Danny Knobler posted an update at MLive saying the ESPN.com report on Miguel Cabrera’s extension was a bit off. The deal is a seven-year extension worth roughly $20M a year, in addition to this year’s $11.3M contract. So “Cabby” or “Cabbage” — nicknames for Cabrera according to Todd Jones on today’s FSN broadcast — will be a Tiger for eight seasons, through 2015,  a season he’ll still be just 32 years old.

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ESPN Deportes is reporting the Tigers and Miguel Cabrera have reached a preliminary agreement on an eight year, $153M deal.

The All-Star third baseman will undergo a physical on Monday to complete the deal, the source said. …

“Miguel just signed a big contract,” said the source. “The contract will be completed when Miguel takes a physical on Monday.”

Update with my thoughts: This would be wonderful news. Considering most analysts expected Cabrera to command 20M to 30M per season, this sounds like a pretty good deal from the Tigers point of view, and it guarantees the young slugger a lot of money without waiting two season to test the free agent market. In the past, a few columnists have put forth the idea the Tigers may be able to sign Cabrera to a five year deal for around $100m. That would mean about $10m for 2008 and 2009 and $20M for his next three years of free agency. That would mean he’d be in his prime and could pursue another $200M or so at that point. As is, this deal can keep Cabrera in Detroit through 2015 2016 and buys all of his prime seasons. (Not that he can’t have great seasons after 33, but it’s less likely.) It will be the richest deal in Tigers history when signed.

Signing Cabrera for almost an entire decade — along with the other longterm deals the Tigers have been making with their young players — shows the commitment of Mike Illitch to keeping the franchise among the elite in baseball for far into the future.

But of course, we still have to wait for this to become official.

Update 2: The ESPN article continues to say “through 2016″ so that’s what I’m going with, until we have word that it is actually 2015 like some think.

Also, Will Carroll has written about the move at the Baseball Prospectus Unfiltered blog and comes to the conclusion the deal is pretty good for both sides.  PECOTA thinks Cabrera’s on-field value might be worth a bit less than he’ll be paid, but Carroll believes the discrepancy is reasonable.

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Jim Leyland’s gut says there will be a trade for bullpen help by the time the season starts. Not that it means there will be. Nor should we necessarily think it’s a good thing if there is (even given the Tigers’ bullpen) (Remember the kneejerk trade for say, Neifi? Yeah, me too) (is it legal to put back-to-back parentheses like that?). But he’s just throwing it out there: maybe one of those bullpen guys he’s comfortable with isn’t quite up to the challenge of pitching for a postseason-bound club and shouldn’t get too comfortable in his Olde-English D.

Freep’s Jon Paul Morosi wonders if the Cubs’ Michael Wuertz could be a reliever targeted by Detroit. According to the articles, Tigers GM Dave Dombrowski is in constant communication with teams trying to make a deal and just hasn’t found one that works. I’ll be frank here: I don’t like the Tigers’ bullpen a whole lot, but I don’t necessarily know if there’s any magic bullet out there either. At this point, what the bullpen needs is not just another arm, but an arm you can trust with a one-run lead or tie game in the eighth inning. I don’t know if that reliever is truly on the market. Not anything Detroit can afford at this point, anyway. I think that kind of follows Dombrowski’s line of thinking.

As Dombrowski pointed out, however, they’re not simply looking to fill roles. They have pitchers to do that. Anything they do would have to make sense. (Jason Beck at Tigers.com)

Of course, this is a concern because we don’t really know who the setup men will be. At this point, I think one is Denny Bautista, and for all his discussed talent, that’s a pretty unproven arm to be throwing into a high-leverage situation. We haven’t heard anything concrete on Fernando Rodney — other than he’s not throwing — but the Under The Knife (free) report at Baseball Prospectus by Will Carroll is cause for concern.

he Tigers are shutting down Fernando Rodney pending some medical tests. Things don’t look good, and one observer described him as “toast” last week.

So, it’s a storyline to follow, one that has been followed. Leyland’s gut may be rumbling, but honestly, mine isn’t, not right now anyway. Even if a trade is made before the season, I am not certain how big a difference it will make.

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This is more of a Big Al thing to notice, but it was hard not to for the two Detroit News headlines posted 12 hours apart on my google reader (and I noticed, right on top of each other on the News’ Web site, too.)

