Yesterday I talked about the state of the Tigers rotation.  Well, just in the past day, two guys the Tigers could have made a grab for are close to being tied up. It looks like the Brewers and Nationals are going strong after Carl Pavano and now the Colorado Rockies have gotten into the mix.  Pavano’s price may have just gone up too because another pitcher is close to a deal with another team and the supply at the top end of the free agent pitching pool is slowly dwindling.

Jon Garland is one of those guys and he signed a one year, incentive laden deal with the Dodgers.  Garland had a nice bounce back season last year and fortunately he’s staying in the National League because he’s pretty good against us (his 13 wins is his most against any other team outside of the Royals).

If you look at Rotoworld’s top 50 free agents and assume we won’t be getting Cliff Lee, then the next best starter is Hiroki Kuroda and he’s already resigned with the Dodgers.  Jorge de la Rosa (Type A free agent, I don’t know the rules if a team picks up two of these in the same offseason) is an interesting option but if Pavano isn’t in the Tigers plans and Andy Pettitte isn’t coming here either, the only other starting pitching choice in the top 20 is Javier Vazquez (who appears to be heading to the Marlins so he might not be around much longer either).

Bottom line, right now what you see is what you’re probably going to get out of the Tigers starting five.  Lets just hope the new and improved offense can put enough runs on the board to keep the back end of the rotation in the winning column.

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