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First we had Curtis Granderson and Edwin Jackson.  Now the trade talks surround Miguel Cabrera in what would be the biggest salary dump of them all.  Lynn Henning wrote this morning about how things have now turned to Cabrera and it looks like the Boston Red Sox are the team being mentioned.  While I like the idea of getting Clay Buckholz in a Tigers uniform, I still think Cabrera is a keeper and a guy the Tigers can build around.  Of course there’s that whole $120 million committment that’s left to deal with.

If the Tigers farm system were that good, I might be more into this but it’s spotty at best from all of the trades.  Of course I guess it depends who the Tigers get for all of these guys.  If they look for players that’ll be ready around 2012, then going the savings route might make sense it’ll just be a long couple of years.  I just hope that people have delayed making their season ticket deposits because at least for 2010, things could go south in hurry.

I was surprised as anyone that Miguel Cabrera, of all people, got the lone non-Mauer first place vote for the AL MVP.  My guess is it might be the same guy who voted Justin Verlander first for the Cy Young but remember, two Detroit voters picked Magglio Ordonez over Alex Rodrigue back in 2007.  It’s just one of those quirky things that these guys like to do and you wonder why people don’t find these awards as credible anymore.

Anyway, Dave Cameron at Fangraphs runs down the reasons why whoever voted for Cabrera was foolish at best.  Even if you just look at the raw numbers, Mauer did just as much in a lot fewer games.

It looks like Gary Sheffield wants to make one more run.  I think the whole thing about him reaching 3,000 hits and 25 home runs (much less 40) is a stretch but he did have a decent season last year while also playing in the outfield.  An .823 OPS, even in limited time (268 at bats) isn’t anything to scoff at but he did struggle after the All Star Break (0 home runs, versus 10 prior to the break).

One thing the story didn’t mention was that he now appears to be more open to being a designated hitter. It’s funny how when your back is against the wall, you’re willing to make concessions.  I just hope whoever signs him calls the Tigers front office before hand because I think I’ve heard the whole “I’m willing to play DH” thing before.

Alright, we’ve all heard the rumors that Curtis Granderson and Edwin Jackson are being shopped and both have quite a bit of value because they’re coming off of good seasons.  The question is, if you’re in a selling mood, is now the time to trade Justin Verlander?  His stock may never be higher then it is now for a few different reasons.  And just as a disclaimer, I’m not saying they should trade him or I want to trade him, I’m just working through the logic.

1. He’s coming off of a Cy Young caliber season.  If not for Zach Greinke’s special year, Verlander would have been one of four pitchers in what would have been a tossup for the award.  His 269 strikeouts were the most by a pitcher since Randy Johnson struck out out 290 in 2004 and his 240 innings pitched is the most by a Tiger since Jack Morris in 1990, his last year with the Tigers.
2. Whichever team has him can get him at a bargain for the next two years.  You have to assume whoever picks up Verlander is interested in inking him to a long term deal but even if both sides can’t agree, that gives the team some insurance that Verlander will be with the team longer then just one season.
3. The Tigers appear to be selling mode.  If they do deal Granderson and Jackson, the Tigers probably won’t contend in 2010 or 2011.  That means you’re basically wasting Verlander’s cheap years, possibly alienating him by putting a mediocre team around him and pushing him out anyway.  If the Tigers can assure Verlander they have a plan to build around him, they might be able to sell him but we’ll see.  

Now the reasons to keep him

1. We get him for two years at a discount.  Verlander has two more years of arbitration eligibility and that means the Tigers will get to keep him for two more years at a discounted salary.  That gives them two years to get the team back in order and to include him in the Tigers long term plans.  I know this was also one of the reason to trade him, but things kind of work out that way.
2. Verlander, if marketed right, could put fans in the seats.  I know he doesn’t have Mark Fidrych’s personality, but he’s fun to watch.  Especially in the later months if the Tigers are out of contention (if, I’m being optimistic), you could even adjust the rotation so he pitches at home more.  Verlander might even like that too because he’s a better pitcher at home (.676 OPS against) then he is on the road (.719).

Just one more note, trading Verlander, while not an immediate benefit, might make the Tigers think twice about then trading Jackson and Granderson.  They still might do that and do a complete dump, but it would give them some long term flexibility knowing that big $20 million a year contract isn’t looming in the near future.

Alright, Drew Sharp penned a column this morning about the Tigers paying the price for their 2006 gamble and while he brings up some good points he’s kind of all over the place.  First off, what does 2006 have to do with it.  Outside of trading for Gary Sheffield, the Tigers didn’t do too much to their team.  I think 2007, when they came close but didn’t beat out the Indians, was the Tigers undoing because instead of building within, they went for the quick fix and also signed guys like Nate Robertson and Dontrelle Willis to multi-year deals.

