Mike Maroth was activated from the 60 Day disabled list today. To make room the Tigers designated for assigment the contract of Chris Spurling.
This move is curious on several fronts. First, unless there is a roster rule I’m not familiar with, the Tigers could have moved Tony Giarratano to the 60 Day DL freeing up the spot on the 40 man roster. (And to the best of my knowledge making another player eligible for the post season roster).
Second, Chris Spurling is actually decent. He had more success than he probably should have last year given his strikeout rate, but he proved to be effective. And in his time in Toledo he posted a 2.05 ERA spanning 66 innings and 49 appearances with only 10 walks allowed.
Even if Spurling wasn’t going to be part of the Tigers long term or short term plans, it seems he could have returned some value in offseason trades.
This isn’t a huge disappointment to me, but it’s just odd in that the Tigers had another option to free up that spot.
Here’s hoping Maroth is really healthy. It’d be great to have six guys to choose from for four postseason rotation spots, depending on who’s on their game at the time: Bonderman, Rogers, Verlander, Robertson, Ledezma, Maroth.
Not sure about Tony G., but it sounds like they were looking at moving Colon to the 60 day. I guess this means they think he might be back before this is over.