Jon Morosi confirms the Tigers were in on Jayson Werth, but they lost out – the Washington Nationals, out of nowhere, signed Werth to a 7 year, $126m contract. That’s more than Matt Holliday got from St. Louis last winter (and Holliday has far more career accomplishments than Werth does) – in fact, Werth is making more millions (126) than he has career home runs (120).
It’s disappointing that the Tigers lost out on Werth, but not at this price – Werth will be 39 when the deal expires and was indeed vastly overpaid by the Nationals. It has already been unfavorably compared to the Barry Zito contract. Detroit could not – and should not – have tried to beat Washington’s offer.
Logically, the Tigers will probably zero in on bringing back Magglio Ordonez, though with some added competition now – though Detroit obviously has a built-in advantage with that contest.
(Also, Carl Crawford is a very happy man right now. And Theo Epstein, who also looks like he’ll lose out on Adrian Gonzalez after extension talks failed, is a very unhappy man.)
Tiger Transactions 