He also mentions the salary cap a couple of times in passing, almost in reponse to something Ilitch.  Maybe I’m nitpicking though because I whole-heartedly agree with his final paragraph.

Phil Rogers at the Chicago Tribune struck down a trade for Curtis Granderson that would involve top prospect Starlin Castro.  The shortstop prospect had a solid season (.302 batting average) at High A ball and at Double A (.288 average, 12/10 strikeout to walk ratio) as a 19 year old and he raked in the Arizona Fall League (.376 in 101 at bats).  Curtis is of course Curtis and it sounds like it’ll be tough to make a deal with the Cubs that won’t involve Castro.

Marc Hulet at Fangraphs gave a nice synopsis of the Tigers last few draft classes.  He says some pretty nice things about Jacob Turner, the Tigers first round draft pick this year, and while the Tigers minor league system was gutted with the pre-2008 season trades, the front office has been able to stock things back up in a hurry.

I was kind of out of it a few weeks back.  Did the Tigers offer arbitration to any of their unsigned free agents?  Just wondering if we might be getting an extra draft pick or two.

Lynn Henning wrote today that he wouldn’t be surprised if the Tigers ship a player or two to Seattle.  It still bothers me that there’s all this talk of the Tigers trading for prospects after such a close run last year but what happens in these next couple of months will show what the front office really thinks of the team.  Most of the season, the Tigers played like a .500 ball club and while that might be good enough to make a run in the AL Central, it’s probably not good for much more then that.  Just look at the Twins, who continually make the postseason only to get bounced in three or four games in the first round.

Some of the prospects he mentions are interesting though.  I’d stay away from Carlos Triunfel because he’s only 19, unless of course he’s part of a package.   I wouldn’t mind seeing Brandon Morrow come over either although he had a tough season last year because the Mariners couldn’t decide whether to start him or bring him out of the pen.  His last start was encouraging though (eight shutout innings, one hit, nine strikeouts).

The White Sox are close to making a move.  It looks like they’re going to bring in Omar Vizquel and his eleven gold gloves to fill in at shortstop.  Vizquel only played in 62 games last year and he turns 43 in April.

The Tigers added four players to 40 man roster today in anticipation of the midnight deadline.  All four were position players and they included future second baseman Scott Sizemore.  Audy Ciricao (shortstop), Ryan Strieby (first base) and Brennan Boesch (outfield) were all protected as well.

That leaves quite a few pitchers unprotected heading into the Rule 5 draft at the end of the Winter Meetings.  DTW gives us the details on who’s left out there with Luis Marte being the most interesting name on the list.  Marte was lights out for Lakeland in 2008 but he struggled once he hit Double-A.  This year, he spent the entire season at Erie and he put together a good but not great season.

Tigerblog just entered the 21st century.  I finally figured out to how to set up a Facebook fan page so if you want to follow the site that way, sign up as a fan.  You can also find me on Twitter at @tigerblog.

Free agent signing season begins today.  I expect things will be rather subdued until the Winter Meetings when the general managers can collude coordinate.  Everything is going to be about the economy and Bud Selig is already crying about how an unspecified and unnamed number of teams lost money last year.  December 7th is when the Winter Meetings kick off.

Minor League infielder Ron Bourquin got a 50 game suspension for testing positive for amphetimines.  What’s interesting is Bourquin could have been lost in the Rule 5 draft, but he’s now effectively protected because I doubt a team would want to scoop him up knowing he’ll take up a roster spot and miss 50 games. 

Bouquin was the Tigers second round pick in 2006, the year they took Andrew Miller in the first round.  He has a career .365 slugging percentage in four minor league seasons and that doesn’t bode too well for a corner outfielder.

Paul White at the USA Today is projecting that the Tigers will sign Astros closer Jose Valverde.  He’s a little too injury prone for my tastes and my bet is his price tag will be too high.  The Tigers have some good young arms to use in the pen.  If they’re going to go for value, I think that’s where they should try to save money.

Just a few quick links.  First off, Chris Jaffe has written an excellent book (I’ve seen parts of it) on baseball managers. Evaluating Baseball Managers: A Comprehensive History and Performance Analysis, 1876-2008 goes way back into the 1800s and brings things up to present, analyzing managers along the way.  He wrote a couple of excerpts and one of them is on former Tiger manager Billy Martin.

Also at the Hardball Times, Matt Hagen lists out the Tigers top ten prospects.  It’s good to see Ryan Strieby is finally getting the props he deserves. 

