The Baseball Analysts recently looked at the top baseball players who are ages 24 or 25. Well, the Tigers didn’t have any 24 year olds make the list, but three 25ers made the top 15.

New Tiger Miguel Cabrera came in second, Justin Verlander seventh and Jeremy Bonderman 10th. And actually, today they looked at ballplayers ages 22 or 23. Obviously there were no Tigers, but former Tiger Andrew Miller did come in as the 11th best 22-year-old.

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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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Around the Tigers blogosphere and beyond. Thanks to posts in the comments for the first two.

• Blake at Spot Starters interviewed Gary Gillette

Nice catch for Blake. Gillette edits the Tigers Corner series and ESPN’s Baseball Encyclopedia. Blake talked to him about Tiger Stadium, the blockbuster trade and what went wrong in 2007, among other topics. Gillette thinks the Tigers can be pretty good, but if they have more than two key problems, they could still end the year behind the Cleveland Indians because of depth issues.

It’s not a word-for-word posting of the interview, but it’s a good read. Nicely done.

• MLB Fleece Factor wrote the Tigers could win 95 games and has the potential to be the top team in baseball.

Fleece Factor thinks there’s strong batting all around, and the pitching isn’t bad either. But the problem is with so many innings on so many young arms, injury concerns for the rotation could put a damper on season.

• Bilfer wrote about the Tigers “backups” plan.

I think this one ties together what the first two point out. With the starters set, Bilfer looks at who could break camp on the bench for the Tigers and how that affects the depth at different positions. He made a nice chart of the possibilities. As I concluded on the topic earlier this year, Bilfer thinks the ideal situation is

… Marcus Thames, Brandon Inge, Vance Wilson, and Ryan Raburn given the assumptions above. Raburn would most likely end up thirsting for at-bats as the majority would go to Inge. Still, that bench gives you a pretty solid combination of offensive pop and defensive flexibility.

Also Bilfer is working on redesigning DTW.

• Lee is still going through all his defensive metrics at Detroit Tiger Tales.

• Jon Paul Morosi wrote about making his prospect list for Baseball America.

The introduction was funny — ” Ten Guys Who Weren’t Traded” — but his explanations for the players were nice.

–January 22 –

• One addition:  Baseball Musings’ David Pinto looked at the Tigers offense as part of his series.

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Things I wish I could have blogged about on time and I wish I had the time to blog more about:

• Miguel Cabrera signed for 2008 for $11.3M.

Just paperwork on that one. Not eligible for free agency, he was going to get a deal done before the season and he was going to get one aaround the one he got. It doesn’t mean the Tigers can’t or won’t lock him up for longer this offseason. I’m still guessing he won’t get a longterm deal in Detroit until after 2008, but I hope I’m wrong.

• And Thames signed.

Thames got a 1 year, 1.25 million deal. For a guy who made around 400k last year, and who has never really gotten his due as a powerful hitter and capable fielder, Thames finally gets some financial security. Not much mind you. Brandon Inge is still paying for dinner. But it’s a step forward. I think he’s deserving.

• Bobby Seay signed, too.

Well good. I like Seay. Nothing super special, but you know, he’s ours. Not much to mention there.

• And then we have Carlos Pena striking gold in Tampa.

Pena signed a $24M deal. I remember when people claimed he could make it in business or anything he tried, but he didn’t have what it takes to be a baseball player. But I always rooted for Pena to finally reach his potential. Too bad it didn’t happen in Detroit. But good for him. In a year’s time he went from a AAA first baseman from a bad Tampa franchise to a guaranteed $24M.

… Hmm. Wonder if Thames is watching and wondering.

• Rick Porcello is the top Tigers prospect

That’s from the duh department. I’d like to comment more on the whole list but I’m afraid I’m out of time for blogging now and probably Saturday. Hopefully Sunday I can add to the discussion.

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• 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.

• Miguel Cabrera lost weight.

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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All sorts of blogging topics have topped up in the past few days.

• JPM scribes at the Freep: The Tigers would like to lock up Miguel Cabrera long term this offseason is possible.

