I will admit it, when the Tigers traded Curtis Granderson I was totally distraught. Here was probably my favorite Tiger (after Pudge Rodriguez who was already gone) going to one of my least favorite teams in the New York Yankees. Could it actually get any worse? You would’ve figured that the least Dombrowski could do was trade him to a National League team so he wouldn’t come back to haunt us or at the very least a team that was in the AL West, far away from Detroit. Instead many Detroit fans had their hearts broken and the only thing we had coming our way (from the Yankees that is) was Austin Jackson a centerfielder who never really saw any time at the Major League level and Phil Coke a bullpen arm which really isn’t cause to jump up and down about. With that said, besides the sick to my stomach feeling about this trade I did realize that the Tigers probably got everything they could for Granderson and Edwin Jackson who was also part of the deal. So in the end the Tigers ended up with Austin Jackson and Phil Coke from the Yankees and Daniel Schlereth and Max Scherzer from the Arizona Diamondbacks. All good young players but still unproven.
Even though the Tigers got more then one player in this trade Austin Jackson definitely stands out because he was the new guys coming in having to replace in all aspects a fan favorite in Curtis Granderson. Greg Eno of BleacherReport.com takes a look at the trade now and wonders himself if anyone is still opposed to the trade that put Granderson in pinstripes and Jackson in the Old English D. Here is an excerpt from his article…
Granderson is scuffling with the Yankees. Has been most of the season. His batting average struggles to reach the .240 level. His OBA is a paltry .312. He has but 28 extra base hits—for the season. He continues to strike out incessantly—about once every four at-bats. He still can’t hit lefties.
Thank goodness for Granderson’s replacement, the rookie Austin Jackson, because if it wasn’t for the pleasantly surprising year A-Jax was authoring, we’d still be hearing about the trade that sent Granderson to the Yankees.
As it is, Jackson’s .300 BA and stellar defense has been able to help erase memories around town.
Forget that the Tigers also netted Phil Coke from the Yanks in the trade—not to mention Max Scherzer and Daniel Schlereth in the three-team deal with the Arizona Diamondbacks that also shipped pitcher Edwin Jackson out of Detroit.
Don’t accuse me of being a 20/20 hindsighter, because I was on board with dealing Granderson before it was even on the Tigers’ radar.
The trade is already a great one for the Tigers.
Austin Jackson is six years younger than Granderson and is every bit as good defensively. He doesn’t have Grandy’s power—not yet—but is OBA is a robust .352. Jackson also fans a lot, so that’s a wash.
As I’ve written before, I have a sneaking suspicion that we’ve already seen the best of what Curtis Granderson can do. He’s topped out, in my mind, as a big league ballplayer. Doesn’t mean he’s not a good one—just that I don’t see him getting much better, if at all.
Austin Jackson, on the other hand, has a ceiling that far exceeds Granderson’s.
One thing that Eno fails to mention is the amount of time Granderson has missed this season due to injury. Granderson has missed around 25 games this year because of the injury bug however it’s something you can’t place too much blame on in terms of his production. Why you ask? Simply because the same problems that Granderson is having this year (low batting average, struggles against left handed pitchers, etc) were the same problems that we saw last year when he was a Tiger.
As this season moves on and gets closer to the end and even though the Tigers are having another one of their customary second half collapses you have to be pleased with what Austin Jackson has become this season and excited about just how much better he could become. Curtis Granderson remains one of my favorite players in the baseball and always will be, but as a Tigers fan you really have to be happy with how this trade turned out for Detroit.
