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The Everett signing finally became official. Dombrowski said that Everett will get the majority of the starts at shortstop. I'd guess majority would probably be 60-70%.
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Remember when Bazardo was a 6th starter/reliever candidate for the Tigers. I wonder how much his father's unexpected death contributed to his disappointing season.
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Any chance that source is a Tigers exec?
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The Baseball Card Blog retires, and they go out with a bang. Seriously, check this out.
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Eddie takes a look at everything that has happened since Edwin Jackson was considered a top prospect.
42 thoughts on “links for 2008-12-16”
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the quote about Renteria is interesting (it just HAD to be a Tigers’ exec), particularly the part about “no one else was going after him”.
This might explain why DD didn’t offer arbitration to Renteria. If he saw no obvious matches for ER, he may have feared he’d be stuck with him for another season. There’s no way DD can count on the stupidity of other GMs to bail him out.
Maybe it wasn’t such a bad move to not offer arb after all….
Mark: I’d agree with you except for the fact that the SF offer was on the table prior to the arbitration deadline. Of course, the Giants may have rescinded their offer if they had to give up a draft pick to get him. In any case, the Tigers got better at SS (at least defensively) which is what we all wanted in the first place.
There was 50/50 chance that Renteria would have turn down arbitration and if he didn’t, Tigers could have traded him to the Gaints. There is too much of a short supply of ss this free agent season.
I remember this Renteria kind of deal with Bob McAdoo in the NBA a few years back…every year a team would pick him up he would play lousy get the coach fired go to another team for alot more money.. same thing would happen……he even made a swing thru Detroit one or more years….
from the looks of the $$$ being thrown around the billionaire owners must not be affected too much by the sagging economy
I see the Royals let Joey Gathright go with out offering him a contract…pretty decent player for the Royals you wouldn’t think they could afford to let decent players go..anyone know the scoop there
I would think Gathright’s career 68 OPS+ may have made him expendable. Just a theory.
Gathright might be an everyday player if he could just figure out how to steal first base.
Glad you liked ‘Casey at the Bat’ and thanks for the link!
Matt Treanor? Who do they think they are, the New York Yankees? Treanor didn’t even hit any triples in 2008.
Free Dane Sardinha.
The Treanor-Willis connection could be highly relevant.
OK, well, that didn’t work. So… how about that Joey Gathright, eh?
He can jump over a car you know.
But I don’t know any cars.
Seriously… no thoughts on Treanor, anyone? I know it’s not the Cabrera deal, but it’s something. It’s either that or debate whether to sign Bazardo to a minor league deal or not.
Treanor is a replacement-level player, it looks like. Is it a sign that the organization doesn’t think Dusty Ryan is ready to be a backup in the mjors, or is it just an insurance policy against injury?
It’s a sign that Ryan will start the season with Toledo, something that was eiather hinted at or stated outright after the trade for Laird. But it’s not lack of confidence overall in Ryan – to the contrary.
“Sleep, Sleep, Sleep”
—The Wicked Witch of the West in “The Wizard of Oz”
I’d rather the Tigers get Pie Traynor than Matt Treanor, and he’s dead.
“no thoughts on Treanor, anyone?”
His wife is Misty May Treanor, of US Olympics volleyball fame. So there’s that.
Treanor:
1) in effect replaces Shelton;
2) adds about 60 pounds to the cumulative weight of catchers in the system (this is important);
3) veteran defensive specialist (read: the guy can’t hit a lick);
4) has the potential to become Willis’ personal catcher, which should guarantee him at least 20 AB;
5) had an OPS of .606 (.301 + .305) last year, which like Everett, means Leyland will be excited about his ability to bunt and hit-and-run
6) in away games vs NL teams, with him and Everett in the lineup, Inge will get bumped up to 6th in the order
To be fair, he’s probably less mole-like in appearance than Shelton.
Speaking of Shelton…he sort of looked like a red-headed version of the guy who played Major Briggs in the Twin Peaks series. Which raises the perplexing question: who would be in the line-up of the all-time greatest red-headed baseball players?
Major Briggs is actually Shelton’s dad.*
*not true
Misty Matt is going to be my Tiger.
According to Wikipedia, Misty May Treanor’s nickname is “The Turtle.”
And I think it’s great she and Matt are still together, and that she got over her disappointment of finding out the chest protector and mask was just something he put on and off to play baseball…
Coleman,
Your gravatar pretty much exactly matches the image of you I had in my head. That’s a compliment, by the way.
