Per Jason Beck on Twitter Clete Thomas has been recalled and Don Kelly has been designated for assignment. The recall of Thomas is something that I’ve actually been expecting for awhile. He fixed his swing in relatively short order and in his last 28 days he’s hitting 357/432/476. He is still striking out quite a bit (24 K’s in his last 84 AB’s), but he’s hitting the ball well with a 20% line drive rate. The Cougars rejoice.
As for Don Kelly, the Tigers got way more from him than they probably expected when they signed him to a minor league deal this winter. His 250/308/354 line kind of masked some of his earlier work where he turned in some nice ab’s. I don’t know if Kelly had options left (I assumed he did but could be wrong) which makes the DFA versus the optioned out decision a little curious.
Clete baby Clete!! Hopefully Clete’s Cougars come back with him. Not only that, but we got our 3rd hitter back or maybe now we can bat him clean-up. LOL.
Yawn! I miss Larish but complete power outage in Toledo … just 3 hrs in 111 abs. 400 obp. though.
I think you just like posting that photo, Bill!
If Clete can put it together, RF might be his. Maggs looked just awful tonight in the field.
I don’t see any reason why Clete should not be playing over Magglio or at least given a solid chance. If or when Guillen comes back I don’t see any playing time at all for Magglio. As I would rather have an OF/DH or Thames, Guillen, Granderson, Thomas/Raburn that Magglio.
Clete brings solid defense, decent speed and sporadic power. Let’s hope his swing rehab pays off.
Meanwhile, I’d rather have Kelly on the roster than Anderson.
Welcome back Clete. The Cougars are looking good, but isn’t a “cougar” an older woman looking for a younger guy? Clete’s a young guy, but these ladies don’t look “older.”
I like Josh Anderson a lot. Just like Thames, I think all he needs is a chance to play regularly. Historically, he’s a .300 hitter everywhere he goes. To me, he’s Willie Wilson with a great arm.
I agree with your thoughts about Anderson, sort of. I think that he gets bashed a bit too much about the .250 BA and sub .300 OBP, which are bad, no doubt, but doesn’t get enough credit for being a solid defender with a good arm- he has 3 assists so far this year, which is more than Granderson, and the same amount as Clete in about as many chances, and he has outstanding speed that forces teams to account for him when he is on base. Granted, he shouldn’t be batting lead off, or even a regular in the lineup, but as a late innings defensive player/pinch runner, I don’t have a problem with him at all. At this point, I’d rather have Anderson on the team than Mags, as sad as it is to say.
I don’t think there is any doubt about Anderson’s defensive ability. However, besides not being a particularly good hitter, despite his speed, he is not a good base runner either. With the offense the Tigers have, I don’t think they can afford a one-dimentional good defender taking up a roster spot. If they don’t score more runs, giving them a lead late in games, then his function is pointless. Despite the rumors of the Tigers looking for another arm, they need another bat more than another pitcher. They are 9th in Runs, 10th in OBP and 11th in BA (and dropping I might add), which isn’t going to get the job done. Maybe getting Guillen back helps, but I am not holding my breath. The sad fact is that neither Ordonez or Anderson are valuable at the dish. Maggs might (looking more and more like a big IF) bounce back, but with Anderson I think that what you see is what you get.
CJ.
I agree that the term “cougar” is a misnomer under the circumstances. I am guessing that the girls were trying to maintain a cat related theme, while rejecting some of the more obvious choices that could have been applied to young female felines.
Inge leads by 9% going into the final day 🙂
Keep it up!
I just landed in Honolulu and am voting like CRAZY for INGE!
How Granderson got picked over him is insane.
Because people like him…the players chose him, and they aren’t any more rational or consistent than fans, which doesn’t bother me much…it’s their team and they picked who they wanted to be on it, what can you do.
Other players speak highly of Inge, but they are intimidated by his enormous calf muscles.
any theories on why there has been such a big drop off in ba from granderson, polanco and maggs. i suppose the injury explains guillen’s problem. it doesn’t seem that long ago that grandy seemed to always flirt with ,300 and maggs and polly were in the top 5 in the AL.
Maggs is a mystery which I think is unsolvable, other than by vague suppositions (he’s gotten old all of a sudden, etc). Polanco I’m not sure about; I have an odd feeling part of it is he’s been getting pitched to differently, and having trouble adjusting to that (he is very predictable in which pitches he will swing at; he’s gone through spurts though where he doesn’t follow pattern, so it may be he’s trying to not be such an easy read).
And I don’t know if I’ve convinced anyone (perhaps myself), but I think Granderson is suffering from too much an effort to work pitch count (he and Inge are the only 2 on the team even close to average), especially during his leadoff at bats. Taking strikes makes your at bats a lot more difficult. His big problem used to be lefties; this season we’ve been seeing fewer lefties than last, so you would think that would be helping Granderson…
Clete has the right stuff and is the future of the Tigers organization!