Edwin Jackson Deal; James Skelton

There have been many things written already on the Edwin Jackson-Matt Joyce swap that occurred last night. I am not a fan. Not in the least. He's similar to getting the remote control car that you've wanted for the last three Christmas' and then you finally get it. Open it up, play around with it and realize that the shiny outer-coat is just a facade and that the gift is a cheap knock-off of the name brand toy you really wanted.

In this case, the shiny outer-coat is Edwin Jackson's ERA. His command improved to a mediocre level from downright terrible, but his strikeout rate really dropped -- and essentially -- offset everything good he did in moderately improving his control.

The anguish over such a deal is less about the talents of Matt Joyce, rather on the apparent lack-of-talents of Edwin Jackson. Jackson is a trade-able commodity -- I'd pause and think about a deal involving Jeff Larish rather than Matt Joyce -- it's all just cost dependent. And I don't like the cost of this deal.

In other news, the neglect of adding James Skelton to the 40 man roster, and thusly leaving him unprotected for the Rule 5 draft, results in the Tigers losing Skelton to the Arizona Diamondbacks. Not a fan of this, either. Skelton's not a big-league ball player in 2009 based on his talents alone. However, he can project to being a competent catcher at some point and the Tigers needs at catchers span beyond the Major League Level. So long as Dane Sardinha has procured a back-up job, James Skelton should still be within the Tigers organization.

It feels like there have been a lot of swings and misses by this front office in the most recent years. Couple that with numerous questionable decisions from the medical staff, head-scratching decisions from the manager on both in-game decisions and player personnel and I'm not sure I'm liking the way the team is currently heading. 2006 feels like decades ago already.