Kuzul

Two weeks ago, Marcus Stroman still hadn’t thrown a major league pitch this season, yet Alex Anthopoulos already had him in the playoff rotation.

The Toronto Blue Jays general manager is a smart man.

“If he performs the way he did last year, it’s a no-brainer,” Anthopoulos said the night of September 9 on Toronto’s Sportsnet 590 The Fan. “It’s not even a debate.”

Well, guess what—Stroman is performing the way he did last year, or maybe even better than that. It was bad news for the New York Yankees in Wednesday night’s key game in the American League East, and it’s bad news for the rest of the AL playoff teams and perhaps whoever makes it to the World Series out of the National League.

We’ve spent the whole season thinking of the Blue Jays as simply an offensive powerhouse, and we’ve debated what that will mean in October. But with David Price atop their rotation and Stroman right behind him, the Jays have the kind of one-two rotation punch that plays in the playoffs.

It sure did play this week against the Yankees, when Price won Monday’s game with seven scoreless innings and Stroman matched him with seven scoreless in Wednesday’s 4-0 Toronto win.

“It was really the perfect game for him,” Blue Jays manager John Gibbons said in his postgame press conference. “It was a big game, and he came through.”

It was a big game, one that made the difference between the Blue Jays holding a 1.5- or 3.5-game lead with just 11 days remaining on the schedule. Stroman came through, and he did it with a flair that left you believing the big stage doesn’t bother him.

Why would it?

He fought hard to come back quickly, after the spring training knee injury that was supposed to cost him the entire season. He took time to go back to school at Duke, but he was determined to return if he could, just to pitch in games like this—and the even bigger games that lie ahead.

The Blue Jays went from thinking he wouldn’t pitch at all to thinking he might help out of the bullpen to starting him in both huge series they played against the Yankees this month. Stroman beat the Yankees on September 12 at Yankee Stadium, and he did it again Wednesday. In between, he allowed one run in seven innings in a win over the Boston Red Sox.

He’s 3-0. He has a 1.89 ERA. He’s a difference-maker.

Remember, Stroman was supposed to be the Blue Jays’ Opening Day starter this season, off his fine rookie season in 2014. He impressed the Blue Jays by the way he pitched down the stretch, with a 2.56 ERA over his final six appearances.

That was good, but what Stroman is doing this month is even better.

He went out Wednesday and took control right from the start, and didn’t flinch even as the game stayed scoreless through five innings.

The Blue Jays began the week with fewer wins in games when they score four runs or fewer than any team in baseball. Yes, that’s partly because they have fewer of those games than any other team, but until this week they were 13-51 in those games.

Then, in the biggest series of the season, the Blue Jays scored four runs in each game. They won two of the three and took the third game to extra innings.

The Blue Jays still have other concerns. They’re not sure how soon Troy Tulowitzki will be able to play. Their bullpen has three blown saves this month.

But their rotation now looks like it could be a strength going into October, rather than a big question mark. Marco Estrada, who has pitched well all year, looked good again Tuesday against the Yankees. R.A. Dickey has a 2.95 ERA over his last 14 starts. Mark Buehrle has pitched well three times in his last four starts.

Price is 8-1 with a 1.95 ERA since coming over from the Detroit Tigers. Three of those wins came head-to-head against the Yankees, and he would have had four wins over New York if not for Carlos Beltran’s August 14 home run off Aaron Sanchez. Between them, Price and Stroman have faced the Yankees six times, and the Blue Jays have gone 5-1.

Given that the Blue Jays lead the East by 3.5 games, you could say those six games decided the division. Barring a collapse, the Jays can plan on opening the Division Series on October 8.

They can plan on Price pitching that game. They can plan on Stroman pitching in that series, just as Alex Anthopoulos predicted he would.

And they can go in with the knowledge they have a top of the rotation built for October.

Danny Knobler covers Major League Baseball as a national columnist for Bleacher Report.

Follow Danny on Twitter and talk baseball.

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David Price and his cannon arm are enjoying the life with his new team. The Toronto Blue Jays are in command of a wild-card spot in the American League right now with help of an 8-2 run in their last 10 games.

The team is getting hot at the right time. 

Price is probably a couple of strikeouts away from Drake dropping his name in his next track, and to top everything off, he’s PED-free. At least, that’s what he let MLB know on Twitter. 

From time to time, MLB will “randomly” drug test players, and Price’s number was called Saturday. But there’s no need to wait for the results, because Price already let us all know that he’s drug-free, baby!

