into the overall franchise master plan to try and make some sense of why this trade needed to go down.

Apocalypse Now: The Overview

Sometime while I was a mile over the Pacific Ocean it became official. Curtis Granderson’s career as a Tiger is over. The finality of that sentence hit me like a truck.

It all developed really quickly, in reality, which adds to the sting. Sure, there were rumblings—100% of which were propagated by Lynn Henning starting this summer—but very few people believed that a Granderson trade was a serious possibility unless the Tigers made out like bandits in the deal. As the winter meetings started I started to get a bad feeling. I had a sense that if Granderson were to be traded, it would be this week. If not, he would be a Tiger for the rest of his career. Late Monday night we all got a scare with reports of a three way trade, but they fell apart. By Tuesday morning they were dead and we could exhale. Except not. MLB Trade Rumors has a sequence of events that starts with this:

7:35am: Buster Olney adds that the talks progressed to the point where only one team liked the deal; he's not sure whether talks can resume or not.

8:29am: SI's Jon Heyman tweets that this one "looks very unlikely." In his scenario Heyman had Daniel Schlereth, Scherzer, and more going to Detroit. He adds that the Yankees are saying no to the deal, which would've cost them the four prospects named below. Similarly, Morosi now finds the chances of this one to be "not good" because the Yankees balked at the price.

And ends up with this before I finished my lunch:

12:48pm: Heyman tweets that an agreement has been reached, with only medicals pending. We'll do a fresh post once this trade is official. To reiterate: the Yankees get Curtis Granderson, the D'Backs get Edwin Jackson and Ian Kennedy, and the Tigers get Max Scherzer, Daniel Schlereth, Austin Jackson, and Phil Coke.

Sherman notes that the Yankees managed to pull off the Granderson acquisition without giving up Phil Hughes, Joba Chamberlain, or Mike Dunn

Bam. Gone.

A lot of people asked for my reaction, but my mind drew a blank.

“Do you like the trade?”

No. No I don’t like the damn trade. My favorite player just got traded. The person that I have centered my main hobby around—the person I write a freaking blog about is no longer on the team that I’ve spent my life committed to. I didn’t like it when my first dog suddenly died either, even though I got a newer, better version that I had even longer and loved even more.

But that doesn’t mean that it wasn’t a good trade. The problem is, I just can’t tell. I’ll dig into those facts in the next post, but I have this feeling that the Tigers essentially traded Granderson for a player that in a best case scenario develops into Curtis Granderson. And hey, that’d be great. But one in the hand is worth two in the bush is all I’m saying.

At the end of it all the Tigers lost the face of their franchise—the player who could have been the Al Kaline, the Alan Trammell or Steve Yzerman or Barry Sanders for a generation, and that’s the saddest part of all.

Detroit is going to miss Curtis, especially given how well he is going to do in New York. But I also think that the Tigers are going to be ok. In a way, I need to convince myself of this to keep my sanity, but let’s not downplay some of the pieces they got in the trade and the youth and flexibility this gives them into the future. Earlier this year I said that the Tigers had a window to win of 2009-2013. These changes fundamentally change that window to 2011-2016 and that is an exciting prospect.

Over the next couple of days I’ll try to wrap my head around everything that happened with this trade and its implications. The schedule will look like this:

Part 1: The Haul--Looking at the Tigers' return on the trade
Part 2: The Plan--How this trade fits in the overall franchise master plan
Part 3: The Collection--What the hell do I do?

It’s Part 3 that interests me most, because right now I don’t know what I’m planning to do. I guess we’ll see what comes out on e-paper. I’m on a five hour time difference, so these may be very late night/early morning posts for those of you keeping an eye out.

Thank you for everyone who posted encouraging comments on Tuesday’s posts. This has all been very surreal. I just wish that I could be in Detroit for their first game against the Yankees this year so that I could be a part of the greatest standing ovation that a visiting player has ever seen.