Inescapable today was coverage of Roger Clemens and former trainer Brian McNamee going before Congress and pretty much, clearing up nothing. (Say what you want about Mitch Albom, but his column seemed spot on to me.)

But Clemens wasn’t the real point of this post. The Tigers’ reaction today — and specifically another 40something pitcher — was a bit more interesting.

Rogers thinks baseball swept steroids (and HGH and other things) under the carpet for far too long, and compared it to the Black Sox scandal, in talking with reporters.

“It’s similar. You fixed the results of the game,” he said Wednesday (in Jason Beck’s article). “Anybody who says that stuff doesn’t benefit you greatly, it’s obvious [it does]. Back then, when they decided how these games were going to end, it’s the same thing. You’re able to do things better than you ever were before. And to me, that’s like fixing the results.”

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The Freep asked the question: Should the Tigers sign any of the big-name free agents left?

I suppose John Lowe and Jon Paul Morosi cringed at that, since not only was it phrased awkward, but it was a fancy headline on a short AP piece that made you go “wait, why didn’t the Tigers beat writers answer that themselves?”

The article focused mainly on Barry Bonds and Sammy Sosa, making the obvious answer “No.”

But it did remind me of a recent posting at Baseball Musings about how many veteran free agents are out there. As of Feb. 3, that number was 90. I think it’s a few less now. The full article ran at the Boston Herald.

More than a few agents these days grumble, always anonymously, that teams are flirting dangerously close to collusion. With revenues creeping above the $6 billion mark, agents point to the slow-moving free agent market as proof something is askew. Some agents are still trying to get over the shock and chagrin of the Theo Epstein and Larry Beinfest-inspired idea at last November’s GM meetings to have clubs openly announce who is available for trade while detailing some of their offseason quests.

A more sober analysis calls for an honest appraisal of who remains unsigned. Some very useful veterans are still on the market, but it is no stretch to understand why teams would rather take a flier on upside than gamble on declining skills.

So I thought I’d look into it. Just who is out there? A little digging gives us a detailed list at Cot’s Baseball Contracts of both position players and pitchers. I believe it’s up-to-date. (And a hugely valuable resource). And ESPN.com has a list of free agents for 2007-08, both signed and unsigned. I expanded the question to “Should the Tigers sign anyone at all now?” My working assumption is “No.”

Kris Benson (uhm, no), Roger Clemens (whoa whoa whoa NO) and Bartolo Colon are at the top of the starting pitching list. Former Twin (traded to Cincy) Kyle Lohse is even out there. And then there’s that Jeff Weaver guy.

But I guess what really interests us is relief pitching, right? That’s our biggest fear right now. Shawn Chacon? No. And wait, wasn’t his name batted around during the trade watch last July? Hmm, can Colon relieve if he’s healthy? I’m still sticking to no. Aaron Sele? Yuck. Starting to see why there’s so many free agents still out there, even if we have heard of their names. But hey, if Todd Jones goes down, Bob Wickman (the Pride of Green Bay?) is still available to close!

So OK, I’m coming up with nothing. My working assumption was right: there’s no reason to really look into the leftover free agent market until there’s reason to look into the leftover free agent market.

Anyone out there on those lists that interests you?

Update: Joe of River Avenue Blues blogged at MLB Trade Rumors he would not be surprised if Weaver ended up a Tiger again. I would be somewhat surprised if that occurred, myself.

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Pitchers and catchers report Thursday… and I can report blogging will pick up as well!

• Former Tigers starter Mike Maroth signed a minor-league deal with Kansas City.

Two seasons after Maroth helped the Tigers start 2006 strong before falling to injury and one season after being traded to the defending World Series champion St. Louis Cardinals in July, Maroth has to earn his way onto the roster of the lowly Kansas City Royals. When he was traded to the Cardinals for — what was he traded for? Chris Lambert? This guy? — I think Tigers fans were a bit in shock he didn’t have trade value equal to the esteem of the fans. But he pitched poorly with the Cardinals before going on the DL, and the trade seemed to make sense from the Tigers point of view.