[Twitter]

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For a guy who’s never tested free agency, David Price has worn a lot of uniforms.

First, of course, the ace left-hander donned the laundry of the Tampa Bay Rays, the club that grabbed him with the No. 1 overall pick in the 2007 draft.

Then, for parts of two seasons, Price played for the Detroit Tigers after Tampa Bay shipped him out at the 2014 trade deadline.

This year, he moved at the deadline again. Now, he’s north of the border, trying to push the Toronto Blue Jays into the postseason for the first time since 1993. (He got off to an excellent start Monday in his Blue Jays debut, allowing one run in eight frames with 11 strikeouts in a 5-1 win over the Minnesota Twins.)

We don’t know which uniform Price will wear in 2016, but one thing is certain: He will jump into the free-agency waters, and he will get paid—handsomely.

Oh, sure, the Jays could negotiate a deal with Price before he hits the market. Perhaps the thrill of busting Toronto’s two-decade-plus playoff drought (assuming that happens) and an abiding love of Canadian bacon will persuade the former American League Cy Young Award winner to forgo a bidding war and stick around.

Riiight.

Before the trade to Toronto, Price indicated to WEEI.com’s John Tomase that free agency is a foregone conclusion. Tomase asked about the possibility of Price signing with the Boston Red Sox, but the stud southpaw’s answer tells you all you need to know about his general intentions:

I won’t rule out anybody. If you can prove to me that you want me for the player that I am and the person that I am, I’ve got to respect that. If you have a formula to win and can do it over a sustained period of time, who doesn’t want to win? That’s why you play the game. It’s not about the money. It’s about being able to win now and in the years in the future. That’s what I want to do. I want to be a part of something special. That’s what I’m looking for.

Price turns 30 at the end of August, and he’s never won a ring despite five trips to the postseason and one to the Fall Classic in 2008 with Tampa Bay. So it makes sense that signing with a winner is a high priority.

The money, however, will come.

Yes, this winter’s free-agent class should feature an arsenal of ace-level arms. In addition to Price, Johnny Cueto, Zack Greinke, Jordan Zimmermann and Scott Kazmir, among others, could be available.

If you think that’ll measurably diminish Price’s price tag, though, think again. 

Even with the glut of enticing options, deep-pocketed suitors will line up for Price. The Los Angeles Dodgers, for one, “have coveted” the five-time All-Star, per Bill Shaikin of the Los Angeles Times.

Remember, Dodgers president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman drafted Price while serving as general manager in Tampa Bay. Now, Friedman has the budget to nab his man again.

The New York Yankees held their chips at the trade deadline and have displayed uncharacteristic financial restraint of late. Don’t be surprised, however, if New York makes a play for Price this winter.

The same goes for the San Francisco Giants, St. Louis Cardinals, Chicago Cubs and basically every other club with the need and requisite resources.

How much will Price get?

Last winter, Max Scherzer—another former AL Cy Young winner entering his age-31 season—secured seven years and $210 million from the Washington Nationals, so that’s a decent starting point.

Yes, again, the shelves will sag with aces this offseason. As MLive.com’s Chris Iott noted, “Supply and demand says that having that many starting pitchers on the market should make the price more reasonable for teams.”

Then again, as Iott added, “The market shows premier pitchers will get $200 million or more.” 

David Price is a premier pitcher. In fact, he’s the Platonic ideal of a premier pitcher. And when his much-anticipated, inevitable go at free agency arrives, someone is going to pay him accordingly.

All statistics current as of Aug. 4 and courtesy of MLB.com unless otherwise noted.

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You would not be bending any limbs before the season to declare that the Detroit Tigers and St. Louis Cardinals might be the best teams in their respective divisions.

At least one of those two franchises have appeared in five World Series since 2004, and they faced each other in the 2006 Fall Class with the Cardinals winning it all in five games. And since 2000, they have combined to win 12 division titles, with St. Louis holding eight of those.

Entering 2015, both clubs were favorites to win their respective Central divisions again. Both were coming off at least two consecutive division championships, had legitimate aces leading their rotations and had potentially potent lineups.

However, there were also questions and “what ifs” weaved into their preseason narratives. But as the season approaches its six-week anniversary this weekend, both teams have handled the questions, significant injuries and challenges from other teams within their divisions to sit at or near the top of the standings going into Friday.

