It was an interesting couple of days.

First, FoxSports.com reported Edwin Jackson was being shopped by Tigers GM Dave Dombrowski. The next day, the New York Post announced Curtis Granderson's name was on the trade block. Later that day, Sports Illustrated reported Brandon Inge was available.

Just what the heck is going on?

I think there's a pretty good chance that nothing more than the normal operating procedure, actually.

Much like in August many players -- even the ones you don't think a team would ever want to lose -- are put on the waiver wire, I think what Dombrowski was doing at the general manager meeting in Chicago was more along the lines of due diligence.

How many ways are there for a baseball team to improve from one year to the next?

Ways you can't control or predict:

• Underperforming players improve
• Players have career years

Ways you can reasonably expect:

• Younger players early in their career arc improve.
• Players lost to injury the prior year return

Ways you can control:

• Signing free agents who are better than players in your system
• Trading for players who are better than your own.

So how do the Tigers do against that checklist?

Several players had down years, including some proven veteran hitters like Magglio Ordonez and, to some extent, Curtis Granderson. Will Armando Galarraga improve? Hard to believe he could get worse. Some players will be returning from injury problems in 2009, like Carlos Guillen and Jeremy Bonderman. (And Joel Zumaya?) Players early in their career path who can improve? I think we can expect to see that in the bullpen a bit.

Career years in 2010? Who knows.

Bringing in free agents better than the players in 2009? Shortstop is a position the Tigers can reasonably expect to upgrade, but they might not have the financial means to do so, with the already-high payroll and the still-declining economy in Michigan.

So that leaves Dombrowski with hoping to improve the team through a trade.

And to do that, first he has to find out what players other teams value, and how much they value them. So he asks around at the GM meetings, as you would hope he would.

A lot of contracts are bad, so you can expect other GMs to have little interest. But a couple of players -- Granderson, Edwin Jackson -- have trade value. Talk is sparked.

And then the media got word of it.

Well, you know what the national media think of the Tigers. The prevailing storyline heading into the 2009 season was to expect the Tigers to fall behind in the standings, and watch as they become the first team to have a fire sale. Why? Because their payroll was high, and Michigan has economic problems.

A safe prediction to make right? Whoops.

So now, I think history is repeating itself. The Tigers still have too high a payroll. The economy is still bad. And the Tigers' general manager is shopping a few of his players around.

Financial problems in Detroit! Firesale, straight ahead!

Or not.

So, as I was saying, what does it mean?

Despite the myth of owner Mike Ilitch's deep pockets, I think it's a sign the Tigers really won't be able to do much of anything on the free agent market due to financial constraints. They will improve themselves on the trade market if that is at all possible. But I don't believe Dombrowski feels pressured to trade any players if he can't improve his team's chances in 2010 and beyond.

Winning consistently is the reason they play the game, and it's what we ask for. Any player could be traded. Even fan favorites.

But there's really no reason to fear a firesale this offseason.