Brian, you’re talking about 39 major league at bats. Are you going to use those as an indication of his ability, or are you going to use the 5 full seasons of lousy minor league play?

Besides, to go with his 3 major league homers, Clevlen walked only twice, struck out 15 times. Uh, I think it’s safe to say that Clevlen is not a “wild card”. He actually sucks.

I don’t know if it’s fair to say Clevlen has been lousy for five seasons in the minors, but it’s disturbing that his 2006 was more like his 2004 than his MVP 2005. But because his track record is about 50/50 good, bad (at best) and the most recent stuff is part of the bad, I bet he’s going to be something more like a fourth outfielder than a star.

Actually, he reminds me of Jordan Tata, who is another guy who had a good 2005 sandwiched between less-than-stellar seasons in ‘04 and ‘06. If you look at Tata’s rate stats (K/9, BB/9, H/9) for ‘04 and ‘06, they are nearly identical and they’re nothing to get excited about.

I get more excited about a guy like Jurrjens who has shown growth and improvement despite his promotions and age and is said to be improving his pitches. Even he has a massive jump in innings on his resume, though. That makes me nervous about his arm holding up since he’s so young and pretty small.

These are just things I’ve noticed looking at the numbers, though. There could easily be things the Tigers see or could explain that would make my thoughts invalid.