They face off this weekend in a three-game series in St. Louis. The Cardinals go in with the best record in the majors (24-10), a five-game lead in the National League Central and the second-best run differential in the majors (plus-51). The Tigers sit a game behind the Kansas City Royals in the American League Central with a modest plus-14 run differential, making it appear the Cardinals have the advantage in a series that could determine who is closer to being baseball’s best.

#Tigers now head to St. Louis for 3G road trip v. Cardinals, who have best record in ML (24-10), and lowest ERA in ML (2.70)….

— Dan Dickerson (@Dan_Dickerson) May 14, 2015

In this series, though, the Tigers are the team that lines up better through all three games—potentially. They send out Shane Greene, David Price and Alfredo Simon while the Cardinals go with Carlos Martinez, Tyler Lyons and Lance Lynn for Sunday’s finale.

The Probables

Shane Greene has maybe been the streakiest pitcher in the majors this season. He threw at least seven innings and allowed one earned run or fewer in each of his first three starts—23 innings, one earned run, 0.39 ERA—but after that he failed to complete five innings in any of his next three outings and allowed at least five earned runs in each—11 innings, 20 earned runs, 16.36 ERA.

Greene might be starting a new streak as he went eight innings and allowed one run against the Royals in his last start.

He opposes St. Louis’ 23-year-old Carlos Martinez, who had a 1.80 ERA—25 innings, five earned runs—through his first four starts. But in his last two, he’s managed only nine total innings and has allowed seven runs in each.

“The last two outings, I felt like I wanted to do it too good, so I would go and rush a little bit at times,” Martinez told reporters through an interpreter last weekend. “I’ll try to be better for the next time, try to make the first pitch for a strike and try to be ahead in the count.”

Price has been mostly solid this season except for a 2.1-inning, eight-run debacle on April 22. Lyons is getting another crack at the rotation for a third consecutive year, failing to pitch well enough to earn a permanent spot in the last two. Through his first two starts this season, Lyons has allowed five earned runs over 9.1 innings.

Sunday, the Tigers go with Simon, who has been mostly a stud this year with a 3.05 ERA over seven starts. The Cardinals counter with Lynn, who is coming off six shutout innings in his last appearance.

The Injuries

Adam Wainwright has arguably been the most impactful injury in the majors this season. The Cardinals lost their ace for the season on April 25 when he went down with an Achilles injury while running out of the batter’s box.

At the time the Cardinals were well equipped to handle the loss because Martinez, Lynn and Michael Wacha were all pitching like front-line starters, and the team has gone 12-6 since the injury. But Martinez has struggled recently and Lyons does not look long for the job, so the Cardinals are definitely seen as buyers on the trade market going forward.

The Tigers have also felt the effects of injury this season as closer Joe Nathan has not pitched this season after tearing his ulnar collateral ligament in April, which required his second Tommy John surgery. Even without him, though, the Tigers’ bullpen has posted a 2.93 ERA, the fourth lowest in the league.

The Tigers are also without catcher Alex Avila, who went on the disabled list Saturday with loose bodies in his left knee. Avila, who had a .342 OBP when he got hurt, will not have surgery and the hope is he can be back in less than a month.

Alex Avila talked about his decision to opt against surgery: http://t.co/hZuQ9UzBIg

— anthony fenech (@anthonyfenech) May 14, 2015

The Future

Based on the most recent trends, it seems like the Tigers have the upper hand in this series on the pitching side and offensively since they have one of the best lineups in baseball. Plus the Cardinals have a couple of struggling arms going against that Detroit lineup.

But even with a series win here, the Tigers still have the more difficult road going forward. The Royals are proving they are not a one-year wonder with a first-place standing and an AL-best plus-42 run differential. Beyond that, the Minnesota Twins are above .500 and the Chicago White Sox appear to be improving to where expectations had them at the start of the season.

The Cardinals have a five-game lead as of now and the Chicago Cubs are the only other team above .500 in the division as it appears there is no real threat to the Cardinals winning a third consecutive NL Central title.

Regardless of the challenges, both teams are still living up to expectations as two of the best, making this weekend set quite the treat.

All quotes, unless otherwise specified, have been acquired first-hand by Anthony Witrado. Follow Anthony on Twitter @awitrado and talk baseball here.

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David Price left Detroit’s game against the Royals on May 8 in the seventh inning after sustaining a hamstring injury. Price suffered the injury slipping on a bat.

Continue for updates.

Price Optimistic of Making Next Start

Saturday, May 9

Matthew B. Mowery of the Oakland Press reported that Price suffered a mild hamstring strain, and his next start will come sometime early next week. 

