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Not Tigers, but c’mon. It’s the Captain we’re talking about here. Congrats Steve Yzerman. You always did Detroit proud.
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Tim Dierkes tries to forecast where the top 50 free agents (his ranking) end up. The Tigers aren’t in the mix on many of these guys.
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Lee takes a historical look at the all time Tigers leaders in Wins Above Replacement.
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Kurt looks at the arbitration question marks the Tigers face. I think they offer Rodney and Lyon. I think if they offer Polanco it isn’t to get the draft picks, it’s because they want him back.
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The official rankings are out. Eddie Bajek has been forecasting this stuff all season and out of all of MLB he only missed on 6 players. That was due to a playing time discrepancy. Pretty impressive stuff.
Monthly Archives: November 2009
Brookens returns to the big leagues
The Tigers announced yesterday that Tom Brookens would be the new first base and outfield and base running coach. Brookens is an organizational soldier and it’s nice to see him get the opportunity to don the Old English D again. But it does raise the question about the qualifications or importance of positional coaches.
Brookens of course knows baseball. The former 4th overall pick in the 1975 draft had a 12 year big league career and has managed in the Tigers organization at Oneonta, West Michigan, and Erie. But very little of that career came in the outfield. Very little.
Culling the Bill James Handbook
One of the few positives of the end of the baseball season is the Annual Bill James Handbook
See Casper Wells and Andrew Oliver in action
Sorry for the late notice, but the Arizona Fall Leauge Rising Stars All Star game is tonight and is being televised. You can catch it on the MLB Network. If you don’t have the MLB Network the game is being streamed online. The Tigers are being represented by Casper Wells and Andrew Oliver and manager Kevin Bradshaw. (Game Notes & Gameday)
Tigers announce bevy of roster moves
The Tigers made a handful of roster moves today to prepare for the offseason. They are:
- Mike Hollimon was outrighted to Toledo
- Marcus Thames and Matt Treanor have been removed from the roster and are now free agents
- Jeff Larish and Joel Zumaya have been reinstated from the disabled list
- Jay Sborz had his contract purchased from Toledo
Thoughts
The Hollimon move isn’t surprising. He very may well still have a role in the organization. He has a 260/361/478 line in his minor league career which is solid for a middle infielder. He’s also 27 and has been injured much of the last 2 seasons meaning that he wasn’t going to get claimed.
The Matt Treanor announcement isn’t surprising either. Treanor will unfortunately finish his Tigers career without a hit but he does have the distinction of catching Rick Porcello’s debut.
Free Agent Filing Begins
Now that the World Series is over the 15 day free agent filing period is underway. The period gives teams an “exclusive” negotiating window in which players can talk to other teams, but not talk contract parameters. So we won’t know exactly what will happens with the Tigers quartet* of impending free agents for awhile, except that they will go through the procedure of filing for free agency.
Steve Kornacki of Mlive did some catching up with a few of the possibly future former Tigers and got their thoughts on returning.
Fernando Rodney would like to stay in Detroit but is looking for a 3 to 4 year deal. It’s safe to say that he won’t get a 3 or 4 year deal from anyone (maybe 2 years with a club option for a 3rd) so that doesn’t really clear things up.
Of course the Rodney situation is in some ways tied to Brandon Lyon’s status. Understandably Lyon would like some clarification on what his role would be if he were to sign with Detroit.
Inge has his surgery
The Detroit Tigers announced third baseman Brandon Inge underwent surgery on Tuesday to address the chronic patellar tendinitis in both of his knees that plagued him throughout the 2009 season, a procedure performed by Dr. Stephen Lemos at the Detroit Medical Center.
The procedure involved the debridement and repair of the patellar tendon in both his left and right knees.
Inge will be non-weight bearing for the first six weeks as he regains full range of motion. At that time, he will begin a strengthening and rehabilitation program to prepare him for Spring Training and the 2010 season.
According to the projected timetable, Inge is expected to be ready for the start of Spring Training in February.
Inge had a great start to the season and rode that hot start to an unexpected All Star game invitation. But his second half numbers were abysmal. On July 2nd Inge was sporting a robust 275/367/521 line spanning his first 77 games. Over his next 84 games he’d only muster a 189/266/309 line. The knees, which started acting up in mid June, were often blamed for Inge’s second half slide.
Roster Cutting
With the end of the 2009 season looming, the Tigers have some roster cutting to do. They currently have 44 protected players between the 40 man roster and disabled lists. They have to get that number down to 40 in the short term and well under 40 eventually to protect minor leaguers.
The Tigers need to reduce their roster to 40 players before the free agent filing period, which is the first 15 days after the end of the World Series). Matt Treanor, Mike Hollimon, Joel Zumaya, and Jeff Larish currently find themselves on the disabled list meaning that 4 of the current 44 players need to be removed any day now.