September 29, 2008

No Surprise: Renteria’s Option Declined

So much for Edgar Renteria‘s beggin’ and pleadin’ for a job on the 2009 Tigers. Word from Dave Dombrowski today is that Detroit won’t pick up #8′s option. Dombrowski wouldn’t rule out re-signing Renteria as a free agent, but said the club would look at other options. While the Tigers don’t have a viable option [...]

August 1, 2008

Pudge Asked for the Trade

Now this makes sense (from Bill Madden’s column in The New York Daily News): How could [Yankees' GM Brian Cashman] know the Detroit Tigers’ perennial All-Star and Gold Glove catcher had become disconcerted over the decision of his manager, Jim Leyland, to give an increased percentage of the catching role to Brandon Inge? It seems [...]

March 21, 2008

Three Reasons Not to Worry About the Tigers Bullpen

Okay, we get it. The Tigers bullpen is to the team’s championship aspirations as an anvil is to a skydiver. But what, pray tell, if it’s not? I, for one, refuse to buy into the bullpen as Achilles’ heel conspiracy theory, and here are three reasons why: Healthy starters Dave Dombrowski Zach Miner 1. Healthy [...]

December 4, 2007

Double-D Cookin’ Up Some Hot Stove Fun

Are you kidding me?When Mike first broached the possibility of Dave Dombrowski‘s blockbuster this afternoon late this morning by forwarding me Fox Sports’ Ken Rosenthal I thought it must’ve been some posturing and cheap talk.When I nosed around ESPN.com and saw Peter Gammon‘s blog entry saying there was some validity to it I let my [...]

November 15, 2007

Rogers Gambling with His Legacy in Detroit

Each day, the Kenny Rogers situation gets more and more bizarre, doesn’t it?How did the Tigers end up holding the bag after Rogers claimed “Motown or nowhere” for 2008? Surely Scott Boras has a role in it — but given how badly the A-Rod thing appears to have blown up in his face, he might [...]

November 12, 2007

The Monday Report

My son woke me up at 5:45 this morning so I had some time to catchup on my reading and thinking… Call me naive, but I thought the Kenny Rogers thing would be a slam dunk, even with The Scott Boras Factor. Now that Rogers, who turned 43 on Saturday, is testing the market — [...]

July 31, 2007

Putting the “Dead” in Trade Deadline

Those of us old enough to remember when Pat Gillick was general manager of the Toronto Blue Jays (before moving on to similar roles with the Orioles, Mariners and his current employer, the Phillies), may be thinking of him today when pondering the Tigers approach to the non-waiver trade deadline.In the late 1980s, Gillick earned [...]