Finally, Mets blogger Jay Flannelly is projecting out a bunch of teams post season plans and he looked at the Tigers yesterday.  I don’t agree with all of his moves but it makes for an interesting dicussion.

I shouldn’t complain too much because being busy isn’t a bad thing but I’ve been neglecting the site.  No promises, but I’m hoping to reverse that and while I want to touch on a few things that have happened since I posted last, way back when, it’ll probably be incomplete because of ALL the things that have happened.

First off, Kurt Mensching at Mack Avenue Tigers picked up the DIBS (Detroit Independant Baseball Scribes) ball and coordinated a set of postseason awards for the Tigers.  No surprises, but I definitely need to update my Tiger links for some of these newer (or not so new) sites.

Second, the 2010 Hardball Times Baseball Annual is out.  I did my usual Business of Baseball piece but it’s another great read.  I’m a little biased, but I think THT is the best free baseball website out there as far as content.  If you want to help out the site, pay a few bucks more and order directly through this link because the margins are quite a bit better then if you buy through a store or via Amazon.

The Tigers got a couple of third place finishes in the award voting so far.  Justin Verlander finished third in the Cy Young while Rick Porcello came in third for AL ROY.  It was nice to see the voters get it right in the AL Cy Young.  Greinke was hands down the best pitcher and I’m glad they looked past his win/loss total.  Somebody gave Verlander a first place vote but oddly, out of the five players who received votes, he was tied for last in overall votes received. 

Tom Brookens is your new first base coach.  I was always a fan of Brookens back in his time with the Tigers and it’s cool seeing another past Tiger get a job with the team.  Last year he coached Erie and he’s also spent time with Oneonta and West Michigan.

Jarrod Washburn and Aubrey Huff’s time with the Tigers were both short ones as the Tigers said they won’t pursue either player.  Both were busts although fortunately the price tag (as far as we know) wasn’t all that great.  All of the crazy trade rumors haven’t been fun but it goes with the program.  The team collapsed and the Detroit economy is in the crapper so unfortunately, something has to give.  It’d just be nice if it wasn’t the face of the team in Curtis Granderson.

The Tigers made some roster moves a couple of days ago and the big one was the non-tendering of Marcus Thames.  That makes him a free agent and it ends his somewhat bizarre career as a Tiger.  At times, he looked like he could belt 40 in a year but at other times, he looked lost at the plate.  99 of his 101 career home runs came in a Tigers uniform and his best season was 2006 when he broke out in the Tigers championship run.  He finished with 26 home runs that year but his second half batting average was .199.  In 2008, he finished with 25 home runs, but 10 of them came in the month of June and once again, he struggled in the second half.

A lot of people thought Thames never got a chance to play everyday and now it looks like we’ll get to see if  he deserved it or not because you’d have to think Thames would go to a team who’d play him everyday.  It’d be nice if he left the division so we don’t have him haunting us for 20 games every year but it’ll also be interesting to see what kind of ballpark he’s hitting in.

Matt Treanor was also cut loose but this wasn’t a surprise.  His career with the Tigers lasted all of four games before he hit the disabled list for the season.  The Tigers also moved Michael Hollimon off of the 40 man roster to make room for Jay Sborz, who would have hit the minor league free agent circuit other wise.

Rick Porcello won the Tigers Rookie of the Year award, which wasn’t a huge surprise.  The Tigers exclusive negotiating window began on Thursday so it’ll be interesting to see who’s coming back and which holes the Tigers have to fill during the offseason.

It’s hard to believe it’s been over two weeks since the Tigers collapse.  The playoffs are winding down and baseball is less then two weeks away from being finished.  It looks like, barring something crazy out of the Angels, that we’ll see the Phillies against the Yankees, which will make for an interesting dynamic.  The Yankees, of course, have more World Series wins by far then any other team.  Conversvely, the Phillies have been known more for their losing ways.  They didn’t win their first World Series until 1980 and they have just two in a storied history.  The Phillies are also the only team to have more then 10,000 losses in their history.

Carlos Guillen made some noise last weekend that’s still being discussed.  He didn’t like how he was treated down the stretch and he talked about it.  Now it looks like Guillen and Leyland have talked and we’re all good.  I don’t know enough about his injury to say, but saying his switching positions are to blame is a little sketchy.  He’s been “fragile” since he’s played with Detroit and while he did have a solid second half, if I remember correctly, he wasn’t able to hit from one side of the plate.  He’s now basically turned into one of several decent options and if he wants to play everyday, he has to go out this spring and show he deserves to be out there.