I don’t think that is really the true Maroth.  I think KC has gotten themselves a nice bargain and made a no-risk investment for a guy who will make their staff this season. Maroth’s problem was in his elbow for both injury stints — first he had some bone fragments removed, then he had tendonitis. Typically you don’t like to see pitchers with elbow injuries, of course, but I don’t think those are the type to derail his career. I don’t know enough to know if he has a chance at starting out the season with the Royals or if he’ll be at AAA, but to be honest with you, if he’s healthy I find it hard to believe K.C. has five pitchers better than him.

Here’s some reaction at Royals Review — a ton of it actually — and a hat-tip to Ian.

Good luck, Mike!

• Bilfer looks at Dontrelle Willis

Using fX data that tracks ball movement, pitching release and all sorts of stuff, Bilfer takes a look at new Tigers lefty Dontrelle Willis. Bilfer’s finding is that Willis struggles with control with his non fastball pitches and relies on his fastball when he falls behind in the count. For him to be effective this year, he has to find his control and throw strikes. (I know, I know, sounds like baseball 101 to me, but there’s a reason for that.)

• Viva El Birdos has an A.L. Central preview

One other thing the Indians did last year was to, apparently, royally piss off Dave Dombrowski. He obviously didn’t like losing the title they won the previous season and devoted this offseason to ensuring that they wouldn’t lose it in ‘08. (V el B)

• Daily Fungo Mike figured out the question Tigers fans had from the start: Why did Dombrowski trade for Neifi Perez.
  
• Jays fans are pissed.

Yes, this is a Tigers connection. Recently the Blue Jays offered first crack at Tigers@Jays tickets to Detroit fans. While this speaks loads of good for how strong a fanbase the Tigers have, this did not go over well with the Jays fans — you can tell by the salty language. But from the Jay’ front-office perspective, it’s going well, about $10,000 well at the time of this article.

• An interview with a Marlins fan

As long as we’re looking at other teams’ perspectives, Baseball Reflections interviewed a Fish Fan. I imagine we’ll all be a bit curious about how Andrew Miller and Cameron Maybin do with the Marlins before we start to lose “ownership” over the players in our minds. How was the trade received?

It was a difficult trade and I think most in the Marlins fan base are upset.  It’s not about trading Cabrera or Willis, it’s about trading both. I think people were ready to lose Dontrelle (despite him being the nicest guy in baseball).  Miguel was a different story.  He feels like a once in a generation franchise player.

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As we gear up for another baseball season — pitchers and catchers next week — we have some early returns from the pollsters on how the Tigers may fare.

Baseball Prospectus has a free look at the American League Central.

Joe Sheehan says the Big Four of the American League may actually be the Big Three — and he doesn’t mean the Tigers aren’t included. Sheehan does not think the Indians did enough this offseason, while the Tigers made leaps and bounds by trading for Edgar Renteria, Dontrelle Willis, Miguel Cabrera and Jacques Jones.

There are things that can go wrong here. The Tigers have given up a lot of their pitching depth, so injuries to the rotation could set a fairly ugly cycle in motion. They have an old lineup, and a collective significant drop in performance by the group of Ordonez, Sheffield (whose second half last year was awful), Rodriguez, Jones, and Polanco isn’t out of the question. They’re the best team in a tough division, so unlike the Angels, they’ll need to win 90-93 games to assure themselves of making it to the postseason. Overall, though, you’re looking at one of the best teams in baseball, one that should play into October.

The Joy of Sox looked at Lindy’s magazine’s projections. I haven’t seen the mag, but it appears to like the Tigers, predicting a Justin Verlander Cy Young award, Jim Leyland manager of the year honor and a Tigers pennant.

Yahoo! Sports also toured the A.L. Central recently.

