Dailies bleed ink on Inge
posted in 2007-08 offseason |With the turn of the year and nothing really new to say, the Tigers coverage has turned to Brandon Inge for inspiration.
At the News, Lynn Henning has a pair of articles, exploring the trade value for the light-hitting former starting third baseman, who may have asked for a trade in December after the Tigers made a deal to get Miguel Cabrera from the Florida Marlins. Both articles say the same thing: The $19 million or so hanging over Inge’s head, coupled with the poor 2007 season at the plate, makes it pretty hard for Tigers GM Dave Dombrowski to find a team to take him. This isn’t a new subject so I won’t rehash too much. But my opinion is, I’d rather see Inge remain a Tiger if an acceptable deal isn’t hammered out. If they can get quality prospects, I’m fine with picking up some of that salary. If not, I’d rather he take on a super sub role that will keep him in the lineup most days, as he can fill in pretty much wherever he’s needed on the field. (And injuries are always a fear, so a player of his ability is a nice $6M insurance policy on a $130M payroll.) But there’s more to the story.
At the Freep, Jon Paul Morosi explores the more personal conundrum for Inge and his fans: He is the Tigers’ Mr. Detroit. As a member of the metro community during the baseball season, Inge is friendly, popular and a good philanthropist. On the field, he plays beautiful, aggressive defense and that hustle wins him fans. So a lot of people who want to see him go, but his popularity has won him a lot of fans who want what’s best for Inge, even if it means seeing him go.
For fans though, trading Inge would result in another player struck from the rolls who endured what for organization and fans alike has become a battle scar: 2003. Most players now wearing the D now only know the Tigers as a team with fans who overflow Comerica Park and follow the team on the road chanting “Let’s go Tigers!” Some came around in the transition year of 2004, but most have come later.
But a guy like Inge (and before him, a guy like Mike Maroth) kind of embodies what we as fans went through. It was obviously much more personal for him being on the field during that 119 loss year, a member of the nation’s laughingstock team. But for the few fans in the stands, watching on TV or listening on the radio, it was not very easy to stomach what happened to our favorite team, either. During 2006, when the national media noticed what was going on in Detroit, he became Tigers spokesman to the world, telling them of all of our past sufferings.
Couple that with the fact Inge looks like an “everyman” until his catlike reaction snares a line drive on the third base line and he zips a strike to the first baseman. Morosi’s article tells the story of Inge passing for Joe Schmo on an Ann Arbor area softball team until his athletic ability amazed everyone.
So that makes him one of us. It’s just, he’s the us we see in our head when we step on the baseball diamond, not the us who actually plays the game and takes a grounder off our big toe. But it’s easy to root for yourself, and it’s easy to root for Inge.
So, I hope he gets what he wants, whatever that may be.
Sphere It
It’s cool to see this side of players. I like how the Viper blew his cover.
I’m with you again on this. Inge has been through it all with the Tigers. He was drafted by the Tigers. Put up some awful seasons with some awful teams but just kept working and kept getting better. As a fan, he’s always frustrated me to no end. He strikes out way too much. Never really seems to come through in the clutch. Whatever the beef is though, it will be kind of sad to see him go considering his history with the team.
However, if he’s not traded I hope he doesn’t tarnish his image in Detroit by complaining, I cannot see that happening, but it’d be quite sad if it did happen. It will be interesting to see how this plays out as we approach March 31st.
Try as I might, I just don’t have a lot of sympathy for the guy leaving what he thought would be his hometown. Look, the guy put his signature on a contract that paid him quite a few million dollars, more than he probably deserved but a lot of people liked him so there it is. If he was a true Detroit guy, Tiger at heart, maybe paying that much for a poor hitting 3rd baseman wasn’t in the best interest of the organization. Even in his “breakout” year he only hit .253 and a sub.800 OPS. He got overpaid, he tried to max out his dollars on his contract, he doesn’t want to be a sub…You know what? Bye bye. This “love” for Inge I have been reading about on a lot of websites and media outlets just makes no sense to me. I just don’t see the angle. “He tries real, real hard”. He tried real hard to get overpaid for his production as far as I’m concerned. Not - an - Inge - lover.