All eyes are on the Detroit Tigers starting rotation for 2020, and fans in the Motor City are hoping that they’ll be able to lower the 5.51 ERA they produced as a whole last season.
Spencer Turnbull, 27, is looking to take the next step in his career and will certainly be looking to improve upon his win-loss record of last year. Despite leading the majors in losses, his arsenal was praised by an anonymous AL scout:
“Whatever upside Turnbull has was obscured by playing on an atrocious team that didn’t catch the ball behind him, one AL scout said. “He has as good a stuff as anybody on this list,” the evaluator said. “He has ace stuff. He can make you look bad. He can’t throw the ball straight. If he gets his mind together, you could see it progressing and really jump up there. He’d surprise a lot of people.”
The focus in the rotation this season will be with LHP Matthew Boyd, who sported a 9-12 record with a 4.56 ERA in 2019, and was described as a potential “front line starter trade piece” by an AL executive:
“Boyd was once traded in a package for David Price. Over the past couple years, he’s been mentioned in trade packages as the theoretical equivalent to Price. “He snuck his way into the ‘frontline starter trade piece’ conversation from striking a bunch of dudes out early last year,” said an AL executive, who placed Boyd in the lowest tier. “But you look at his career and do you even want it that much?” Apparently, enough want it enough to view him as a mid-rotation arm.”
Do you agree with what they had to say about two key figures in Detroit’s rotation?
– – Quotes via Marc Craig and Andy McCullough of The Athletic Link – –
