Things started out so promising with the acquisitions of Gerald Laird and Adam Everett. And they end so disappointingly with the loss of James Skelton and Matt Joyce. To be fair the Skelton thing was set in motion weeks ago when the Tigers chose not to protect a young athletic lefty catcher with a 416 career minor league OBP.

Rule 5

It was little surprise that Skelton was selected. It will also be little surprise if it turns out to be a non-event, but it’s the reasoning behind it that is so troubling. The Tigers chose to protect lesser players like Eddie Bonine, Mike Hessman, Macay McBride, and Alfredo Figaro while leaving Skelton vulnerable. The Diamondbacks took advantage of the Tigers mistake. Arizona does have 2 young catchers though so there is a chance Skelton could get returned. The Tigers ‘sphere tends to hate this too.

The Tigers did get a lefty in the form of Kyle Bloom. He had some decent numbers at AA and a fine Hawaiian league season. Don’t know if he’ll stick as a LOOGY but if he is a John Parrish deterrent that’s fine enough by me.

Edwin Jackson

There’s been a lot of talk that Edwin Jackson was a good pick-up. Beyond the ERA and fast fastball I don’t see it (don’t even bother win 14 wins which is completely meaningless). The Spot Starters further illustrate the point by showing just how bad Jackson was – in what was supposed to be his breakout year. There are too many discouraging numbers to copy and paste, so please check out his research.

Could James Skelton be looking at a new team - cr Roger Dewitt

On the last day of the Winter Meetings things shift a little bit to the Rule 5 draft. Okay, not everything shifts to that, but it will be the focus in this here blog post.

A quick rule 5 primer is that teams can’t bury players in the minors forever. Eventually they have to add them to the 40 man roster or risk losing them to other teams. The time limit for this varies based on the player’s age when they signed. Teams with open space on their 40 man roster can select from this pool of players, but the catch is said player has to stay on the 25 man roster all season, or the player has to be offered back to the original team.

The Tigers have two spots open on their roster at the moment. Sort of. Adam Everett should be the 39th guy, but he hasn’t formally been added to the roster. I’ll speculate the delay is to keep a second spot open for today’s draft? I really don’t know.

Now the Tigers have some players who they are at risk of losing. Leading that list is James Skelton. Skelton has huge OBP skills, but with little power and there is a theme he’s too small to play catcher. (evidence of too small is nebulous at best) I still find it curious that Skelton was unprotected, especially by a team that currently has Dane Sardinha as the back-up. Skelton while not ready by any means, would most likely outperform Sardinha.

Other Tigers who may be snatched up are second baseman Wil Rhymes and pitcher Jay Sborz, although the lobby buzz isn’t high on any Tigers being selected. The Tigers could target Eduardo Morlan, a reliever was traded to the Rays as part of the Garza/Young deal. Rick Knapp certainly has familiarity.

You can watch the draft on MLB.tv if you’re a subscriber.

Other Stuff

John Smoltz is still out there. But I don’t know if the interest has dropped since the Jackson trade.

Other than that things are quiet on the Tigers front at the moment. Matt Treanor, who the Tigers were reported to have mild interest in was released and the Tigers need a back-up catcher.

Also, I took part in the TigsTown weekly roundtable this week. (Tomorrow I’ll have a guest piece on their site). I’d like to thank TigsTown for the opportunity to contribute this week and invite you to check it out.

I‘m having a hard time even writing about the rumored deal that will send Matt Joyce to Tampa for Edwin Jackson. Joyce might flame out, but Jackson has yet to even burn.

Jackson has a fastball that averages in excess of 93 MPH. That’s fast, but he doesn’t seem to fool a lot of people with a K rate last year that was lower than Nate Robertson’s. At least he made up for it by walking 77 hitters in 183 innings. Marcel projects him to have a FIP ERA of 4.64 which is a considerable improvement over the 4.89 he’s posted over the last 2 years. Jackson is also a flyball pitcher meaning he won’t benefit from the new left side infield defense. Jackson will only be 25, but he is out of options.

In exchange the Tigers surrender a their most promising left handed hitting prospect. A solid defender who posted an .831 OPS as a 23 year old making his big league debut. He’s blocked, sort of, this year but has 2 options left. And his being blocked is contingent on the health of Carlos Guillen and Gary Sheffield. In essence he was only going to be blocked in 2009 and even then it’s questionable.

I don’t know how Jackson fits in, whether he will be a starter or reliever. Oh yeah, and he’s eligible for arbitration. Good luck Rick Knapp. I don’t get this one at all.

DRays Bay loves this deal, as they should.

UPDATE: This is official as Friedman and Dombrowski have met with the media. Joe Hamrahi of Baseball Digest Daily was in there and posted these notes in his twitter feed.

So his role as starter or reliever is undetermined.