Tigers show they’re ’seriously’ ready

Tigers’ Leyland: ‘We’re not ready’

Hmm. Which is it?

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Leyland not worried about bullpen staff

Well, good. At least that makes one of us!

It was recently announced setup man Fernando Rodney would start the season the disabled list. That notice was followed up today that he was taking a few days off throwing. Meanwhile the non-worried manager is “snooping around minor league camp.” Well, I’m glad he’s enjoying himself.

I jest. On a more serious note, it really isn’t as bad a picture as could be painted. Yeah, the relief situation leaves me a bit uneasy. Certainly you’d feel better if you had better known players with a background of consistency. On the other hand, these Tigers are going to score quite a few runs, and even if they don’t score 5 or 6 on any given day, they just need to be one run better than their opponents and the lineup the Tigers trot out day-in and day-out is good enough to make me not worry. Not right now, anyway. Come October when almost every team remaining has good pitching and a good lineup? Yeah, I’d like some better relief than the Tigers have now. But hopefully Joel Zumaya and Fernando Rodney will be healthy and effective by then.

But in the meantime, with nothing much going on in Tigers camp — except for Leyland hoping his players will “get serious” like it’s the regular season, which starts in a scant 10 days — we bloggers have not much else to talk about or worry about. So we track possible trade partners for relief pitching, as Ian did. Or beat poor horses, as Samara did. Or speculate, as I continue to do.

Will the regular season start already?!

In the meantime, we have seven days of college basketball — and I’m one Spartan hoping for at least three of those days to have more meaning than hoping to beat Grandy with my ESPN.com bracket. (I’m winning 140-100, if those links work! And of course a lot of people have 160…) Which brings me to the question: do you have a bracket in Curtis Granderson’s group? The winner of it gets an autographed bat. I want to see how my competition picked. Post your links if you’ve got em!

Oh, and that bullpen thing? I’ll get back to your in a month. Until the regular season begins, I really don’t know what to think.

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And don’t forget Tigers fans, nationwide, who have access to a TV at 1 p.m. eastern today: The Tigers will play on ESPN.

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Per Jason Beck, the Tigers announced their next round of cuts — minor league assignments, whatever you like to call them.

• RHP Virgil Vasquez to Toledo
• OF Brent Clevlen to Toledo.
• RHP Chris Lambert to minor league camp (my best bet: Toledo)
• RHP Preston Larrison to minor league camp (my best bet:Toledo)
• Catcher Max St. Pierre to minor league camp (my best bet: Toledo)
• RHP Freddy Dolsi to minor league camp (my best bet: Erie)
• Catcher NickTrzeniak to minor league camp (my best bet: Erie)
• IF Mike Hollimon to minor league camp (injured/Toledo)
• IF Scott Sizemore to minor league camp (my best bet: Lakeland/Erie)

So if you’re doing the math, that leaves Yorman Bazardo and Aquilino Lopez still in camp competing for what I believe to be the final pitching spot. (I think Denny Bautista going north is all wrapped up at this point).

It also leaves possible position players Dane Sardinha, Ryan Raburn, Ramon Santiago, Timo Perez. I think Sardinha’s catching skills and Santiago’s defense ability get them trips north of that pair, though Raburn and Perez have both turned in good springs.

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Not much time to blog today. I didn’t even get to see the whole game on replay

• It was great to see Renteria at the top of the order against lefties. I find that much better than Pudge Rodriguez, despite his having a good spring so far. I just feel like he needs to walk more. or take a pitch.
• It was funny to see Miguel Cabrera pitched around — kinda — in the first inning with the bases loaded. He walked. How often will that happen this season? Maybe not as much with the protection behind him.
• I was glad to see Denny Bautista pitch, finally. Skinny lil fella, his uniform looked a size or two too big. After an error kept the inning alive on him, he managed to pitch out of it with a strikeout and preserve his scoreless spring. If he can continue this in the regular season, he’s going to be just what the bullpen asked for: somebody to step up and get some outs and strikeouts. Maybe he’ll never be great, but he just need be good enough.
• But on the flip side, Todd Jones? Yes, spring stats and all that. And yet, for the first time Tigers fans saw him on TV this year, not really a good first impression. Classic Jones performance: Can’t get the key out because he has no stuff. And he took the loss. His spring ERA is 14.85, according to Tigers.com.
• It was unfortunate to see 25-year-old AAA-Toledo infielder Michael Hollimon dislocate his shoulder diving for a ball in the eighth inning. Jason Beck reports it’s possible Hollimon will lose his entire season to the injury. That’s bad for a guy who had a shot to make the 25-man roster at some point this season.
• But on the all, it was just nice to have a little Tigers baseball today. And it was nice to get to see several of the new guys I’ve been writing about actually perform. Plus, of course, it was great to see Cabrera in a Tigers uniform — complete with green hat for St. Patrick’s Day.