I believe, in wanting to trade for Cabrera, Tigers owner Mike Illich saw his franchise player for the next 10 years. And Cabrera, who is on a Hall of Fame trajectory, may even want to don the Tigers’ “D,” unlike the one or two likely Hall of Famers currently playing on the team. (Pudge probably goes with the Rangers, a fair choice. And Gary Sheffield, if he makes it, well, that’s one whale of a question). To get Cabrera, Illich had his team give up a potential franchise player in Cameron Maybin and potentially a very good pitcher in Andrew Miller. Illich is no dummy when it comes to brand building. I expect the Tigers will sign Cabrera for much of the next decade even though it may cost more than $20M per year. (And let’s face it, if Cabrera continues to improve and the Tigers are paying for his peak years, he’s probably worth it on the field, and quite likely off the field as well, so I don’t scoff at the figure).

But do I expect it to come this offseason? Not really. I expect it will come before the 2009 season, unless Cabrera really wants to look on the free agent market.

Morosi posits a six year contract for 105M, which isn’t too bad considering. The bright spot for the player is free agency at age 30 would allow him to pursue another $100M contract. The bright spot for the Tigers is a bit of insurance against an injury causing his production to fall off. But I do wonder if Cabrera will shoot for the $200M, 8 years up front, and where the negotiations go from there.

• Matt at Take 75 North wonders who will be the odd man (men) out of the 25 man roster.

You have your nine starters and the twelve pitchers means only four guys on the bench. One of those bench players has to be a backup catcher, and that leaves just three spots for Inge, Thames, Raburn, Santiago, Freddy Sanchez, Mike Hessman and Timo Perez.

My gut is that Inge is still a Tiger, making Santiago and Hessman more expendable. They seem to like Timo Perez, but I prefer Ryan Raburn becaues he’s more versitle. And I thnk they’ll keep Thames. So that’s Inge, Perez and Thames for my bet, though Inge, Raburn and Thames are my preference. That combination pretty much takes care of every need in the infield and outfield. Shortstop, I”m sure Inge could play in a pinch but I also wonder if Guillen may take the call sometimes when Edgar Renteria has a day off.

Spring training this season will be entertaining. Last year, we didn’t have too many questions about the makeup of the team. We wondered mostly who’d get the LOOGY relief role, and that was about it until Kenny Rogers had surgery near the end. This year, as Matt points out, there are questions all over the place.

Such as …

• Matt Mantei signs a 1-year minor league deal (Freep)

As of now, the Tigers are not counting on Mantei to be part of their big-league bullpen on Opening Day. But he could become a valuable reliever during the year if he regains a feel for his hard, moving fastball and sharp-breaking slider. He had his best big-league seasons in 1999 (32 saves with the Marlins and Arizona Diamondbacks) and 2003 (29 saves with the Diamondbacks). (Freep)

We’ll see. The Tigers are going to audition a pretty good number of guys. The bullpen is not going to be a role of famous names, but as long as Detroit gets some role players for a year who don’t cause a lot of damage, this potential 1,000-run offense should keep some pressure off.

• At BYB, Ian asks if the above paragraph (OK, he’s not psychic, it was an ESPN article) is correct in saying the Tigers have strong hitting, so-so pitching.

And I answer: Maybe. Pretty definitive, hey? The Tigers batting should not be a problem. They’ll lose some production from Magglio likely. Probably some from Polanco. Hopefully they’ll get similar production out of Guillen. I find it hard to believe Pudge could get any worse. I hope he’ll bounce back a bit, though it shouldn’t be a real difference maker. Left field, I have no clue with the Jacque Jones/?? combo. And then center field is interesting to think about. Curtis Granderson probably haven’t peaked. But I doubt a 20-20-20-20 repeat will occur. So the question is, what kind of player is Granderson really? Which of those figures will increase, which will decrease (besides triples, if any)? So that’s intriguging. Without doubt, the Tigers will score more runs though, with Renteria and Cabrera added.

