Bunt Singles: The news keeps coming
posted in 2007-08 offseason, Winter Meetings, bunt singles |The Rangers’ side of the equation was Freddy Guzman, who Jon Paul Morosi aptly describes in the article as a speedster. Age 26, he spent last season in AAA and had 56 steals. Morosi thinks he has a reasonable chance to make the roster just for his speed threat. I’m not sure. But I’m not ready to tackle any roster figurings until we’re relatively sure we know who the options are. Too early for that still!
- D-Train blogs
This Tigers team is real internet friendly. Dontrelle Willis now has a blog at Yardbarker. Here’s his first post, where he reacts to being traded to the Tigers.
Man i get off a plane in mexico with my family and everyone is callin me like something bad happened but i didnt know until my agent called and told me. I thought he was playin but then i saw it on t.v and for a second i was like ”damn for real” then i was like “well lets do it baby boy ” .
Of course we know, Curtis Granderson blogged for ESPN this past season. Nate Robertson blogged for MLB.com. I’d say if we could just get a pitcher to blog, but uhm, just in case, no!
- Bilfer listened in on the conference call and gathered the reaction from Miguel Cabrera and Willis at DTW.
- And apparently Willis is a PISTONS fan, so that’s a good start!
- Tigerfest sold out in a day.
Dave Dombrowski mentioned that as guest on SportsCenter’s special from the Winter Meetings. Man. If this is any indication, the Tigers have gone from being a BIG THING in Michigan to being a HUGE HUGE THING in Michigan.
- Lotta Freep links, but they’ve owned Tigers baseball today. National reaction.
- “The Tigers? They’re now an official baseball superpower.” (ESPN’s Jayson Stark)
- Finally, one I forgot. Willis won’t be traded to the Mets, Danny Knobler reports.
He said there was some talk of a 3-way deal with the Mets, but that would have happened at the time of the deal and won’t happen after. The Mets confirm this.
Sphere It“There’s no turning back now for them,” a Mets official said tonight. “If anything was going to be done, it had to be done before (the trade became public). They’ve energized their fan base now. They can’t go back.”
So why is this coming up now? Simply because WFAN in New York reported tonight that the Tigers might now trade Willis to the Mets.
I’m just glad the Tigers were able to get something for Shelton. Guzman seems like the sort of guy the Tigers could use in Toledo and for callups when there is an injury. A little speed could be useful from time to time
Letting go of Shelton is hard for me, I still have fond memories of his Ruthian April in ‘06. But he’s 27 now and I think what you see is what you get at this point. I hope for his sake he proves everyone in Detroit wrong.
The Article added about how the deal was put together was revealing. And it is particularly telling about the future of the ball club if it is true (who knows if Dombrowski is spinning a yarn). If Illitch wanted Cabrera on his own accord, he’ll be here for a long time come negotiation time next year. While the payroll is astronomical now, let’s not forget some money is coming off the books next year, including Rodriguez’s $13 million (he might stay, but not for anywhere near that).
The REAL question about this deal and the skyrocketing Tigers’ payroll is about how it will affect MLB as we know it. Detroit does NOT have the TV revenue and market an LA, New York or Boston has. Yet it is going to come out with a $130 million payroll. Is it a one year deal? If it isn’t, and Detroit stays at this level in what is really a mid-market town, then that means these teams are making enough money to support this kind of cost and we could see other mid-market teams (White Sox, Cardinals, Rangers, Braves, etc) see their payrolls increase 30-50%. IF that happens, and this is a big if, contracts will go even crazier than they are now, and AROD’s $270/10 years will seem like a mild bargain. We’ll see, interesting stuff for sure.
Thanks for dropping by Josh. Hope you bookmarked it this time
And I totally agree on payroll. I don’t know how the Tigers can sustain a 130M (really anything over 100M) without Illich making up the difference out of his own pocket short term with the idea he’s increasing the franchise value long term. Of course now he’ll squeeze more money out of FSN, though the Tigers should think about a TV station of their own with the Red Wings. On the other hand… the way the cable companies have treated the Big Ten, maybe that’s not such a good idea right now…
But as I’ve noted, a lot of money comes off in 2009 and even more in 2010, so they will be able to decide for themselves if they can afford Dtrain or Cabrera or both. The worry for me right now is that they may not have minor league pieces they can plug in to certain positions to help keep the rest of the payroll low.
But Dombrowski is a shrewd planner and has done nothing but give us reasons to trust him, so that’s what I’ll do.