According to Jim Bowden of ESPN, the Detroit Tigers presented the San Diego Padres with a few different trade offers trying to shore up their back-end of their bullpen by offering up 24-year-old Rick Porcello as payment.
The arms that the Tigers were inquiring about are injury prone Huston Street who is a very solid closer when healthy. He has averaged more than a strike out per inning during his career while racking up 201 saves. The other arm is Luke Gregerson, their setup man who has a career 2.92 E.R.A. while tossing an average of 70 innings pitched and 72 strikeouts in his four-year career, all with the Padres.
Denying the need to add another backend reliever during this past winter, Tigers general manager Dave Dombrowski made a 180 on his thought process after young fire-baller Bruce Rondon struggled mightily during the first few weeks of spring games.
Porcello, who is having an extremely outstanding spring training in his own right after developing a very effective off-speed pitch, is in competition with lefty Drew Smyly for the fifth starters spot. Porcello has won 48 games in his young career.
Making this story even more interesting though is the denial that Dombrowski has exclaimed to the press following these reports, claiming that he has listened to offers but that in no-way has Detroit actually offered up the young starter as a center-piece to any deal. Continue to follow this story as it unfolds on Baseball News Source.
