Jason Beck reports Brandon Inge would like to be traded so he can continue being a starting first third baseman.

Just due to the money issue (Inge is owed 19.1M) the Tigers will try to trade him to a team where that could happen. I’ve always liked Inge, and I don’t blame him for wanting to continue a starting role.

But, as a guy who can play 8 (9?) positions on the field, and as the Tigers do have some aging players and some with injury histories, and as they’ve invested $130M in payroll and multiple prospects into winning in 2008, Inge is a $6M insurance policy this season as a superutilityman.

That, and given Inge sucked in 2007 at the plate after receiving a brand-new contract, he drove his own value down and made it harder to trade him and his salary.

Nothing much of excitement occurred for the Tigers on the final day of MLB’s Winter Meetings. Not that nothing happened.

The Tigers lost Randor Bierd, one of their players just outside of protection to the Rule 5 draft. Dave Dombrowski said the player was essentialy No. 41 on the list of 40 protected. The Orioles took advantage.

He had a 4-3 record and 2.93 ERA in 42 appearances between the two clubs. (Freep)

Tigers minor league expert Matt Wallace was disappointed in the loss  at Take 75 North. It’s a tough time to be Matt. All he’s done the past few weeks or so is watch the players he writes about be traded out of the organization. Miller, Maybin, Jurrjens, Trahern, Badenhop, De La Cruz, Hernandez… man. It’s a good thing he did a position by position look this offseason so at least HE knows who’s left.

But I digress.

There were some players exchanged in the minor league portion of the draft, too. The Tigers lost two and gained two to break even.

Nothing new happened on the Inge front. There were some talks, as Ian recorded at Bless You Boys, but nothing concrete.

At Detroit Tigers Weblog, Bilfer looked at whether Cabrera should play in left field with Brandon Inge continuing at third with his superior defense. It turns out, Cabrera at third is still the best play but it’s almost a wash. (Lee looked at the same and concurred at Tiger Tales).

The Tigers also announced their spring schedule. I can never go down to Florida during February/March due to work, but some may find it worthwhile to glance and make plans!

• Chris Shelton was traded to the Texas Rangers.

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.

“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.

• (Last update!) Stark also wrote about how the blockbuster deal was put together so fast.

The Freep reports the blockbuster deal is official, and that Tigers are now shopping P Chad Durbin, LF/1B Marcus Thames and 3B Brandon Inge (!!) , both to ease payroll and because they’re starting to run a surplus of players and can’t keep them all.

Although my predictions (and see comments!) lately have been junk, I’ll keep at it!

• Thames doesn’t have much trade value. Yeah, he can hit home runs. But he’s limited in the field and isn’t all that unique of a player. Salary is fine at least. Someone might take him. Not much value in return.
• Durbin apparently isn’t being thought of as a viable relief solution. He can start. He’s not owed that much money. A cheap franchise somewhere should want him. I wouldn’t expect a lot of value in return.
• Inge is interesting to consider. He’s a stellar third baseman and some team may see him as an emergency catcher. He had bad season at the plate (80 OPS+) last year, but I believe he’ll bounce back. He really is closer to average (seasons of 109, 100 and 98 before that). So a team is getting a good fielder, average hitter with some power. Problem is, he’s owed like $18M for 3 seasons. That’s probably a pretty fair salary so long as he bounces back, but we do have to consider his season makes this a “sell low” year rather than “sell high.” Whoever misses out on Scott Rolen may want to look into this. We’ve as fans come to realize we overvalue our own players more often than not and are sometimes shocked at how little we get in return. Teams probably figure this is a dump of salary for a player squeezed out of a starting spot. I wouldn’t expect much though, I’ll hope for a reliever!

More on Inge though, I don’t know if the Tigers need to trade him. It depends on what they think of the payroll I guess. Most figure Miguel Cabrera will continue starting at third, which makes Inge a supersub or traded. That’s a step down in defense. Maybe some days against lefties though, it wouldn’t be bad to have Inge around to start at third and have Cabrera in left. Remember, the World Series winners aren’t always best in March, they’re the deeper teams that survive injuries. Inge is good insurance at multiple positions if they don’t mind paying the premium.

Finally, something I haven’t mentioned, so I’ll toss in here, the 40 man roster obviously isn’t a big deal. The Tigers added two to it, but four of the six traded players came off it.

Who says you can’t have a rooting interest during the offseason? I’m rooting for a darkhorse (Say, the Mets?) to swoop in and take Johan Santana safely out of the American League.

Lost in all the excitement was the trade of Jose Capellan to Colorado for Danny Bautista.

Bautista is a hard throwing reliever who spent a lot of time in AAA. He’s also the kind of guy I hoped Dave Dombrowski would look for. Just take a few stabs in the dark and one of these relievers will turn out.

Bautista, 27, was 2-1 for the Rockies in 2007 but spent most of the year at Triple-A Colorado Springs, where he was 3-2 with a 2.92 earned-run average in 51 appearances. Pitching this autumn in the Dominican Winter League, he was 1-1 with a 3.46 ERA, and had 18 strikeouts in 13 innings. (Detroit News)

My reaction to the blockbuster trade.

OK. Yes. I’m going to miss Andrew Miller. I’m going to miss Cameron Maybin. And I know I’ll miss my favorite backup catcher, Mike Rabelo. And then the other prospects, they could turn out. You don’t really know. So those are losses to the farm system.

But!

If you can’t get excited at the prospect of Miguel Cabrera playing for your team, alongside an already incredible lineup, you can’t get exited, period. Think about it like Jim Leyland is right now. Where do you put them all? It’s not Murderer’s Row, but it’s pretty darn impressive. Not an actual lineup below, I took no lefty-righty considerations, but look at how it stacks up.