Jason Beck of MLB.com passed along comments from Price, who said he was feeling fine after leaving his last start:

“I feel fine,” Price said Saturday morning at Comerica Park.

Manager Brad Ausmus, who has to worry about his rotation for next week’s series against Minnesota and at St. Louis, said his reports from head athletic trainer Kevin Rand were similarly upbeat.

“He wasn’t limping, and had minimal soreness. That’s a big plus,” Ausmus said.

On May 8, Beck reported manager Brad Ausmus confirmed Price’s injury was to his hamstring. 

Mowery reported Price said he hyperextended the leg slipping on a bat.

For the first time in years, the Detroit Tigers rotation looks vulnerable. Left-hander Price was poised to lead the group in 2015, so it’s unfortunate for the team to see the All-Star suffer an injury so early in the season.

Price, whom the Tigers acquired last year at the trade deadline, performed well with a 3.59 ERA and 82 strikeouts in 77.2 innings, and he helped get the team into the postseason before it lost in the American League Division Series against the Baltimore Orioles. 

After Max Scherzer signed with the Washington Nationals and Rick Porcello was traded to the Boston Red Sox, Price became the No. 1 starter. Justin Verlander hasn’t looked like the ace he’s still being paid to be while Anibal Sanchez has proved to be too injury-prone to hold that mantle. 

In a beefed-up American League Central, with the Cleveland Indians boasting a strong collection of largely young talent on the rise and the Chicago White Sox reshaping their roster through trades and free agency, the Tigers’ stranglehold over the division hasn’t been this tenuous since 2010. 

An injury to Price immediately makes the Tigers weaker though as long as he doesn’t miss significant time, they should be able to compete with the Indians, White Sox and Kansas City Royals to make the playoffs. He also has to play things safe in a bid for a massive contract as he prepares to enter free agency following this season.

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A team’s fortunes over the course of a six-month season typically hinge on more than one factor, but depending on how critical said factor is, that one wild card can affect things greatly.

It can be a good or bad performance. It can be a health issue, for better or worse. It can be how a player bounces back from an injury or a poor previous season. It can even be how a player produces during the ever-important contract year.

Whatever the case or reason, these are players who can greatly impact their teams, their division races and even World Series chances depending on how they turn. That is why they become important pieces in determining how their league’s landscapes play out.

This year, there is no lack of such examples. Every team has at least a couple of these X-factors, and they have the potential to make or derail an entire season depending on how they break.

For 2015, these are some of the most important variables. Either way they go, they will all have a significant impact on their team’s year.

Begin Slideshow

The offseason has been a blur, one blockbuster move after another changing the landscape as we knew it just hours before.

Brash and fearless front offices shuttling out superstars, bringing in others and changing the complexion of divisions has been the norm since before Thanksgiving. In what has become one of the most active and maybe surprising fall-winter seasons in recent memory, the balance of power has shifted in every division in both leagues over the course of three-and-a-half months.

All pitchers and catchers should be reported to their spring training camps by the end of next week—barring any odd happenings, of course—and optimism will run rampant at all of them. The reality of any club’s situation never really hits until around late June, when party lines are clearly drawn and the best teams start to distinguish themselves.

In the world of prognostication and prediction, we don’t have the luxury of waiting for things to play out. In this world, we play the games on paper because we want answers, and we need them now.

So, with about all of the roster shuffling complete and spring training a few sleeps away, let’s get to predicting what things will look like come Oct. 4.

Begin Slideshow

For a Major League Baseball superstar, the pressure is inherited with the title.

That much is a given. Whether it is a player’s past production or simply his price tag, the stars of the game are looked upon to be among the best. This becomes especially true when that player’s team is expected to win. There is little pressure on a player like Joe Mauer, whose season is not expected to dictate how his team fares.

However, for other players, the pressure is going to be turned way up this year. And the abundance of those players has grown now that there is an extra Wild Card playoff slot and since a team not believed to be a championship contender at the start of last season—the Kansas City Royals—came within one swing of winning the World Series. Now even star players on fringe teams are feeling the heat.

This season it is easy to go up and down rosters and find these players. The massive amount of turnover through trades and free agency this offseason makes this even more so since those superstars are now expected to live up to marquee billings for different franchises.

It was easy to pick out more than 10 players who fit this bill, but for round-numbers’ sake, here they are in no particular order (you can determine that at the barstool or water cooler):

Begin Slideshow

When David Price first joined the Detroit Tigers last summer, he was joining a rotation that looked like baseball’s answer to The Avengers. It was a super-rotation, alright, with a collection of the last three American League Cy Young winners. 