In five years time, the Tigers have taken the worst offense in the game and made it, potentially, the best. There are better pitching staffs out there, but, perhaps, nothing a Granderson-Polanco-Ordonez-Cabrera-Sheffield-Guillen-Renteria lineup can’t handle. Generally, the Tigers are leaning on power arms and power bats, the preference everywhere, but more reality in the AL. And while the knee-jerk analysis says this was a win-now winter for Dave Dombrowski and the Tigers (and it was), much of the roster is locked in through 2009 or beyond.

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I’m sure Tigers fans are all as happy as I am to know Curtis Granderson has been signed through 2012, with a club option for 2013. He will receive about $30M over five years. Young Mr. Granderson has really become a fan favorite and a face of the club. As well, his charity work has done nice things in Detroit. And he’s spreading the D in the postseason and offseason on TBS and ESPN.

Grandy made himself known this past season by hitting for 20+ HR, doubles and triples, while stealing 20 bases. He also made several amazing plays in center field, including saving a near home run from Boston that he brought back over the wall ala Gary Matthews Jr. a year earlier. (I think Big Al has the picture.) He struck out 174 times in 2006, but cut it down to 141 in 2007. (His 2007 figure was better than Cleveland’s Grady Sizemore, for what that’s worth).

What makes Granderson cool is his down-to-earth persona. Bilfer reports Granderson went out to eat to celebrate his contract. What did he get?

A McDonald’s extra value meal plus a double cheeseburger off the dollar menu.

And as Ian wondered at Bless You Boys, why’s this stuff always got to come out when I’m at work or can’t get it posted on time?

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Phil saw his shadow; we’ll have six more weeks of winter. To most of the country, that sounds bad. Here in the Midwest we’re thinking “Only six week left? Thank God.”

• Ian and Mike start new baseball site

Just want to start off the top by mentioning Ian (Bless You Boys) and Mike (Daily Fungo) have launched a new Web site, Baseball Blend. That’s always something I wanted to do, do more stuff outside Tigers world. I never seem to find the time. I’m sure they’ll be a fun, informative read, so check it out.

• Lee needs your projections

At Tigers Tales, Lee is trying to get the best guess from as many baseball fans as possible on how certain Tigers will do statistically. He started with Pudge Rodriguez, and has since opened it up to Magglio Ordonez. He’s waiting for a few more opinions, so go add your best guesses.

• A.L. to Johan Santana: Goodbye and Good riddance!

Santana was traded to the Mets this week, signed a six year, 137.5M deal with them last night and is now gone from the American League. While that could potentially come back to haunt the A.L. in the World Series, until then, the I think teams around the league breathed a sigh of relief. The Twins got some prospects and mixed reaction from around the league.

• Lynn Henning thinks about Miguel Cabrera’s contract

Henning, looking for something to write about, decided to ponder how much Cabrera might make. He comes to similar conclusion as Jon Paul Morosi at the Freep a few weeks back: the Tigers could benefit if Cabrera wants to become a free agent at age 30. That gives Detroit six of his potential Hall of Fame season, in the meantime hoping he really likes Detroit and is happy to only play for $30M per year by then.

Remember when we thought Magg’s $75M-105M contract was a lot of money? Now that’s two or three seasons for some players.

• Baseball Prospectus released its PECOTA projections

Which is a good reminder that I need to re-up my subscription real soon.

• Sean Casey a Red … er…. Sock

For a light hitting, slow first baseman, Casey sure does have his big name suitors. From the cellar of Pittsburgh, he escaped to play in the World Series for Detroit in 2006 and now he’ll be back in the playoffs in Boston (in all likelyhood). Good story for one of baseball’s good guys.

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One time shortstop of the future Tony Giarratano saw his Detroit Tigers career — possibly baseball career — come to an end today when he was released from the organization.

 ”Unfortunately, Tony has not be able to recover from his previous surgery and it does not appear feasible for him to continue his career at this time,” Tigers president Dave Dombrowski said.

After being drafted in 2003, he managed a cup of coffee in the majors in 2005.  Unfortunately, his shoulder just wouldn’t hold up, and he has not played baseball since mid-2006.

