Detroit Tigers trade rumors: Cubs’ Fulmer-for-Schwarber proposal is re-goshdarn-diculous
By Matt Snyder
The Detroit Tigers reportedly fielded an offer from the Chicago Cubs who were looking to get Michael Fulmer in exchange for Kyle Schwarber.
The Chicago Cubs are looking for pitching help ahead of the trade deadline and a report is out that they contacted the Detroit Tigers about 24-year-old All-Star Michael Fulmer. Here’s the funny part: the Cubs offered catcher/outfielder Kyle Schwarber in return.
The tweet below has audio of Jim Bowden reporting the proposal on MLB Radio:
This is the type of offer that that one guy in your fantasy league sends constantly. His relatively average spare parts for your superstar. You smartly auto-reject trades from that guy.
Kyle Schwarber is a fine player. He struggles a bit defensively but makes up for it with what should be a big bat. He is a 100% reasonable player for a team to have in their starting lineup, but he’s no Michael Fulmer. Not even close.
Schwarber has 555 MLB plate appearances to his name (139 games) and has accumulated 2.1 WAR according to FanGraphs. That’s basically a full season (a little shy) of league average production.
Fulmer, on the other hand, has 274 innings under his belt and has accumulated 6.0 WAR. That’s a season and a half (a little shy) of a four-WAR average. Fulmer is twice as valuable as Schwarber is. Both Schwarber and Fulmer are 24 years old and remain under team control through 2021 so there’s no extra value to be gained there for either team.
The rest-of-season projections also detail a similar value difference. For the second half of 2017, the FanGraphs depth chart projections peg Fulmer as a 1.5 WAR player. Schwarber is pegged for 0.9 WAR. The Tigers simply aren’t looking to rebuild by adding worse players than they already have.
Hopefully for the Cubs’ sake this was only part of the proposal. They’d need to at least double (but more like triple) that offer if they hope to have a serious conversation about a Fulmer.
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And this is to say nothing of the fact that a Schwarber-type player is one of the last things the Tigers need right now. They have plenty of guys who can play a bad outfield defensively or serve as a designated hitter.