Bye Bye Granderson, Hello… Who?

it is finally over. In a deal that took long enough to make even the most die hard fan stop caring, Granderson and Edwin Jackso were dealt in a three team trade involving the Yankees and The Arizona D-Bags. The likeleyhood of this deal was announced in the wee morning hours of december 6th. By 4pm, however, the deal was still not completed because the Yankees were holding out. Basicly what happened, is There was this hard throwing lefty named Dunn, that the Yankees really liked, but Detroit wanted in the deal. However, being the Yankees, they decided the tigers couldn’t have him, because The Yankees take your players, you don’t take theirs.  But in true Dombowski fashion, Dombowski says “ok fine you can keep him”, thus completing the worst trade I have ever seen. Now some of you may say, “Wait, werent you just dissing  Granderson and saying you were happy to see him leave?” Yes, I was, however I said all that assuming we were at least getting SOMETHING for him. A proven veteren at the end of his career, mabye a hot shot prospect with the potential to be one of the best players in the league if all goes well, heck, mabye even just a catcher who owns at least one catchers mit. But this was not the case. We got nothing, zip, notta. We traded a solid pitcher and a solid centerfielder (providing the pitcher isn’t throwing the ball with his left hand) and in return, we recieved a glorified bag of baseballs. The 2 proven players at the peak of their career bought us A prospect, who will be at best a slower version of Granderson, and two old Prospects (read: guys who have been in the minors for a long time, but have never been considered good enough to play in the bigs). If Austin Jackson turns out to be a superstar, then I will bite my tounge, but almost everyone but Dombrowski seems to think hes almost peaked. He has very little MlB experience, and he will undoubtably be our starting center fielder next season. And with polanco off to Philly, I would say that our only hope is that some free agents decide they would like to spend April and possibly october freezing their tails off in detroit. So i say this to every good free agent out there (that means you, Pujols) come to Detroit, and Dombrowski will give you 100 Million Dollars.

A short poll…

New ipod logo

This is the web 2.0 logo we had to make for my web integration class

Wait, You mean we actually have to Give them that money?

It’s safe to say The Tigers are panicking. Dave Dombrowski, General Manager and Vice President of screwing up the payroll, has announced that in addition to Curtis Granderson and Edwin Jackson, he is adding Miguel Cabrera to the list of players that The Tigers are open to trading. Wait a minute. Didn’t we sign Miguel to a massive contract to force him to stay here for 10 years? And really, he’s the only one on the team making that kind of cash that actually kinda deserves it ( I say that lightly, because no professional athlete deserves to be a gajillionare for doing something I would gladly do for room and board alone.). But seriously, I thought that the Indians were crazy for dumping all their talent when they actually had a decent team, but this is madness.

The  Tigers are not without their flaws. They need a good left-handed bat. They need people who can get on base and not strike out as much. They need a real leadoff hitter. For the first time since 2006, their pitching is good. With Verlander, Jackson, and Porcello in the rotation, it’s really hard to not think they have a shot. Unlike a lot of fans, I have yet to jump off the  Maglio Ordonez train. Sure he was real bad for a few months. But this is baseball. That happens. A lot. Now don’t get me wrong, He should definitely never be allowed to step foot in the outfield ever again, but he’s getting old, and thats what happens in the AL. Players get old and they stop playing the field. He needs to be comfortably placed in the everyday DH slot. As far as I’m concerned, he went through a slump, and he got out of it. He was hitting out of his mind towards the end of the season. The power returned, and it seemed like he was always getting on base.  Also, mind you that he was still batting .290 during his “slump”. Sure no one should be getting $18 Mil to hit singles, but hey were not paying him.

So with all that i just mentioned and add in Brandon Lyon Closing out games for us, Miguel Cabrera holding up that 4 spot, that leaves us with a decent starter team here. This is who needs to go as far as I’m concerned:

Carlos Guillen – Sure He’s getting old, but he’s still a Decent DH switch hitter with a modest contract. We could easily trade him for a couple prospects or use him with a couple prospects to get an outfielder thats good on both sides of the ball.

Curtis Granderson – I wont get into too much detail (see last post for more info) but i say trade him while he’s valuable. We could trade him to the cubs for Ryan Theriot and a couple nice pitching prospects they have in their Farm. This solves our issue at shortstop. Sure Theriot is no Derek Jeter, but he is regarded by many as a 5 tool player.

Adam Everett – The latest rumor is that (and I quote) “The Tigers are going to aggressively try to resign him…   Why? He’s terrible. His bat is so bad, it actually  bumped Brandon Inge up to the 7 Spot, a feat that has not been accomplished in Inge’s 8 years with the Tigers. He is definitely no shining light on defense either. He’s OK, but when your bat is that bad, you need to be a Gold Glove caliber defender (i.e. the aforementioned Brandon Inge)

Gerald Laird – Ok well you can’t really get anything for him, He’s not good, he doesn’t have a big contract so he wont free up any money, but as long as he’s on the roster, Leyland will play him everyday. So lets trade him for a bag of baseballs. Seriously, towards the end of the season we were introduced to a young catcher named Alexa Avilla. The kid can hit, as he so generously showed the entire MLB in his first 2 weeks, He can throw guys out just as good as the next guy, and frankly he is scary looking. Thats enough to intimidate any MLB pitcher. But I think he made a crude comment about Leyland’s mother at some point, because Leyland refuses to play him. He’s the only bench player that did not play in the final loss against the twins. With two outs in the top of the 12th, with bases juiced, Laird (who is 0-7 on the day) comes up to bat. It’s the perfect situation to pinch hit Avilla. Bases juiced, the guy at the plate is playing your primary position and 0 for the century, 2 outs, and playoffs on the line. So he gets to play right? Wrong. He gets to sit. Because Leyland is in love with Laird. So he needs to go.