The pitching is the wildcard for me. And that’s why I can’t say definitely. Yes, compared to the batting, the pitching is weaker. That’s a no-brainer. But the question should be, is the pitching stronger than 2007? Than 2006? I think it’s stronger than 2007. Dontelle Willis vs. Chad Durbin for example. A crafty Kenny Rogers vs. Mike Maroth. Wildcard Jeremy Bonderman vs. wildcard Jeremy Bonderman. And third-year Justin Verlander vs. second-year Justin Verlander. So to me, starting appears stronger than 2007, but 2006 was really a lucky year all around and really hard to duplicate.

Relief stunk for much of 2007. I think it has to get better. Right? (right??!) Fernando Rodney was a mess and injured. Jason Grilli was mostly abysmal, and I really don’t think he’s that bad of a pitcher. And either way, Joel Zumaya misses most of the season. Aging Todd Jones would be a concern to me more if he was a pitcher who relied on striking guys out. As he’s a guy who reliefs on his defense (and odds) to earn his saves, I’m not too concerned about a big dropoff. I don’t like the situation, but he’s a guy who saves in the mid 80s for percentag.e So my guess is the pitching improved, too. Moderately, but it has. (And again, 2006 was better there.)

So my guess is, this Tigers team has improved on both fronts, but much, much more at the plate than on the mound.

• Also: Ian an interview at MLB Front Office, answering five questions. Check it out.
• Bilfer interviewed Curtis Granderson at DTW.
• Lee has been looking at fielding at Tiger Tales. The latest post on outfield arms has links to the entire series.
• Detroit Tigers Thoughts looks to see if No. 1s face No. 1s and so on down the pitching rotation.

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As we try to return to some baseball normalcy….

• Jim Price will only do color commentary on the radio

Tom Gage reported that in today’s News. Price previously did play-by-play on the middle three innings. No reason was given for the change. If you ask Tigers fans, however, I think you’d receive a few reasons pretty quick. Price wasn’t very good at PBP. His descriptions lacked, er, description. And they weren’t timely. And he would breathe into the microphone. I like him fine for color. The former Tigers player says “we” too much though. Dan Dickerson will do all the PBP. That’s fantastic news, because I really enjoy his calling of games. He does everything right that Price did wrong, so it was a jarring switch in the middle of the game.

• The Tigers contacted the agent of Miguel Olivo, former catcher for the Florida Marlins.

Ian at BYB wonders if he could be talked into backup money (he earned $2M last season) for this season and given the chance to become the Tigers starting catcher in 2009. Ian points out he threw out a similar percentage of runners as Pudge did, but he also had the worst WP/PB numbers in the National League. So I’m not really certain that’s a direction I’d want to go fulltime, especially if his NL OBP was only .262, though he had some pop in his bat.

• Ian says: reliever available. Should Tigers act?

Texas did not retain the services of Akinori Otsuka. His ERA was 2.51. The Tigers may have been interested in him at the trading deadline last season. Yes, their payroll is high. But their weakness is the bullpen. Do they have any change left in the piggybank to help shore up that problem? I agree that Otsuka would make a fine solution if they can find a way. Apparently he wants a longer-term contract though. And apparently he may have an elbow problem, making him sorta risky. Still. He could definitely help if that risk drives the price down. I’m not sure it will, a lot of teams are desperate for relief. I don’t really expect the Tigers to pursue any more higher priced free agents.

• Lynn Henning has burning questions.
• Big Al answers them.
  

The topics include the value of Brandon Inge on the trade market (not much), Lynn’s views on the rotation (it’s good, don’t look at 2007’s numbers alone), the bullpen (still scary) and other things.

• A glance at Rick Porcello by Take 75 North.
• Prospect lists: good or bad? Matt at T75N isn’t a fan.

If you aren’t reading T75N, you should be. Especially now with needing to figure out who is still left in the Tigers’ farm system. Porcello hasn’t had a whole lot of words written about him since the draft, but it’s a good primer with a lot of nice links.

The prospect list post is interesting with a great analogy. Lists are fine, but how much can you really rank prospects and list them top to bottom? Is it more useful to group them together and talk about traits? Matt says yes. I am apt to agree. I really don’t see how you can say “This guy is No. 7, this guy is No. 8.” After No. 1 or 2, does it really matter much? I don’t think so.

• Finally today, a Spartans basketball blog.