But that was then. This is now. Where Price was one of the guys then, he’s must be the guy now if Detroit’s pitching is going to be worth a darn in 2015.

That’s is a dicey proposition, but we can get into it after we first get caught up.

You may have noticed the last few months haven’t been kind to Detroit’s rotation. Justin Verlander never pulled out of the cringeworthy slump that started last May, putting one former Cy Young winner on the rocks. Another departed when Max Scherzer signed a megacontract with the Washington Nationals.

Rick Porcello, he of the career-best 3.43 ERA last year, is also gone. He and Scherzer have been replaced by Alfredo Simon and Shane Greene, making Detroit’s projected rotation:

1. David Price
2. Justin Verlander
3. Anibal Sanchez
4. Alfredo Simon
5. Shane Greene

This is barring any additional moves, of course, but it sounds like we can bar them. 

“We’re happy with the guys we have,” Tigers general manager Dave Dombrowski told Anthony Fenech of the Detroit Free Press. “And we anticipate this will be the five going into the season.”

Admittedly, things could look worse on paper. Price and Verlander are still former Cy Young winners. Sanchez quietly won the AL ERA crown in 2013. Simon was a National League All-Star in 2014. Greene broke through to the tune of a solid 3.78 ERA in 2014.

For each positive outlook, however, there’s one at least equally strong negative outlook.

Verlander is a soon-to-be 32-year-old with declining velocity who was among baseball’s worst pitchers in 2014. Sanchez is a 30-year-old whose 2014 was wrecked by injuries, and his overall injury history suggests good health is probably not forthcoming. Simon regressed badly after last year’s All-Star break. Greene’s breakout was limited to a mere 14-start sample size.

So no, Detroit’s rotation doesn’t look particularly strong. Definitely not as strong as your typical Tigers rotation, anyway, and the projections bear that out.

FanGraphs’ 2015 projections barely have the Tigers in the top 10 for starting pitcher Wins Above Replacement, which is saying something since Tigers starters have produced by far the most WAR of any team’s starters since 2011.

Once you factor in how Detroit’s bullpen is still weak and how the club’s offense will be banking on a badly damaged Miguel Cabrera, the Tigers’ chances of being contenders in 2015 may hinge on their rotation being at least as good as the projections expect it to be. Hopefully for Detroit, it will be even better.

And more than anyone, that will come down to Price.

On the surface, it doesn’t look like the idea of Price being the ace the Tigers need him to be is worth worrying about. The 29-year-old southpaw is elite by reputation, and he’s coming off an ace-like year.

Price led all major league pitchers in innings pitched (248.1) and strikeouts (271) in 2014. He also only walked 38 along the way, giving him a 7.13 K/BB ratio that ranked among baseball’s best.

If that sounds like a guy who pitched better than his non-ace-like 3.26 ERA indicates, there is an explanation for that. Per FanGraphs, the FIP, xFIP and SIERA metrics all think Price should have had an ERA in the 2.70 range. Knowing these metrics can be more predictive of future performance than ERA, that bodes well.

It also says a lot about Price that he looks like an ideal ace from some perspectives. He’s turned himself into an elite strike-thrower, as he ranked among the elites in strike percentage and zone percentage in 2014. But he also still has power stuff, as evidenced by his career-best 10.5 swinging-strike percentage.

So in theory, Price could be the ace the Tigers need him to be in 2015 by picking up where he left off. He was already really good, and him being even better could be a matter of him simply collecting on the good luck that didn’t come his way often enough in 2014.

There’s a chance, however, that it might not be that simple. Though there’s a lot to like about how Price pitched last year, that modest 3.26 ERA isn’t actually that misleading.

Price may have led the league in strikeouts last year, but he also led in hits allowed while allowing a career-high 25 home runs. The size of his workload was a factor, granted, but so was hard contact.

The two best batted balls a pitcher can hope for are ground balls and infield pop-ups. And according to FanGraphs, Price experienced career worsts in both categories (GB% and IFFB%) as a starter in 2014:

When batters aren’t hitting ground balls or pop-ups, they’re hitting line drives and fly balls. Those are two things that can really sting pitchers, and Price did indeed give up a bunch of both. He was one of only 12 qualified starters with a line-drive rate of at least 20.6 and a fly-ball rate of at least 38.0.

And in Price’s case, this isn’t fluky. Pitchers can invite hard contact, after all, and he was guilty of that.