Scott Sizemore is lighting it up this fall in Arizona.  Through Tuesday, he was seven for nineteen with five extra base hits (two doubles and three home runs).  That’s after a season split between Erie and Toledo where he sported an .889 OPS.   Not too bad for a guy who’s known more for his glove then anything and this will make the fact that Placido Polanco is a free agent kind of sticky.  The value play would be to let Polanco go and start Sizemore but he’s an unknown at the big league level.

“Now his failure is complete”

Darth Vader in Return of the Jedi

So ends the Tigers season.  It was a heck of a game tonight and one that probably would have been more fun if not for the emotional investment.  When the dust settled, the Tigers sat as the losers and now their season is done.  I’d like to say I hate the Twins and some of that resentment goes all the way back to 1987 but the way the Twins have played down their stretch, it’s hard not to give them their due.

Jim Price or Dan Dickerson (I can’t remember which) tried to defend the Tigers and their stretch run saying it’s more how the Twins played rather then the Tigers collapsing but it’s hard to defend the overall numbers.  Since July 1, the Tigers are exactly 43-43.  That’s over three months of baseball playing at a .500 clip and while that was almost good enough for the American League Central, the Tigers would have been in third place in a couple of divisions.  If they were competing for the AL Wildcard, they’d be nine games back.  They’re a decent team in a mediocre division.

Now it’s back to the drawing board with some caveats.  To stay in contention, the Tigers had to play Magglio Ordonez so he’s be taking up $18 million in salary next year.  Throw in what Miguel Cabrera is making as well as some of the poorer contracts like Nate Robertson and Dontrelle Willis and I wouldn’t expect anything big happening.  The Tigers solid start prevented ownership from making some big league cuts and they’ll probably have to do the same thing next year to prevent an overhaul/rebuilding of the team.

It just would have been nice to see the Tigers in the playoffs.  I liked them playing the Yankees in the first round because of the shorter series.  If they somehow managed to get past New York, it was fairly wide open.  it’s just too bad there wasn’t a new team or two to make the postseason.  In fact right now I don’t even know who I’ll be rooting for.  The Arizona Fall League starts in a week so there’s always that as well.  I’m still hoping to make it out there one day.  I probably won’t get it, but the Postseason.TV package looks kind of neat.

Another Tigers season is in the books.  Enjoy the postsason because there’s bound to be some good baseball.

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The Tigers did their job last night, unfortunately, because they didn’t do it the past few days, all they did was force a one game playoff tomorrow against the Twins.  There were some great individual performances but the Tigers almost let this one get away as well.

Let’s start with Justin Verlander.  He won his 19th and that might help him pick up a couple more Cy Young votes.  He gave up three runs in the eighth on six hits and two walks with five strikeouts in 7 2/3 innings.    The strikeouts bring his total up to 269 and that’s the most by a Tiger since Mickey Lolich back in 1971.  Verlander threw 121 pitches and you wonder how much longer we can ride this horse.

Ryan Rabun belted two home runs and he now has 16 on the season.  Not bad for a guy who got just 257 at bats.  Ten of those came in the second half when Raburn’s playing time increased.  Magglio Ordonez was a perfect four for four and he lifted his batting average up to .309.  That leaves his OPS at .798 with the one game tomorrow to go.  That would be his worst since his injury laden season back in 2005.

It’ll be Rick Porcello against Scott Baker tomorrow afternoon (5:07 start time).  Nothing like leaving it up to the rookie to get us into the playoffs although Porcello was good against the Twins last week.  That probably leaves Edwin Jackson to start game one against the Yankees if we make it.

Like the Spartans this afternoon, the Tigers are taking the hard way to their first division title since 1987.  Their loss tonight puts them in a tie with the Twins with one to go.  They need a win and then a Twins loss to win the division outright, and it also forces the Tigers to pitch Justin Verlander tomorrow instead of throwing him in game one of the ALDS.

If the Tigers and Twins both win or both lose, they play one in Minnesota and if the Tigers go with their next guy, it’ll be the rookie Rick Porcello throwing.  That game will be at 5 pm on Tuesday because the Vikings will have the Metrodome for Monday night football.

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Of course the worst case scenario is the Tigers lose and the Twins win and then the Tigers season is done.  This is probably an understatement, but that would be a drag.

It looks like the Dodgers might pull a 2006 Tigers.  They had a big lead and they clinched a playoff spot a while ago, but they haven’t been able to wrap up the division.  If the Rockies win tonight and tomorrow, they’ll get the division crown and the Dodgers will settle for the Wild Card.

Not only are the Tigers losing 8-0 to the White Sox, but the Twins are beating the Royals 8-0.  Not a good night so we’ll have to wait for tomorrow.  Maybe we can get a trifecta, with the Tigers winning, the Twins losing and the Spartan trouncing the Wolverines.  I’ll be in E. Lansing tomorrow. порно одесса

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