Then the Tigers can use that money and sign a quality reserve infielder. I mean like Infante, but he aint that much better, and his defense is terrible.

But I would take Infante a hundred times over Neifi. Oh Neifi. Just thinking about his hacking makes me nasueous.

The Tigers would like him to earn some of that (no way he plays well enough to earn it all – if he does I’ll eat my Tigers cap – I could use a new one anyway) $2.5 million.

Not. His OPS+ was 19. Career average 63. He was horrid compared to expectations.

He only played in 21 games, so it’s hard to get on them too much. Yes, I was puklling out my hair for every game. They saw Santiago as more of a SS and Neifi as a better hitter. A reasonable expectation at the time, perhaps not in retrospect. I would rather have seen Infante but he made a huge error in the 1st or 2nd game replacing Polanco and went straight to the doghouse. Leyland wants the leather with all those young pitchers. Neifi was not very good on D either although he made only one error. It was very telling that we saw Santiago when Guillen was at 1B. Santiago is the glove man now and Infante is the bat off the bench. I will be astounded if Perez makes the team. The “he’s got a spot” stuff is just for the benefit of some team that has a bunch of IFs get hurt in the spring and might offer to take the contract off their hands.

Leyland’s remarks are refreshingly candid. Neifi sucked and Leyland said so. Leyland blew it by playing him and he said so. Neifi knows he sucked and I’m sure Leyland’s comments come as no surprise to him. People like Leyland because he doesn’t BS. More proof of the point.

Should he be with the team? Definitely not. But it’s not his fault.

They owe him 2.5 still so they will see if he can be usable.

I think it was important for Leyland to say something on the subject. Maybe it was a bit harsh but I don’t know the relationship that Neifi and Leyland have now though they have worked together before. I can only assume there is stuff going on we don’t know.

I also appreciated him speaking on this as it took away at least one question of ‘What does Leyland see in this guy?’, well not much it seems. Still leaves the question of ‘Why did Neifi get so much playing time?’

In the role of “light-hitting, average fielding, washed-up vetern in the middle infield” this year will be Tomas Perez for us, although Cub management usually feels that we need a bunch of these people so perhaps we’ll make a move for Neifi again this year…

That’s bad news for Omar or Ramon, each of whom is a superior player (in Omar’s case, vastly superior)