How Anibal Sanchez returned to Detroit – MLB Detroit Tigers News
As soon as the 2012 post season ended, the talks of acquiring free agent starting pitcher Anibal Sanchez begun in the American League. So who is Sanchez?
Former Seattle Mariners’ pitcher Sanchez, who was moved to Detroit as part of a mid season trade, posted some impressive numbers for the Tigers last season. In his 15 starts for the Tigers, he showed the baseball world the stuff he is capable of.
Thing continued to get better for Sanchez and he displayed some top quality throwing skills in the postseason games against the New York Yankees and the San Francisco Giants.
Although the Tigers took an embarrassing 0-4 loss to the Giants in the World Series finals, Sanchez made a name for himself. It seemed obvious the Tigers would let him become a free agent at the end of the season as apparently they could not afford another
significant financial commitment.
There were rumours that Sanchez was looking for a five to six year multimillion dollar deal. Several Major League Baseball teams including the Boston Red Sox, Los Angeles Angels, Chicago Cubs and the White Sox showed interest him but all backed out due to
the price tag attached to Sanchez.
“During a press conference at Comerica Park, general manager Dave Dombrowski spoke about how well Sanchez pitched for the Tigers late in 2012. He talked about how well he fit in with the team on and off the field and about how he was not sure whether the
Tigers would be able to re-sign Sanchez,” Chris Iott of mlive.com said in his post.
”Dombrowski also did nothing to quell rumors that Porcello could be headed out of town in a trade prior to the start of the 2013 season,” he added.
Eventually, the Tigers came forward to offer him a more suitable deal and Sanchez did not hesitate in accepting that offer on Friday last week. General Manager Dave Dombrowski has been talking about the quality of Sanchez’s pitching since the start of this
offseason. It will be interesting to see if he Sanchez can live up to the expectations to help the Tigers prevail in 2013.
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