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.
