Happy Thanksgiving Weekend. I hope you and your family had a terrific day yesterday. After a month of self-imposed baseball exile, I’ve returned to the keyboard while watching the Red Wings game and chowing on green-bean casserole leftovers. Verlander’s Hardware Store. The Cy Young Award was no surprise, of course, but the Tigers’ ace winning [...]

Ben Lindbergh at BaseballProspectus.com today makes an interesting case for Alex Avila as the Tigers’ most valuable player. Miguel Cabrera gets most of the accolades in the Detroit Tigers’ historically top-heavy lineup, and not without reason — the first baseman’s .349 True Average (TAv) trails only Jose Bautista’s among American League batters. However, Cabrera hasn’t [...]

Every year someone (usually Tom Gage) rolls out the time-worn Sparky Anderson truism about not judging a team until after it’s played 40 games. I suppose it’s my turn. On Saturday against the Royals the Tigers will play game number 40 and, at worst, will finish that game at an even 20 and 20. So [...]

I know it’s early, but it seems to me this is one boring Tigers Spring Training. For all intents and purposes, there’s no drama to speak of with most of the coverage focusing on the prospects that are shining in Lakeland. But here are some of the things that stand out for yours truly: If [...]

It’s not often Tigers GM Dave Dombrowski gets loose and talks at length about the club’s plans, but on Sunday in Baltimore he did just that, breaking some news and confirming a few long-anticipated decisions: Brandon Inge gets offered an extension. As Ian wrote this summer, Inge is either loved or loathed in Detroit — [...]

Yeah, yeah. I got started on these, then got pulled in another direction, etc., etc. Nevertheless, here are a few nuggets for your consideration to start off the weekend: I continue to watch with fascination how Kirk Gibson fares as the Diamondbacks’ interim manager. In this piece from the Arizona Republic, we learn about one [...]

On June 1, the Tigers weren’t exactly reeling but they could not have felt good about the way the month ended. They lost two games to the Mariners in Seattle, then came home to lose three of four to the A’s. After a 14-10 record in April, they stumbled to 12-14 in May. How would [...]