I never said he didn’t have arm strength. What good is the strength if you’re throwing to the backstop? I said he couldn’t throw a stone into the ocean — because he’s completely wild with his throws.

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Good point. I made a faulty assumption about your comment. Right now, his strength with wildness is of little/no benefit, but it does offer reasonable hope that this area will improve in time, and with practice.

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Curtis Granderson can’t throw a stone into the ocean and was right there with Ichiro for best defensive CFer last year.

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I find it fascinating that this notion persists. Does Granderson have an identical twin, that kidnapped Curits, played in his stead, and displayed an extremely strong arm in his place the 20+ games I saw in person last year? Granderson might be very innacurate, and boy did he unload some wild ones a few times, but to agree that he doesn’t have arm ’strength’, which I define as the ability to throw long distances, would be simliar to agreeing that someone doesn’t have power after seeing them crush 5 consecutive HR’s 50 feet past the centerfield wall at Comerica.

I never said he didn’t have arm strength. What good is the strength if you’re throwing to the backstop? I said he couldn’t throw a stone into the ocean — because he’s completely wild with his throws.

I agree Mike, Stewart would be a nice fit in left. Injury risk, yes, but a lot less on real grass, the artificial turf in Toronto and Minnesota really caused his plantar fasciitus, and other problems, to flare up. Oakland supresses BA with the enormous foul territory there.

He would come alot cheaper than Jones also…..although the Cubs are picking up some of the tab, anyone know how much?

I’m completely fine with going in with a Jones/Thames platoon, but I just hope they kicked the tires on Shannon Stewart. Maybe playing in Detroit isn’t something he wanted to do and that’s fine — hopefully they didn’t act before they explored all options first which I’m going to assume they did.

Actually, Ryan’s response precisely fills the criteria of your challenge. Neither of your first two objections are relevant, as neither was stated in your original challenge. Your third objection is speculative and presumably based on your own subjective observations.

He would come alot cheaper than Jones also…..although the Cubs are picking up some of the tab, anyone know how much?

Curtis Granderson can’t throw a stone into the ocean and was right there with Ichiro for best defensive CFer last year.

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I find it fascinating that this notion persists. Does Granderson have an identical twin, that kidnapped Curits, played in his stead, and displayed an extremely strong arm in his place the 20+ games I saw in person last year? Granderson might be very innacurate, and boy did he unload some wild ones a few times, but to agree that he doesn’t have arm ’strength’, which I define as the ability to throw long distances, would be simliar to agreeing that someone doesn’t have power after seeing them crush 5 consecutive HR’s 50 feet past the centerfield wall at Comerica.

And yes, ron, you can be a valuable player withut hitting homers, if you play stellar defense, have a high OBP and steal bases. none of which jones does.

Carlos Zambramo, Roy Oswalt, Aaron Harang, Tom Gorzelanny, Adam Wainright, Ben Sheets when healthy, Chris Carpenter when healthy, Yovani Gallardo, Bronson Arroyo. I think five of those are fairly close to Sabathia, Carmona, Verlander, Santana, and Buerhle/Meche. The NL Central does suck, but I don’t think it’s the pitching (try it with the NL East – Smoltz, Hudson, Hamels, John Maine? Dontrelle Willis? Jamie Moyer!?!). I wouldn’t necessarily downgrade a bat from the NL Central based on the division. Plenty of other reasons for doubt.

So we can pontificate all we want, but the truth is, DD went out and got a guy quickly to fill the same role as Timo, but is more proven and should be better. And he got him for a pretty good price, as Infante was rendered expendable. Better than waiting around for possible free agents, seeing them all refuse our offers and get nothing.

Yeah, mike, but my point is why ignore 2007? Something’s wrong, and a LF who hits 5 homers in 453 at bats has NEGATIVE VALUE, in that you could give his at bats to a more productive person – it’s like having sean casey at first, does he do anything to hurt the team, no, but the cost is the opportunity cost of employing a better option. I hope he bounces back and hits righties well enough to give us an 800 ops platoon with someone, I’m just going on record as being highly skeptical.

His numbers are deflated by being bad in Wrigley Field. He went for .291/.345/.418 on the road while only .279/.327/.383 at home. I’m not expecting him to hit 25 HR’s next year, but 10-15 while playing above average defense in a platoon roll isn’t asking much. Who’s better that would be roughly the same cost? Geoff Jenkins would likely cost more and other OFer’s that I can think of that would out produce Jones are more expensive. For what he’ll cost, he’ll be more then adequate. I don’t see a reason why his road line with the Cubs last year isn’t a stretch to expect.

Nightmare is overstating it, true, but most defensive metrics fail to account for Stewart’s arm, which makes Johnny Damon look like Ichiro. Even with a good year from him, his numbers were just OK, not good enough for a starting LF, 2007 is as god as it will get with him.

Inflated market? It is what it is. It’s not like there are other markets in which the Tigers can go get LFs without the same competition.

The Doyle trade would have been more of a disaster not if we hadn’t won the division, but if he hadn’t been as good as he was (9-0 with an ERA around 1.86). As rentals go, you can’t ask for any better performance that that.

We might have won the pennant if they gave us our rightful HFA and we wouldn’t have had to deal with Minny pumping in crowd noise and their bush league music and sound effects. The last two Tigers postseason teams have lost to the worst champions in recent memory.

Well his lack of a throwing arm doesn’t over shadow the fact that he’s still an above average corner outfielder. Curtis Granderson can’t throw a stone into the ocean and was right there with Ichiro for best defensive CFer last year. Is he any worse because he doesn’t have the Vlad Guerrero arm? No.

And, like Jacque Jones, Stewart was KILLED by his home park last year (where his BABIP would indicate he had a big amount of bad luck).

2007 Home:.252/.311/.319, 296 Plate appearances.
Road: .324/.375/.461, 334 PA’s.

So somewhere in the mean of that would be a legit expectation and that would be fine from a corner outfielder.