Inge not happy?
posted in 2008 season |According to Ken Rosenthal at Fox Sports.com, Brandon Inge was less than thrilled about the Miguel Cabrera-Carlos Guillen position switch. Now it doesn’t sound like Inge is rocking the boat too loudly, or we’d hear about it from a place other than “major league sources” I’d guess. So I’m not going to make a big deal out of it.
Ken Rosenthal:
Inge, who reluctantly accepted a utility role after the Tigers acquired Cabrera, is livid that he remains blocked at third even though Cabrera is moving to another position, major-league sources say.
Update:I did a quick (well, painstaking, and with one mistake) chart on how the Tigers did by Inge’s position, on the theory they did better when he played third base than center field. It’s actually not true. They did about the same either way. They lost early, and he played both center field and third base during the losing. They’ve won recently, and he’s played third base. But they’ve also won when he was a defensive replacement after the team already took the lead with Miguel Cabrera at third base. They also won without him.
(via MLB Trade Rumors)
Sphere It
Bizarre. Where does Brandon think Carlos is going to play? If this is true, he really seems determined to burn up the good will with the fans he reestablished by hitting well early in the season when no one else was. But since there’s no direct quote from Inge in the article, I do wonder if Rosenthal is overplaying things a bit for the sake of his storyline.
Maybe Inge should hit like Carlos Guillen if he wants to be the permanent 3B! The fact of the matter is we need Carlos’s bat in the lineup. I am a big Brandon Inge supporter, and he could play a pivotal role on this team if he can learn to accept his role. Every player on a team has a “role”…the difference between championship teams and runners-up is that all players on championship teams know their role and do their best to fill that roll. If it’s Dennis Rodman rebounding, or if it’s Brandon Inge being a supporting cast member, those types of players need to understand their role. Unless he hits .280 with 30HR, he’s not going to start at third for a lot of teams.