Tigers acquire Alex Gonzalez from Orioles
By Matt Fisher
A move made on Monday morning did two things: 1) It helped with the Tigers’ shortstop depth, and 2) it made the Doug Fister trade look exponentially worse.
Dan Connolly of the Baltimore Sun reported that the Tigers traded recent trade acquisition, second baseman Steve Lombardozzi to the Baltimore Orioles in exchange for veteran Alex Gonzalez. The move is straight up, according to Ken Rosenthal, and both are expected to be on their respective team’s 25-man roster to start the season.
One of the stranger moves of the off season by the Tigers was the trading of starting pitcher Doug Fister to the Washington Nationals in exchange for pitchers Robbie Ray and Ian Krol along with Lombardozzi. Lombardozzi, at the time, was somebody that general manager Dave Dombrowski said could fill in for a spot start or two but wasn’t somebody that could be counted on to fill a month’s worth of time, especially at shortstop.
Over the weekend, Detroit acquired Andrew Romine from the Angels to platoon with either Danny Worth or Hernan Perez. Now, it looks like the platoon is going to be with a 37-year old Alex Gonzalez, who hasn’t played a full season at shortstop since 2011. Over the last two years, Gonzalez has played a total of 65 games with Milwaukee.
On the other side of the trade, Rosenthal speculates that with Manny Machado starting the season on the DL, Ryan Flaherty could start at third with Jemile Weeks at second and Lombardozzi as the utility backup. The move would likely mean that prospect Johnathan Schoop would start at Triple-A.