I have meant to tout this thing for weeks and I’m pretty sure I haven’t mentioned it. Maybe I have. Two mentions is OK, I’m sure. For us MSU faithful, it’s nice to have a team to root for during the winter months and that’s a great new blog about it. And when college basketball season comes to and end, the Tigers are just getting ready to go north, and then we have baseball season to enjoy (especially this year!)

One addition

• Lee posted the Tigers Fielding Independent Pitching numbers

… After I did my roundup but I would be remiss if that wasn’t on the required reading list. I love FIP! It’s a nice way to see if the pitcher was helped or hurt by his defense and luck. For that reason, it’s useful in finding out if any pitcher had a particularly lucky or unlucky year, so you can figure out if he may return to earth or bounce back. It shows up Dontrelle Willis probably was that bad in 07, but he was also pitching injured, he wrote in a Yardbarker comment (scroll down to 28).

OK, so two additions

• Dontrelle has a new post up at Yardbarker about being called up to The Show.

I like DTrain’s blogs there, but even more fun for me is reading the comments. He responds to fans all the time over there. For a guy coming off a bad season personally and with a team that piled up losses, his excitement with becoming a Tiger really comes through. Which is awesome, because it matches our excitement as Tigers fans; we have experience in such matters ourselves, from the seats anyway.

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• 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.

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So all sorts of things happened while I was under the weather Friday. On top of that, Drew Sharp provided me with a topic to discuss today. Please excuse the parentheticals, I went a bit nuts today.

• Kenny Rogers re-signs for 1 year ($8M-ish)

As I’ve said all along, I like what Rogers brought to Detroit for his first season here. And his loss due to injury for most of the second season of the contract undoubtedly cost the Tigers some wins, maybe enough to separate them from the playoffs, maybe just enough to make it a heartbreaker the final day of the season. Hard to say. But we can say Detroit could have used Rogers in 2007.

The question then is, can the Tigers use Rogers in 2008? But we don’t really know that answer and it’s an $8M bet that they can. Why don’t we know the answer? Because nobody can say whether he’ll return circa 2006 (which to be fair, would be hard to match even with a healthy 2007 season). Nobody can say whether he’ll be injured like last year.

There were statements to the effect Dave Dombrowski did not look seriously at any other pitcher. (Presumably this also means Kuroda.) If I’m channeling the mind of Dombrowski, he’s really looking at this franchise (important change in terminology there) with a schism line after the 2009 season.

I think looking at the Google spreadsheet Bilfer put together helps emphasize this. (So uhm, click that into a new window, look around and return!)

Look how many guys are gone after 2008. Quite a few. Look at the guys gone after 2009. Quite a few more. And then look at the list of guys who will build the second generation of the Detroit Tigers (and hopefully, if Dombrowski has done this right, provide a seemless transition while staying in/near contention in 2009 after going for broke in 2008). Who do you see? Position players Magglio Ordonez with options (probably a DH by then). Carlos Guillen at first base. (Shouldn’t be a problem). Brandon Inge (ehhh), Curtis Granderson arbitratino eligible (I suspect they lock him up long term, he’s on his way to becoming Mr. Detroit), Cameron Maybin under club control. Then the pitchers are Jeremy Bonderman, Rick Porcello (maybe in his rookie season), Justin Verlander and Andrew Miller arbitration eligible, Joel Zumaya (hopefully back to healthy by then…!) also arbitration eligible. The committed payroll is $48M. Throw in the arbs and extentions, who knows, maybe $75M. And Dombrowski can look at the free agent pool in 2009 and 2010 and maybe find something more to his liking than in this year’s rather weak, overpriced (uhm, well, they all are) pool.

So why sign Rogers? It’s the best pitcher he could find for a year. So makes sense to me. Let’s just cross our fingers for his health. (And Joel’s…!)

• Tigers ink righty Cruceta

Francisco Cruceta’s role is in all likelihood a reliever even though he was a starter with the Texas organization. His stats, as pointed out by D-Town, are, uhm, interesting. His K/9 is better than 10. His BB/9 is a nightmare. So his K/BB is most unimpressive. (That’s Cruceta’s, not Eric’s). Eric was not excited. But here’s the thing: I (kind of) am.

