Rather than sign a free agent to be their fifth starter, the Detroit Tigers might look to the trade market to bolster the back end of their pitching rotation.
MLive.com’s Steve Kornacki is reporting that the Tigers have spoken with the Chicago Cubs about left-hander Tom Gorzelanny. Dejan Kovacevic of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette posted on Twitter that the Cubs are “aggressively shopping” the starting pitcher.
Last season with the Cubs, Gorzelanny finished with a 7-9 record and 4.09 ERA. He missed most of September after taking a line drive off his pitching hand. But he also compiled 119 strikeouts in 136 1/3 innings, which is an encouraging number.
Gorzelanny struggled in 2008 and 2009 with the Pittsburgh Pirates, getting demoted to Triple-A in each of those seasons. Upon being traded to the Cubs, however, Gorzelanny improved under pitching coach Larry Rothschild and became more of a power pitcher.
Bless You Boys thinks this could be a low-cost risk for the Tigers. Last year, Gorzelanny made $800,000 and is due for a raise through arbitration. Even with that, however, he’s likely to be cheaper than most free agents the team could sign and would be under club control through 2012.
Would Gorzelanny be an improvement over Armando Galarraga in Detroit’s starting rotation? The numbers say he would be.