Brewers should listen to Tigers’ Rumors

If there was a perfect time to listen to the market, now would be it for the Milwaukee Brewers. Recently, the Detroit Tigers have announced that starting pitchers Rick Porcello and Drew Smyly have been drawing in a significant amount of trade interest. At this point, it’s unclear who and if the Tigers will trade, but if they do, the Brewers should be all ears. 

Rick Porcello’s young experience would be a great fit in Milwaukee. Mandatory Credit: Kyle Terada-USA TODAY Sports

Like mentioned before, the starting rotation is the absolute stepping stone for our bullpen. If say the Brewers were to trade up for Porcello, you’d have a pretty decent top two. Yovani Gallardo would be the number one, Porcello probably the two, then following suit would be Marco Estrada, Mike Fiers and Wily Peralta. Porcello is a young pitcher who has had his bouts of success and really wouldn’t cost the Brew Crew that much in the long run.

Looking at Porcello’s career so far, it has been nothing spectacular, but his experience in my mind wins him the second spot in the rotation. He’s a career 48-42 pitcher with a 4.55 ERA and has 384 strikeouts all inside of 691.2 innings pitched. Porcello is known for his sinkerball pitch. In his arsenal, Porcello also has a four-seam fastball, a change-up, a slider and the occasional curveball. Obviously Porcello has had some damage done against him, but he’s young, as he will be 24 later this month, so if you give him a year or two, the MLB may see him develop into an ace.

Drew Smyly also has postseason experience, though not much. Mandatory Credit: Rick Osentoski-USA TODAY Sports

Now there’s the left-handed Smyly. He’s only had one year experience in the bigs, which was 2012. In this past season, Smyly started in 18 games and had a record of 4-3 with an ERA of 3.99. Smyly, like Porcello, is a young pitcher at 23 years of age. He very well could be a prime target for the Brewers since they could begin to work with him more at the major league level since he’s new to the exposure.

What Smyly offers are some pretty basic pitches: a four-seamer that touches up to 93 mph, a slider, a cut-fastball and the occasional change-up. Smyly’s four-seamer has been noted as his primary pitch and this really comes as no surprise as many pitchers use their fastballs as their main pitch.

Now whether or not the Tigers trade one, or both of these pitchers remains to be seen. What the Brewers would have to give up in return for either pitcher, more so Porcello, may be a potential deal breaker. The Brewers do need to figure out these pitching dilemmas, but at the right price. Smyly offers more potential as he hasn’t had much time up here, thus hasn’t fallen into a groove that may shape him into a mediocre pitcher. Not to say that Porcello is a bad pitcher, but the path he’s on is a bit rough. Regardless, the Brewers need to keep open eyes and ears on these rumors.