Marlins Acquire Nate Robertson from Tigers

[lou]

I have no problem on this for $400,000. Why not see if he can get to a sub 4.50 era and a 1.40 whip?

Hey.... contract year?

[Ramp]

would have rather take my chances with Michael Tejera

[PitchingWinsGames]

would have rather take my chances with Michael Tejera

[The Hanram]

would have rather take my chances with Michael Tejera

His pitch in the NLCS is still one of my all time favorite bloopers.

Ahh Michael Tejerable, how I used to loathe thee.

[BigGameFish]

Here's how I look at it...

We need SP. We don't need RP.

We got SP.. We got rid of RP prospect.

We needed a lefty starter. We got a lefty starter.

(in my opinion) We needed a vet starter at the back end of the rotation. We got a vet starter for the back end of the rotation.

A lefty veteran, at that.

And now we have some really nice depth at SP in case anyone sucks...

JJ
Nolasco
Sanchez
Volstad
Nate
Hensley
RVH
Badenhop
Miller
West

Me likey. No more Taylor Graham and those other crap stars that pitched for us last May.

[Namaste]

I LOL'd hard that Robertson is making $10 million this year.


This move does nothing to The Crystal Ball

[Bobbob1313]

Christina Kahrl, who writes the BaseballProspectus Transaction Analysis blog and who generally adores the Marlins, is fan of this move.

The Marlins are effectively getting Robertson for free in terms of pay, since they're only paying the major-league minimum to employ him, or exactly what they'd have had to pay a McClung or a VendenHurk or a Hayden Penn. In dealing Voss, they've really only peddled an organizational arm, so that's not really a setback. He might prove handy someday, but he's exactly the sort of pitcher their system should be able to identify, develop—and replace. So the price? You almost can't beat it, since the next-best option would be inking him after his outright release. Since you're the Marlins and you can't guarantee that anyone would choose to don teal if they were on the free market, it's worth tossing the Tigers a small fry to land a guy.

Then there's the straightforward proposition of whether or not Robertson could prove useful. It's easy to slip into making a straight comparison to what the Marlins got the last time they made a deal with the Tigers involving Robertston—they sent the then-25-year-old lefty to Detroit to add veteran southpaw Mark Redman to their rotation. Redman did his part to help propel the '03 Marlins to a World Series win with quality starts in the NLDS and NLCS, and chipping in 4.9 SNLVAR and a SNWP of .547 during the regular season. Maybe it's because there's so little drama surrounding Robertson's failures, but I'm willing to buy into PECOTA's expectation of a return to adequacy. Consider his back-story: in 2007, he had to be shut down with what was then called a tired arm, in 2008 he was simply beaten like a drum, and in 2009 he finally got operated on in-season, and came back from the table with some decent work down the stretch.

Heading into his age-32 campaign, Robertson's older now than Redman was then, so I don't expect anything like what happened in 2003. As is, Redman's surprising return to a strikeout rate of 7.0 K/9 in '03 when he'd fallen below five per nine with the Tigers in '02 was pretty remarkable, weaker league or not. Nevertheless, Robertson was already at 6.3 K/9 in the AL last season, and if he gets his walks back down around three per nine—and PECOTA's median had him at 3.2 BB/9, and that was in the AL—he'll also have the benefit of being a fly-ball pitcher moving into Miami's damptitude. It isn't difficult to see the outlines of what might be a fine bounce-back campaign, and the price is well within the reach of even the cheapest Fish monger.

Which leaves the question of what kind of team he's going to be a part of. Robertson will be the token lefty, as well as the token veteran pitcher from a past pennant-winner. He'll round out a rotation staffed with the burgeoning greatness of Josh Johnson and Ricky Nolasco, the upside potential of Anibal Sanchez, and the worm-killing stylings of Chris Volstad. That doesn't sound too shabby, and if it buys time for relatively unfinished products like Sean West or VandenHurk, that's an added benefit. But it also figures to help the Fish inch forward just a little bit right now, perhaps still only on the fringes of a wild-card bid. I expect that's the sort of thing that would figure to take the already virulent condemnation of this club and its player acquisition strategy and reduce it to tongue-swallowing mouth-frothing madness, but it's also the sort of possibility that should give any other National League contender pause. Would you want to face a club throwing Johnson and Nolasco at you in a short series? Would you want to face Hanley Ramirez in such a series? Are you nuts?

[lou]

Damptitude? I think that's the first time I've heard that. Maybe we need an antihumidor.

[Todd]

Robertson as a starer over the last 3 years:
64 Starts, 5.7 IP/start, 5.28 ERA, 1.56 WHIP, .298/.357/.472 against, 5.9 K/9

[Beef]

OH!!!!

It only took 6 pages, but dang, that Nate Bobertson aint been good the last three years