I think the real issue here is that Diamond Dave here is realizing he actually has to pay all this money he wrote down on paper. And with three $13 Mil+/yr contracts coming up next year, he figures that the biggest one, Cabrera’s $22 Million(soon to go up to 24 Million)/yr for the next 7 years is probably the most likely to get a taker.

The off season (aka Dombrowski’s Money Tossing Game)

So the 2009 season is in the books. The Yankees have won yet another world series. And somewhere Neifi Perez is eating a taco and telling a bartender that he won a gold glove once. But the real question on everyone’s mind, is who will the tigers drop and pick up before march.

The big story right now, for some reason, is NOT that the tigers are aparently not going to resign Placido Polanco (but I’ll touch more on that in a second). The real news is that the tigers have announced they are shopping Curtis Granderson around right now. Now, this does make sense in a way. The Tigers have a payroll that could make George Steinbrenner blush, and they desperately need to dump some payroll. Also The real fact of the matter is *GASP!* Curtis Granderson is really not that good (I know, I can already hear the angry crowd of CUGR’s Cougars coming for me).

But lets evaluate this for a second. Curtis is a career .272 hitter, which I know doesn’t sound that bad. But when you figure in that against lefties he’s batting .183 career, it doesnt really sound all that appealing. The fact of the matter is, that Granderson can’t, and has never been able to, hit lefties. which is a pretty big issue since every team has an average of 4 left handed pitchers. Secondly, Granderson is not the speedy leadoff hitter that everyone thinks he is. He only has 67 Career stolen bases. Jose Reyes stole more in 2008 alone. And you can say what you want for his defense, but he’s not winning any golden gloves out there. But the upside to all of this, is just like the average Tiger Fan, MLB teams think he’s really good. He hits homeruns, his flashy catches make TV announcers trip over their own words (It’s Gone!…No it’s not), and most of all, He’s one heck of a model american. He is the nicest, mostly polite, profession athlete you’ll ever meet. But honestly, your manners aren’t winning Commissioner’s Trophies in Detroit, so don’t be upset when you catch me helping you pack for the flight.

Now, it would be irresponsible of me not to mention that the only reason we have to discuss this potential trade, is because our General Manager likes to play this weird game where he takes large bags of Mike Illitch’s Money, and tries to see how much he can throw at washed-up players. Exibit A: The Tigers make a blockbuster trade for a young, future hall of famer in Miguel Cabrera. But Florida won’t give us Miguel unless we agree to take out the trash (read: Dontrelle Willis) for them. But then something extraordinary happened. Willis and Dombrowski sat down and Dave said “Dontrelle, I’m going to give you 29 Million dollars”. “Why, what have I done?” said Dontrelle. “Willis, you were runner-up three years ago in the Cy Young race” answered Dave. But Dontrelle replied “But I have a 4.02 carreer ERA and I’ve never pitched better th-” But Dave Cut in “I’ll hear nothing more! Take your 29 Million and have a good day!”

4 starts later, Dontrelle is taking his 29 million bucks and his 9.04 ERA strait down to single A-Lakeland, where he makes almost 29 times more than the teams ENTIRE PAYROLL INCLUDING COACHES put together. The moral of this story, kids, is that Dave Dombrowski is a bad GM. I know everyones gunna say, “Well Ryan, what about the young talent he’s drafted, or what about the time he traded for a nobody from Philly named Placido Polanco?” Well this is my response: Good, make him a scout then, cause thats what scouts do. They find good talent. But most importantly, thats all they do. Cause a scout cant give anyone any money, and because this scout was given that privilege, we can’t afford to keep Placido Polanco on our team anymore.

Clincher @ The House That George Built?

So the world series game 6 is underway, and everybody is waiting to find out if the unholy franchise is going to christen their new economy defying bohemeth of a stadium with an innagural world series. As much as I would love to see them choke at home, I have to look at the facts. You can call it luck, you can call it devine intervention, but everything just seems to be going the Yankees’ way. Exibit A: FOX places a 4″x4″ obstruction 2″ into homerun territory, and A-Rod promptly places a baseball in that 1-in-a-gajillion spot. And then there is the more glaring example: Now I have been watching baseball since before I could say “Neifi Perez”, and in all that time I can not say that I have ever seen two baserunners hanging out a few feet from a base (and an umpire), get tagged, and only one of them get called out. Now I’m not crying conspiracy or anything, but I would be shocked if that ump didn’t sport a shinier rolex after this series.

Either way I have a feeling I know how this is gunna go down, there will be a few homeruns, Pedro is gunna yell at someone, there going to praise Jeter like he’s the second coming, a-rod is gunna get pied in the post game and C.C. Is gunna eat a few hotdogs and take a nap in the whirlpool.

Yankees, the stars are in line for you (or more likely, Steiny Jr. Has sold what’s left of his soul to the devil.) so congrats, I can’t wait to hear about how new yankee stadium had a world series it’s first year for the next century.

Welcome To My Brain [Updated]

Hello people. If you are reading this you are undoubtably one of two kinds of people. 1: A baseball fan of some fashion. or 2: In the web integration class which requires me to keep this blog.  In this blog you will hear my rants about the Detroit Tigers, or Just baseball in General. I will try to keep it at least as interesting as watching Jim Leyland eat macaroni salad during his post-game inteviews. So here it goes, welcome to my brain.

UPDATE: I would also like to include as potential veiwers, Stalkers or any other generally creepy person. Per Brian Danowski.