That’s pretty much how I look, although the hair has maybe thinned a bit, and I may have added a few pounds on account of ham sandwich-related activities.
You look a bit more severe than I imagined. Distinguished though.
What happened to Smoking Loon? He starts a fight and then ducks out. Typical.
I know what you mean, although I think it’s unusual for Loons to engage in “ducking.”
But I did a bit of reading, and I think he just moves a bit slowly, so be patient…
“Common Loons spend little time on land and literally have to pull themselves onto land to nest. They generally move one foot at a time to walk, shuffling along with their breast close to the ground. When returning to the water, the loon slides in along its breast and stomach”
Hmm, on second thought maybe Loons are duckers…
“The European name “diver” comes from the bird’s habit of catching fish by swimming calmly along the surface and then abruptly plunging into the water”
Coleman,
Thanks for the Loon info. Actually the Loon is the state bird of Minnesota (the claim that it is the Mosquito are exaggerated), so I could have, well, you know, ahhh, told you that.
As for SL not posting much, I figure since he is doing most of it from work (at least I seem to remember him saying as much a while back), his “ducking” may be due to his employers keeping the old eagle-eye on him.
So this Treanor thing is a done deal. At least we know if there’s a volleyball tourney between players wives, the Tigers will dominate.
Hmm maybe Loon commutes between IL and MN. And he could be back in MN now, maybe trying to portion his ballot out in the correct ratio to Norm C***man (sorry, can’t let him keep getting away with that name infringement thing) and Al Franken.
Or maybe he thinks he has a big edge on us now (being aquatic) in Treanor fandom, now that he knows the catcher-wife is known as “the turtle.”
I appreciate the love, folks. But where was this love on the most boringest morning in the history of Earth when the Tigers had finally made a move after nearly a week of soul-destroying inactivity and when I was just dying to talk baseball? As soon as I get dragged back into the bottomless hell of work-like activities, that’s when everyone comes out to play.
Coleman, traffic in the Greater Chicago area is such that commuting to MN instead would be a time-saver.
Vince, the flow of work at my job is such that I can usually keep an iron in the DTW fire even on a normally productive day, and no one’s looking over my shoulder. But there are those days when work becomes so distracting that I can’t even concentrate on the Tigers at all, and I’m left wondering, “Why am I even here?” OK, a paycheck. That’s a good point. But I ask you this: To what level have we sunk as a society when a guy is forced to work to earn a paycheck?
Treanor’s OK, and I’m glad the whole C thing is squared away now. There’s actually a very funny story behind his wife’s “Turtle” nickname. If I knew it, I’d tell you.
Chris in Dallas: “I’d rather the Tigers get Pie Traynor than Matt Treanor, and he’s dead.”
Sorry to hear about Pie, condolences to his great-great-great-grandchildren.
Seriously though, the guy was nicknamed “Pie” (aka the “previous Brooks Robinson”) because he liked to eat pie. I bet if the guy had a fondness instead for, say, chicken, he would not be in the Hall of Fame.
AND I bet you’re wrong, Coleman
I wonder if Felix Pie likes pie.
Mixed metaphor of the day from MLBTradeRumors:
“According to Frank Cusumano of Channel 5 in St. Louis, the Cardinals are “turning the page but not shutting the door” on Brian Fuentes after making an aggressive offer and apparently not hearing back.”
I do enjoy a good mixed metaphor.
Vince in MN: “I wonder if Felix Pie likes pie.” He must, or why would he go by that name instead of Felix Harold? But I wonder how happy he REALLY is…
Coleman: “But I wonder how happy he REALLY is…”
It will, of course, depend upon the level of AWARENESS to which he has attained.
When he attains awareness he will then go by Felix Pi.
(See what happens when you duck out of the conversation Loon? This one is on you, as Zen Master Marinelli might say…)
Excuse me?! What?
Are you talking about the cream version of pie? When cracking a pun on pie why is the prerequisite practically always pornographic in nature?
Tsk Tsk Tsk =P PPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPIE
OK, OK, I’m back to rescue the thread.
Ron Santo has already posed the Pie/pie question. Only once in his mind, but Pat Hughes knows better, though he’s too gracious to put Ronnie on the spot about it.
The real question is, does Felix like Pennsylvania? If he would move there and establish a town named Felix… well, that would be just swell.
Special for you math geeks: pi = PA. There are some convoluted jokes in here that only Coleman and I could come up with, but we’ll graciously skip it. Won’t we, Coleman?
OK, I have some serious Tigers questions coming in the DTW Live thread, so forgive me (and us).