For starters, Price wasn’t very subtle with where he threw the ball in the strike zone. He went right down the middle of the zone more than anyone else in baseball, per BaseballSavant.com, and gave up more fly balls and line drives in that vicinity than all but four others.

That’s the risk you run when you pitch down the middle, and the risk is heightened if you can’t blow hitters away and/or keep hitters off balance.

And on those fronts, Price’s outlook isn’t entirely positive.

Though Brooks Baseball can vouch that Price got plenty of whiffs on his heat in 2014, repeating that could be tough. According to FanGraphs, his average heater has declined from a peak of 95.5 miles per hour in 2012 to 93.2 miles per hour in 2014. In 2015, it should slip even further.

Price will have to change speeds effectively to hide that, and the catch there is his primary pitch for the job suddenly doesn’t look up to the task.

Over the last few years, Price has all but shelved his curveball in favor of his changeup. That’s a fine idea in theory, but it wasn’t an effective pitch in 2014. By True Average—Baseball Prospectus’ all-encompassing batting metric—it was actually one of the five worst among heavily-used changeups.

When Jake Dal Porto of Beyond the Box Score looked in June, he noticed that a lot of that had to do with how many of Price’s changeups were finding their way down the middle. Here’s an example, courtesy of George Springer:

But Price’s changeup velocity was just as big an issue. While his fastball velocity went down to 93.2 miles per hour, his changeup velocity went up to 84.9 miles per hour.

That’s only an 8.3 mile-per-hour difference, which is notably less than the 10-plus mile-per-hour difference that Harry Pavlidis of Baseball Prospectus says is ideal. And while location issues can be tweaked, this is something that will be considerably harder to fix.

If you want the short version of all this, here it is: Maybe Price improving on his 2014 season won’t be as simple as him picking up where he left off and collecting on some outstanding good luck. If he wants to avoid the hard contact that plagued him in 2014, he may have to adjust.

To this end, the bright side is that there’s hope. Maybe Price can become the next Jon Lester.

Price has already evolved into an all-out assaulter of the strike zone, so his next step should be to become more crafty with what appears to be fading stuff. That’s where Lester works as an example to strive for, as Grantland’s Shane Ryan highlighted how Lester found success by masking diminished stuff with pinpoint command and sequencing. 

All Price has to do to take after Lester is improve his already very good command and maybe become more unpredictable in how he distributes his fastball and changeup. If he can do that, he could turn into a strikeout machine who also manages contact well.

It’s hard to ask for a more ideal ace than that. But one way or another, that’s the kind of ace the Tigers will need. Such a pitcher would have been overkill if their rotation still had Scherzer and Porcello alongside a vintage Verlander and a functional Sanchez, but that’s not what the Tigers have.

No, sir. What they have is a rotation that needs to be strong enough at the top to make you forget about the bottom. 

Note: Stats courtesy of Baseball-Reference.com unless otherwise noted/linked.  

If you want to talk baseball, hit me up on Twitter.

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The Detroit Tigers reached a settlement agreement on a one-year deal with ace David Price on Friday, avoiding salary arbitration in the process. The starting pitcher will make just shy of $20 million in 2015.

Jon Heyman of CBS Sports passed along word of the deal:

Aaron Gleeman of Hardball Talk notes the agreement sets a new standard for these types of contracts:

“David Price will get $19.75 million in his final season before free agency, avoiding arbitration by agreeing to a one-year deal with the Tigers that represents the highest arbitration-based salary of all time.”

Given the high price tag, it’s a bit surprising the Tigers didn’t attempt to go through the arbitration process. It may have allowed them to reduce the cost a bit. But Price was always going to get compensated extremely well for next season.

The left-hander arrived in Detroit ahead of the trade deadline last season, after spending the first six-and-a-half years with the Tampa Bay Rays. Between the two teams, he posted a combined 15-12 record and a 3.26 ERA in 34 starts, while striking out 271 batters in 248.1 innings.

Quite simply, Price is one of the most dominant pitchers in baseball when he’s on top of his game. The fact that he’s a lefty simply adds to his value. The Tigers will slot him in as their ace, but he could end up elsewhere before 2015 is over.

The 29-year-old starter is set to become a free agent next winter. If he’s able to get that much money while under arbitration, it’s amazing to think what type of money he could command on the open market. The Tigers could look to trade him to retain some value.

The new contract marks the start of what could be a very interesting 15-month stretch for Price. 

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