Alfredo Simon Won’t Replace Rick Porcello For Detroit Tigers, But He May Be Better Than You Think

By Brad Faber @Brad_Faber on January 26, 2015

On the same day the Detroit Tigers acquired Yoenis Cespedes and a pair of arms from the Boston Red Sox in exchange for Rick Porcello, they also swung a deal with the Cincinnati Reds to bring in Alfredo Simon. It is hard to fault the Tigers for their apparent effort to immediately patch up the back end of their starting rotation, but many believe that relying on Simon may be a rather large risk for a team that still has championship aspirations.

Back in 2012, Simon came to the Reds with a 8-12 record, a 5.18 ERA, 5.23 FIP and a 1.48 WHIP over four seasons with the Baltimore Orioles. While he had worked out of the bullpen and in the rotation at different times in Baltimore, he was used exclusively as a relief pitcher during his first two seasons in Cincinnati, posting ERAs of 2.66 and 2.87 in 2012 and 2013 respectively.

In 2014, however, Simon made the full-time transition to the starting rotation, which is where the Tigers are planning to keep him. It is still possible that he could be relegated to relief duty if the Tigers decide to change course and make another move, such as signing James Shields, but Simon projects to be the club’s No. 4 or No. 5 starter as it stands right now. Plus, GM Dave Dombrowski continues to assert that the starting rotation is set.

Over 32 starts last season, Simon went 15-10 with a 3.44 ERA and a 1.21 WHIP through a career-high 196.1 innings of work. At first glance, his numbers look rather respectable. After all, Porcello went a very comparable 15-13 with a 3.43 ERA and a 1.23 WHIP through 204.2 innings of work. So, it seems that the Tigers may not skip a beat, right?

Not so fast. For starters, advanced metrics looked upon Porcello’s 2014 campaign far more favorably than Simon’s.

While Simon did have a more-than-respectable ERA, his FIP (4.33), xFIP (4.05) and SIERA (4.17) were all significantly higher, suggesting that he may have been the beneficiary of some luck. Porcello, on the other hand, actually saw a slight rise in his ERA estimators compared to his 2013 campaign, but he still posted a 3.67 FIP, 3.68 xFIP and a 3.88 SIERA, indicating that his actual performance was much stronger than Simon’s.

Porcello also posted a 3.1 fWAR in 2014, which was the second-highest mark of his career, trailing only his 3.2 fWAR from 2013. Simon, on the other hand, was worth a mere 0.9 fWAR, and he has never been worth more than 1.1 fWAR in a single season. It is worth noting that Shane Greene, the other starting pitcher the Tigers acquired this offseason, was worth 1.2 fWAR in only 78.2 innings of work with the New York Yankees last season, leaving some rather enamored about the 26-year-old’s future.

It should further be noted that Simon and Porcello each went through notable rough patches in the second half of the 2014 season.

After being rewarded with a spot on the NL All-Star team for his first-half efforts, Simon went only 3-7 with a 4.52 ERA, 4.34 FIP and 1.44 WHIP in the second half. While he had allowed an extremely low .232 BABIP in the first half, that number ballooned up to .309 in the second half, suggesting that balls in play were finding more holes and his aforementioned luck may have run out midway through last season.

When it comes to Porcello, he had been cruising along the entire season until the wheels inexplicably fell off in September. Although he appeared ready to put the finishing touches on what was still arguably a career year, Porcello stumbled across the finish line, posting a 6.20 ERA, 1.91 WHIP and allowing a .422 wOBA in the final month of the season.

However, his 4.19 FIP and 3.86 xFIP indicated that it may not have been quite as bad as it looked. A swollen .419 BABIP might help to explain his September slide as well.

Given the evidence that exists, there is currently little reason to believe that Simon will be an adequate replacement for Porcello in 2015. Porcello, who is set to enter his seventh MLB season and is remarkably still only 26 years old, carries a much bigger upside as well.

Although there are indeed many reasons to be concerned about Simon, it might also be a bit too soon to say that he is going to be a complete bust. Fangraphs Steamer is projecting him at a 8-9 record with a bloated 4.92 ERA and 4.79 FIP in a 0.4 fWAR campaign, but maybe, just maybe, he can be a little bit better than that.

For that to happen, though, Simon will need to get a little bit of help from his defense, which is hardly unlike Porcello’s recipe for success.

Even though Simon throws rather hard, with his top two-seam fastball hitting a speed of 96.9 mph last season, he is far from a pure strikeout artist. He posted a career-high 7.67 K/9 while pitching out of the bullpen in 2012, but that number fell to just 5.82 as a starter last season, a mark that is quite comparable to the 5.67 K/9 that Porcello posted in 2014.

Simon is actually rather effective at keeping the ball on the ground, as he induced a ground ball rate of 48.2 last season, which was only slightly behind Porcello’s mark of 49.0.

If Simon can continue inducing ground balls at a near-50 percent rate, that should bode well for him as the Tigers are expected to have a rather strong infield in 2015. Miguel Cabrera and Ian Kinsler each play their respective positions well, and it will be a major plus if shortstop Jose Iglesias is able to return and flash the type of leather he did back in 2013.

In an otherwise airtight infield, the only potential Achilles’ heel may be Nick Castellanos at third base as he posted a -19.1 UZR/150 last season. Well, that and the issue of who will play first base if Cabrera isn’t ready to go by Opening Day.

Simon’s fly-ball rate was not particularly high at 30.8 percent, but he did give up 22 home runs, contributing to a rather unsightly 11.8 HR/FB. However, 13 of those homers came at Great American Ballpark in Cincinnati, which is known for being somewhat of a launching pad. He should benefit from pitching his home games in the spacious Comerica Park, especially with an improved defensive outfield that includes Anthony Gose and also Yoenis Cespedes.

Simply put, if Simon can take advantage of an improved Tigers defense, and if a potentially explosive offense can give him some run support, he may be able to perform beyond current expectations. He is far from a sure thing and Tigers fans have plenty of reason to be skeptical, especially when considering his age and relative lack of experience as a starter, but the potential for him to become a fairly dependable, back-of-the-rotation innings eater is certainly there. His ceiling may even be quite a bit higher than that.

Last season, the Tigers’ starting staff led all of baseball with 19.6 fWAR, which gave them a full two-win advantage over the Washington Nationals, who came in second. Obviously, it may be difficult for some to imagine how Greene and Simon could possibly replace the 8.7 wins above replacement that Porcello and Max Scherzer accounted for in 2014, which is why most would find it hard to blame the Tigers if they were to take a look at Shields.

After all, if Shields stays healthy, it is a pretty safe bet that he would give the Tigers his ninth consecutive 200-plus innings season and a 3.5-plus fWAR campaign.

That said, if David Price, Justin Verlander and Anibal Sanchez can each perform up to their capabilities, that would obviously be a dynamite trio, and the Tigers may turn out to be just fine. There are indeed question marks at the back end of the rotation, but Greene and Simon may prove to be capable of holding their own.

Yes, the AL Central seems to be much improved and some are questioning whether or not Detroit is still the favorite, but it is only January, and Simon and the Tigers may do better than one might suspect in 2015. Detroit also paid a rather steep price to bring Simon to Motown as well, so unless they are planning on trading him, they might as well give the 33-year-old a chance to show what he can do.

All statistical information courtesy of Baseball Reference, ESPN.com and Fangraphs 

Brad Faber is a Senior Writer and Sabermetrics Columnist for www.RantSports.com. Follow him on Twitter @Brad_Faber, “Like” him on Facebook, or add him to your network on LinkedIn or Google.