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MLB.com beat writer Jason Beck reports Jim Leyland has figured out 24 of 25 Tigers going north. He doesn’t want to list names for the guys on the bubble — and presumably he hasn’t told them yet — so we don’t really have a clue who the backup positional players or last bullpen spots will work out.

“I’m not announcing anything,” (Leyland) said Sunday morning before the Tigers took on the Rays at Al Lang Field. “I’m just telling you, I’ve got 24 players. I’ve got one spot to go yet. The only reason you don’t announce anything is that there could be a trade, we could pick somebody up.” (Beck)

My best bet on the 24 who are set:

Positional players (13):

• Pudge Rodriguez, C
• Carlos Guillen, 1B
• Placido Polanco, 2B
• Miguel Cabrera, 3B
• Edgar Renteria, SS
• Jacque Jones, LF
• Curtis Granderson, CF
• Magglio Ordonez, RF
• Gary Sheffield, DH
• Brandon Inge, utility everywhere
• Marcus Thames, Jones’ LF platoon mate
• Dane Sardinha, backup catcher
• Ramon Santiago, utility

Pitchers (11):

• Justin Verlander SP1
• Kenny Rogers SP2
• Jeremy Bonderman, SP3
• Dontrelle Willis, SP4
• Nate Robertson, SP5
• Todd Jones, CL
• Bobby Seay, LOOGY
• Tim Byrdak, 7th/8th inning lefty
• Jason Grilli, 7th/8th inning righty
• Zach Miner, 7th/8th inning righty
• Denny Bautista, 7th/8th inning righty

Battle for final (1) relief spot: Aqualino Lopez (has the edge), Yorman Bazardo. Both are righties.

Out of the battle (due to inexperience and not making a compelling case they must be on the team): Freddy Dolsi, Preston Larrison

Who get the final spot: Lopez

Positional players left out: Ryan Raburn, utility.

My working logic:

Remember this is what I think Jim Leyland will do, not necessarily what I think is best.

I also think, unless Inge is traded, Leyland will consider him his backup outfielder and second baseman. Basically, the Ryan Raburn position. Marcus Thames is already safe in his LF platoon. Leyland seems to like Ramon Santiago to backup short. And Leyland won’t want to push Inge into the backup catcher role, so as of right now, that’s Dane Sardinha. That’s how I’m reading the situation anyway.

As for pitching, the Tigers traded for Bautista for a reason and he hasn’t given them reason not to take him north, so he goes. And I just think Leyland will feel comfortable with Aquilino Lopez. Just a gut. I felt like they crapped on Yorman Bazardo last year and he’ll lose out this season, too. He’s out of options and I think some team will take a shot at him, too, so that’s unfortunate. Finally, the last relief pitcher taken may not be the one to be sent down when Fernando Rodney is healthy. I think the least effective pitcher will probably be the one to lose out.

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There’s some links that have popped up recently that I’ve been meaning to point out.

• Detroit Tigers rotation analysis (David Pinto’s Baseball Musings)

The actual rotation isn’t quite in the right order, but it’s more the analysis that counts.

• A.L. Central EWSL (Baseball Crank)

The system looks favorably upon the Tigers and puts them slightly ahead of the Indians.

•  Pressure in Motown (Baseball Prospectus) (Sub. Req)

• Batting projections for 2008 (Detroit Tiger Tales)

Lee looks at what the fans project for Tigers position players, and what the different projection systems have to say as well.

•  Brandon Inge has filled in the Chad Durbin spot for Lynn Henning.

No link. Just an observation. We’re hard up for stories about the Tigers with two+ weeks to go. So Inge just keeps getting recycled and recycled …

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