• Curtis Granderson, 20-20-20-20 year, 136 OPS+
• Carlos Guillen, 123 OPS+
• Gary Sheffield, now surgically corrected, of massive power and hitting ability, still 120 OPS+
• Magglio Ordonez, now healthy and coming off a .167 OPS+ year
• Miguel Cabrera, 150 OPS+, still getting better and lost weight
• Edgar Renteria, 125 OPS+ SS
• Placido Polanco, coming off a .388 OBP/.122 OPS+ year
• Jacque Jones, Well, he’s a lefty anyway.
• Ivan Rodriguez, uhm, yeah. Someone’s gotta catch.

Now, deny excitement in that lineup. You can’t. It’s going to score runs big time. Maybe relief pitching won’t be such a big deal with those kinda batters on offense most nights.

Cabrera is one of the best young hitters in the game. That much is clear. He’s only age 24. That’s hard to imagine. He lost weight in the offseason. We should probably expect he’ll continue to move towards a peak. Hopefully not a peak too soon, locking him up long term is imperative.

And we hope Dontrelle Willis returns to form. Can he return to 2005 form, when he finished runner-up for the Cy Young award? Maybe not. But I have no doubt 2007 was an outlier with a young team playing behind him. Still, he’s got to cut down the walks and let Comerica Park and an improved Detroit defense do its job. I trust he’ll be a reliable No. 3 starter. If Jeremy Bonderman’s elbow feels fine and he’s smart enough to talk about his pain, then that’s a pretty strong top of the rotation when you throw in Justin Verlander, whom I have no worry about.

So am I excited? Oh yeah. Am I concerned the minors are near empty? Not really that much. The Tigers have made themselves World Series contenders in 2008, and that’s why you play the game. 2010 on still looks pretty good. 2009 suddenly looks a lot brighter. And we don’t know what will come in return for Willis and Cabrera. Long term contracts? First round and compensatory picks? A trade down the road? So yeah, the cupboards are bare for now, but they don’t have to remain bare.

It’s weird to think of the Tigers as a team that gets into blockbuster trades though, isn’t it? They’re not the guys who trade for the big name stars, make a splash, and get all the baseball world talking about it. They’re not the team that explores a $125M payroll.

Guess what? They are now.

With their actions the Tigers have stated they are a team at the upper tier, with upper tier financial backing. They have smart management to go with this. This makes it more clear than ever before, they’re the Big Boys now.

And you can bet the other Big Boys are scared.

Yeah, I’m excited.

Tigers GM Dave Dombrowski just emptied the minors for 2008.

The Freep (among other) is reporting Detroit is sending top prospects SP Andrew Miller and OF Cameron Maybin, along with pretty good prospects SP Eulogio dela Cruz and SP Dallas Trahern, young prospect SP Burke Badanhop, along with backup catcher Mike Rabelo — come up for breath — for Dontrelle Willis and Miguel Cabrera.

That is a VERY high price to pay. My initial thought is we’re gonna have a whale of a 2008. My followup thought is “Oh man, I’d have really enjoyed rooting for Miller and Maybin as Tigers.” And my final thought is “There goes the minors. All that’s left is Rick Porcello.”

Here’s the thing. The Tigers can restock by trading one or both of those guys in 2009, depending how the season is going and signability between now and then. So it’s not a total mortgage of the minor league system even though it appears like that now.

Anyway, I gotta get back to work. I will give more details thoughts after 11 p.m.

Ian has been all over this today. I have been away from my computer.

Apparently the Tigers are discussing a deal with Florida involving either Dontrelle Willis and possibly Miguel Cabrera. Ken Rosenthal first reported this. But the Tigers beat writers caught on too, so he’s not waving at airplanes here. The asking price is Cameron Maybin, Andrew Miller and quite likely, more.

The question is, what can Detroit offer that is better than other offers? I’m not sure. I think the Angels can, if they wish, outbid the Tigers here with Howie Kendrick and several other young players. Past the two prospects, I don’t really know that Detroit has much left in the minors to add in. Maybe a major leaguer.

Now my thought, is that Cabrera and Willis are obviously great players. Cabrera, if you can lock him up, can be a real big franchise player. Willis can definitely help the Tigers starting pitching, as he should bounce back from a lackluster 2007. It would undoubtedly make 2008 pretty exciting. I’m not sure if I’d want to do it, though, without one of the two Marlins being signed to a multiyear deal. Cabrera, one of (or the?) game’s best young slugger could take over at third and return Brandon Inge to a superutilityman role.

Update: Far as I can tell, both Cabrera and Willis are free agents after 2009.

The other trade rumor out there is that the Oakland A’s would like both Maybin and Miller for Dan Haren. If they just want Miller, I do it. I’m a Haren fan, though. He’s been awesome in Oakland. But I don’t give up both prospects, and I really would prefer to trade pitcher for pitcher there.

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Yeah. A whole lot of nothing. The winter meetin, held by baseball’s general manager each year, used to be like, total hot stove time. Trades, big-name signings, all sorts of fun. That’s because when you put all of baseball’s movers and shakers, both executives and agents, all in the same place, stuff gets done.

Tigers GM Dave Dombrowki, on the other hand, is not a patient man. As proven the past two years, he knows what he wants and he makes it happen. So the Tigers traded for Gary Sheffield in early November last year, and Edgar Renteria a day after the World Series. Dombrowski followed that up with trades for Jacque Jones to fix the LH and LF problems. He re-signed Todd Jones. He re-signed Kenny Rogers. He signed a reliever. Yeah, Detroit is in the market for more relief help. But the Tigers are not in the market for the type of stuff that typical draws headlines at the winter meeting.

So, enjoy the rumor mills that begin Monday. Root for the National League to sign and trade for as many American Leaguers as possible. Enjoy it. But don’t expect much out of Tigertown.