Cruceta is a classic pitcher to change roles from starter to reliever.

That is, one the best predictors is a high strikeout rate. (In a Baseball-Prospectus article, Nate Silver) points these are above the expected success of these stats. Counter-intuitively, a high walk rate is also a predictor of success. Why? Silver says over six innings, pitchers who struggle with mechanics will thave their wildness will catch up to a starter. Over one or possibly two innings, it probably won’t. Finally, the best predictor is a guy who doesn’t give up a lot of extra-base his.

Well, I couldn’t find anything on his extra base hits, though he gave up a homer every six innings or so in his most recent season. In any case, at a cost of just $500k, this guy nobody has heard of is exactly the kind of move I was hoping the Tigers would make. I hope they find another one or two. Maybe he won’t personally turn out (though I think he will), but if you find a few guys like this, one might.

• In corresponding moves, OF Timo Perez and 1B Chris Shelton were designated for assignment.

What’s DFA mean? It means Detroit has two weeks to find a taker and see if they can’t get something for Chris Shelton. They probably will. Don’t expect the world. Maybe an unheard of reliever maybe though please? Timo, no. Nothing will come of Timo. The second, why did Detroit do that? The Tigers had to make spaces on the 40 man roster. And let’s face it, Timo was useless (thank god the Perez temptation is gone for Leyland!) and Shelton was not going to be a Tiger in any case.

• Finally, Drew Sharp thinks the Tigers should trade Bonderman for Johan Santana.

An intriguing idea. Everyone knows the Tigers’ motto is “2008-or-bust” not “We’ll do fine if the tires don’t fall off first” as I posit. So Sharp says, hey, why not get the most dominating pitcher in baseball (my opinion) before New York or Boston does. And hey, we can’t be trading Maybin or Miller or Porcello or anything. But we do have young Mr. Bonderman under control at a healthy price for awhile. Maybe that would tempt Minnesota better than some prospects or cash from the East Coast would.

While I am certainly not opposed to the idea, as I’m really wondering myself if Bonderman will ever turn the corner from “pretty darn good” to “great,” I highly doubt they would even sniff their nose at the deal in the Twin Cities. Makes no sense to me why they would, to be honest. Maybe if the Tigers threw in Porcello or something. But uhm, NO.

Usually it’s the fans on message boards who toss impossible ideas out. This time it was a columnist.

Nice idea, Drew. But not going to happen.

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The schedule makers last fall let the computers do the heavy lifting, but all eyes turned to the final series of the year. Chicago vs. Detroit. Two 90-plus win teams in 2006 duking it out for the division title. And now, we’re a week from the start of that series, and what do we see? The White Sox will not finish north of the .500 line. The Tigers will be grasping for the 90-win mark but most likely fall short. The result of the games have no meanings except to the history books.

Individual players still have reasons to keep going. Magglio Ordonez can bring home the batting title to Detroit for the first time in forever. (Although Ichiro caught him). Curtis Granderson has nothing in particular to shoot for, including hope at leading baseball in extra-base hits, but he can keep adding to his already historical 20-20-20-20 season. Every game Placido Polanco plays without an error adds to his major league second baseman’s record errorless streak. It all rings hollow, but at least it’s something.

• Different eulogies are up around the Tigers blogosphere. Bilfer. Samara. Ian (and so uniquely Ian!)
• Curtis Granderson was in Sports Illustrated this week. I read about half of the article to start. It’s a good read. It’s the issue with USC on the cover. Definitely pick it up. He’s also up for vote in SI’s Best Dressed poll. (That don’t look like Walmart to me!)
• Oh, and he’ll be on Jim Rome’s ESPN show at 4:30 p.m. eastern today.
• There’s some hubbub about whether Carlos Guillen will play first or short next year. Jon Paul Morosi and Danny Knobler didn’t exactly draw similar inferences from Guillen’s quotes. I’m not sure myself what to make of them. I’ll opine on the future at the position during the offseason, however.
• Speaking of schedules, the Freep has a glance at 08.
• Off the top of my head, I’ll say CC Sabathia should be Cy Young this year, although I still like Johan Santana’s numbers better.

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