Matt at Take 75 North shares his take on how this affects the farm. My take is, not too much given his injury situation has been a given for two years now, it didn’t sneak up on Dombrowski. The Tigers were weak there and Giarratano just wasn’t panning out anyway, unfortunately.

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Dipping into Jason Beck’s mailbag for blogging inspiration, I give you my answers to questions asked of the Tigers MLB.com writer. And isn’t mailbag a weird term when you think about it…?

Inspired by Big Al’s blogging over Lynn Henning’s shoulder, I thought I’d blog through Jason Beck’s mailbag. Being a fan of Beck’s work, I’ve been reading his mailbag pretty religiously looking for any excuse to answer some questions, but he fielded a lot of questions that didn’t lend themselves to analysis — until today’s edition. So here I am. Like last time, I don’t intend to steal the content, so click the link to read Beck’s responses.

Does anyone foresee a timing problem with new shortstop Edgar Renteria and Placido Polanco? Polanco obviously is one of the better second baseman in the game, but he has gotten used to Carlos Guillen’s tendencies and vice versa. Will this just be a growing pain of training camp?

Me: I don’t forsee any problems. Yeah, there’s always a session where the players have to adapt to each other. But I think you can probably overrate the need for longtime chemistry between two middle infielders. It’s not like we saw big chemistry dropoffs when someone subbed as shortstop or second baseman.

What will be more interesting to watch is how Renteria and Miguel Cabrera work out the left side of the infield. There, players have to adapt to each other’s range. Who gets the ball in the middle? Is the third baseman going too far to get the shortstop’s ball? That sort of thing. Not only are the two left infielders new to the team, they’re new to each other and new to Comerica Park. So we’ll have to key our eyes on how that develops more than how the double-play duo works.

I cannot bear it anymore! I’m sick. I need to know what the mock lineup is. Is Miguel Cabrera going to hit third or fourth? Will Gary Sheffield hit fifth? Please help me before I go crazy. Thank you.

Sure, why not. Of course, as soon as the season is two weeks old, it wouldn’t look like this. And finally, the lefty-righty thing probably shouldn’t work out quite like, at least not against a right-handed pitcher. In fact, I don’t even think this lineup is idea. But I do think this is what Leyland might consider doing.

1. Granderson, CF (L)
2. Polanco, 2B (R)
3. Sheffield, DH (R)
4. Ordonez, RF (R)
5. Cabrera, 3B(R)
6. Guillen, 1B (S)
7. Renteria, SS (R)
8. Jones, LF (L)
9. Rodriguez, C (R)

What’s more ideal from an everyday standpoint? I like:

1. Granderson, CF (L)
2. Polanco, 2B (R)
3. Guillen, 1B (S)
4. Cabrera, 3B (R)
5. Ordonez, RF (R)
6. Sheffield DH (R)
7. Renteria SS (R)
8. Jones LF (L)
9. Rodriguez C (R)

It seems to me the Tigers should address the issue of where to draw the line between players playing hurt and putting them on the disabled list to get healthy. Last year, Jeremy Bonderman and Sheffield had long periods of poor production while trying to play hurt. This is detrimental to the team and cost them a number of wins. How can teams recognize a player is hurt earlier and know when it’s time to stick him on the DL because he’s not getting better? I respect that players want to tough it out and play though injuries, but at some point it’s not worth it.

The Bonderman thing should never have snuck through. I think the culture of the locker room has to be “Play through a minor injury, but if you’re a pitcher, open your damn mouth before you really hurt yourself.” Because it really is hard to figure out if a guy is hurt if he’s not telling you. They have got to feel it’s their duty to talk, so as not to hurt the team like Bonderman did. I hope it served as an example. Better safe than sorry.

