Bunt Singles: Interesting happenings
posted in 2007-08 offseason, bunt singles |- Tigerfest wasn’t that cold.
As you have read everywhere, the TigerFest was Saturday at Comerica Park. One unfortunate problem with being an outstate (or out-of-state) blogger is missing out on going to events like that in person. Fortunately, Bilfer blogged about it, and there were some stories in his comments.
Nate Robertson says it wasn’t that cold. He didn’t even wear a coat. And he’s from Kansas originally, so I’m going to trust his internal thermometer. The Freep covered the heck out of the event, so there’s too much good reading to link to it all.
- Tigers’ GM to Inge’s best friend: Tell him to catch!
Brandon Inge was one of the two themes at TigerFest probably of most important to Tigers fans. (I’ll et to the to the other later). The former starting third baseman wasn’t present, because it could be a bit awkward for a guy who’d sorta like to be traded to be paraded in front of fans. But Tigers GM Dave Dombrowski did have some unexpected advice for Inge.
“If I were Brandon Inge’s best friend, I’d tell him, ‘You should catch,’ ” Dombrowski said. “This guy could be an All-Star catcher. He’s not only good defensively, but his offense takes on a different meaning. … If he puts (last year’s) numbers up catching, he might be an All-Star. But you also realize that guys have to do what they want to do.”
The question there is, could Inge put up decent numbers while catching, or does catching take too much out of him and his numbers would drop off further and look like his abysmal 2003 season. I mean, just guessing, but that’s probably why Inge doesn’t want to return to catching. Still, Dombrowski would like Inge to report with pitchers and catchers.
That’s because it looks more and more that Inge won’t be traded. Right now, there’s no market for him. And like I’ve said, that’s fine by me. As long as he comes to Spring Training with a good attitude, he is going to be more valuable than any other backup could be, even if he doesn’t catch. The best plan for both sides may be to wait for a starting third baseman with a contending club to be injured, and take advantage of that club to get a better deal than Dombrowski has heard from anyone right now.
The articles said as much, but that photo makes him look a pretty good baseball-playing size to me. He said he lost 15 pounds even before the trade. He guesses maybe he’s lost 20 from the end of the year. (He was said to have hit 265 during the season). It’s good to see him realize his has a fantastic career ahead and he shouldn’t eat his way into a first base role so early into it. (Plenty of time to eat later!) The slimmed down Cabrera should play a bit better defense, we’d hope.
Cabrera is happy to be a Tiger. But why wouldn’t he be? 8,500 people came out to TigerFest in January. The Marlins played in front of a ballpark nearly empty routinely. He’ll have 40,000 fans at every home game now.
- A Tigers prospect list
TopProspectAlert.com published a Top10 Tigers prospect list. I almost forgot Virgil Vasquez and Jordan Tata were still in the system, given just about every other pitching prospect whose name I know has been traded by now.
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