So let me get this straight, Detroit is going to pay Nate Robertson $21.25 million over three years. Scott Kazmir, the ace for Tampa Bay, just agreed to a one-year deal for $3.785 million. Now, am I crazy, or is it crazy that Detroit is going to pay their fourth, maybe even fifth, starting pitcher almost $6 million-$7 million more than Tampa Bay’s ace? Robertson is coming off a sub-par season, and I think that money was a little too much for him. We should be focusing on locking up Cabrera long-term and even Justin Verlander before we shell out that much money for the end of the rotation.

As Beck pointed out, this situation isn’t the same. Kazmir is under club control — arbitration eligible. They weren’t buying him out of free agency or giving a multiyear contract. Basically, the Tigers were figuring they’d pay Robertson pretty close to what they’re paying for 08 and 09 anyway. They were probably figuring in 2010, it would be hard to sign a pitchre of Robertson’s ablity for any cheaper than the 10-11M or so he’ll make. So really, it made sense

As for Cabrera and Verlander, I’m sure the Tigers do want to add years to their stays in Detroit. I don’t think this deal precludes that, because as I said, they were going to pay that much for pitching anyway.

How many different positions can Brandon Inge really play without it being a setback for the team?

8.5. Seriously, I think he can fill in as pitcher if necessary. But to be effective, which I guess was the spirit of the question, I’m going to assume 7. I’m going to leave off shortstop and pitcher, although Inge was a shortstop in a former life and I’m sure could play shortstop now. I just think it’s best if they leave the shortstopping to a more experienced player. Anything else, I have faith he can play.

Jason, I love reading your mailbags. It puzzles me, however, that trivial questions like players’ uniform numbers or Spring Training reporting dates take up space in the column, when this information clearly is listed within the Tigers Web site. If they can’t find that information, they’re likely not going to be able to find their way back to the mailbag! Keep up the good work.

Kinda wondered that myself. That’s the reason I haven’t really been able to dip into his mailbag.

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Inge to remain a Tiger, JPM reports.

Morosi reports the Tigers spoke to Inge, and the former starting third baseman will return to the team and report with the catchers (in, oh my, mere weeks now!). The Tigers aren’t ruling out trading him still, but they were unable to find a workable deal, the article says.

There’s nothing much new in the article, but I was shocked to realize it’s been seven weeks since the Blockbuster Trade went down. Man. I thought baseball season would never get here and now pitchers and catchers are only two weeks and a few days away from reporting. Happy days!

Oh, and I’m glad Inge will be reporting, too, as I’ve said so often I don’t need to rehash much. While a polarizing figure for some, I think he provides a nice, needed insurance policy on an expensive, built-for-championship team.

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Looks like the Tigers are trying to lock up Curtis Granderson, JPM reports in the Freep, another sign they want to keep their young core together past 2010.

This is obviously a great idea. While the Tigers have any number of good young players who will bring quality play to the team for years, they only have one Curtis Granderson. Maybe locking him up may not be as important as extending Miguel Cabrera, true. But from any other standpoint, adding years upon years to Granderson’s contract is a must. He has become Mr. Tiger. Heck, I bet he’s become one of the most popular athletes in Detroit sports. His charity event this week drew a full house.

But oh, from a baseball standpoint, it’s not a bad idea either. Detroit has club control through 2011, and they’re not paying him nearly close to what he’s worth because of it. Morosi mentions adding a year to Granderson’s contract, assuring they’d have him through 2012. I’d rather see a year or two past that. Detroit would get his peak years, whatever those might be. He’ll be 28 this year. He’s coming off a huge year, in which he had an OPS+ of 136 and became just the third player to have 20 doubles, 20 triples, 20 homers and 20 steals. His defense in center field at Comerica Park is terrific.

A lot of people may think his peak year will be 2007 — it is hard to duplicate that kind of performance — and maybe they’re right. But I wouldn’t expect a huge dropoff, if any. A heady player who decided he had to cut his strikeouts down and did, I expect we’ll see Granderson make adjustments as need be and continue to be an upper tier player.

This is just continued confirmation the Tigers aren’t going to have a dropoff anytime soon with this management team in place.

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