The Tigers today traded Kyle Farnsworth to Atlanta for pitchers Roman Colon and Zach Miner. I honestly don’t know very much about either pitcher the Tigers acquired other than the stats I can find. I do know that that Tigers traded Scott Moore and Roberto Novoa for 100 games of Farnsworth and Colon and Miner.

Colon is 26, a righthander, and has pitched primarily in relief for the Braves this season. He has a 6.1 K/9 and a 2.1 K/BB ratio. Most troubling is that he has allowed 10 homers in 44 innigs.

Miner has started 17 games for AAA Richmond this year. In 89 innings he has 63 strikeouts (not bad) and 45 walks (not good) for a 4.23 ERA. He is only 23 years old.

If Farnsworth couldn’t be signed to an extension, and this is the best value that the Tigers could receive then I guess it’s an okay deal. I would have liked to see the Tigers keep Farnsworth – especially since the incoming talent isn’t overwhelming.

The Tigers had an impact type player in Farnsworth. What they received seem to be roster guys. While I don’t know much about either player, I know they weren’t among the Braves top prospects. I know the whole point of selling is to get guys to help the team win in the future. I don’t know that these guys will help accomplish that. Based on what I know so far, a pretty disappointing deal.

UPDATE: According to Tom Gage, it appears that Farnsworth had no intention of signing with Detroit – despite the 3 year contract that the Tigers offered. While I still would have liked to have received more in return for Farnsworth, I trust that DD did the best he could.

I guess the good news is that the closer audition period for Farnsworth will now go to his understudy Fernando Rodney.

For scouting reports on Colon and Miner, Baseball America has you covered. Also, Jeff has posted some links to Braves blogs to get their take in the comments.

The Tigers turned in another disappointing performance against a team they should beat. Last night’s ugly game against a last place team just signifies that the Tigers aren’t a good team and can’t compete. Afterall, teams that are serious about being contenders beat up on the lesser teams – and anything less than a sweep is unacceptable.

[In case anybody missed it, that last paragraph was sarcasm. Well, except for the part about the ugly game, because it was in fact ugly. Oh yeah, and there maybe more sarcasm coming up so be on the lookout – I’m feeling feisty.]

Detroit’s record against the 3 AL last place teams is a lowly 13-8 for a .619 winning percentage. Good teams would have gone at least .650. Just look at AL East leader Boston who is…oh wait, they’re only 11-7.

Well, what about AL West leader the Angels of various cities? Uh, nevermind because they are 11-7 also.

Ummm, let’s look at the streaking Oakland A’s – the current wild card leader. Surely they are a contender and they have posted…a 13-8 record? That’s the same as the Tigers?!

Okay, just one more. What about the vaunted and hated Yankees. They’re only a half game behind Oakland, still in the thick of the wild card hunt. I’ll be darned – they actually have a losing record at 7-11.

Annoyed yet? Yeah, me to. But the fact remains that out of the top 5 teams in the American League, only the White Sox at 16-5 have a better record against the 3 last place teams than the Tigers. Does this mean the Tigers are as good as those other teams? Of course not. In fact, it might mean that the Tigers current record has been built up by beating on weaklings. The point I’m trying to make is that even good teams lose to bad teams. Don’t read too much into this series loss.

Sure, I would have much preferred to see the Tigers take another series, and winning in Oakland will prove to be a daunting task. Oakland is probably looking at this series as one they should win – much in the same way that Tiger fans were banking on winning in September Seattle (EDIT: Well that was a Freudian slip-or the baseball equivalent-if I ever saw one). Maybe the Tigers can in turn surprise Oakland.

Monroe’s Gaffe
Craig Monroe’s error was awful last night. There is no getting around it. However, these things happen. In fact, Gold Glove centerfielder Torii Hunter did the exact same thing in a game against Detroit earlier this year. Monroe’s error was costly, but it was costly because Mike Maroth struggled to throw strikes. Craig has done a very good job playing all 3 outfield positions this season and I’m not too worried about him making an error.

What is a little more disturbing is that this is Monroe’s second lapse in the last week. Against Minnesota he forgot how many outs there were and ran into a double play on a fly ball. These may be random events that just happened to occur within a week. Or Monroe may be mentally fatigued. I have a hard time speculating about the soft tough like mental toughness, but the two plays are troublesome nonetheless.

Per Tom Gage’s blog, Placido Polanco has been activated from the disabled list, and Curtis Granderson has been optioned to Toledo.

While Granderson has played well and I’d like to see more of him, I can understand this move. With Trammell trying to find at-bats for Dmitri Young, Rondell White, Craig Monroe, and Magglio Ordonez it was going to be hard for Granderson to crack the lineup. This way he’ll continue to get regular playing time.

With last night’s win the Tigers have reached the 100 game mark at a very even 50-50. I’m pretty satisfied with a .500 record at this point in the season. Sure there are a handful of games that the Tigers let get away, but they’ve also stolen a few as well. I never imagined they’d be in the wild card hunt with a .500 record, but it wouldn’t have surprised me if they still had a shot at the division. Those are just two more reasons why I should refrain from predictions. In any case, with the Tigers on the fringes of contention, they have been rumored as both buyers and sellers. And the biggest name that has been rumored to be coming to Detroit is AJ Burnett.

Dave Dombrowski is quite familiar with AJ Burnett from his time in Florida. We know that Burnett throws in the mid to high 90’s and strikes out nearly a batter an inning. He does benefit from playing in a pitchers park, but when he’s on and healthy it doesn’t matter where he’s pitching. And that’s the key…when he’s healthy. Burnett is 28 and has topped 150 innings twice in his career (and he’s on pace to top it this year). He lost all of 2003 to elbow surgery, and was shut down early last year with elbow tenderness.

Now Jayson Stark is reporting that the Tigers are a darkhorse candidate to get Burnett and the players that Florida wants are Mike Maroth and Curtis Granderson. I’m pretty sure I don’t like that deal. I can understand upgrading Maroth with Burnett, but I don’t want to lose Granderson for a player that might be a two month rental. Burnett is a free agent after the season, and if you want him try to sign him then when all you’ll be giving up is a boatload of money and draft picks. Granderson bats left handed (which the Tigers need) and plays centerfield (which the Tigers need), and he’s major league ready now. I know that Burnett won’t come cheap, I just don’t want to see Granderson as part of that package.

Of course it all may be a moot point as other reports say the Marlins aren’t interested in trading him anymore.

But here we are a couple days from the trade deadline and should the Tigers be buyers or sellers. My take is that they should probably stand pat. They shouldn’t sell for the sake of selling, and they shouldn’t buy players who can only help them this year. Now if they have the opportunity to make a deal that would help them for years to come (Adam Dunn) do it. Or if they get offered good value for impending free agents (like Jason Johnson or Rondell White) then pursue it.

And just for your speculating edification, here are the other rumors I’ve seen recently:
Braves interested in White (surprising since he can’t play in the field)
Orioles interested in Nate Robertson

Roster Maneuvering
This happened over the weekend of course, I just never wrote about it, but the Kevin Hooper era ended with the Justin Verlander call up. Of course after his start Verlander was sent down to AA and lefty reliever Vic Darensbourg was recalled.

Now somebody else will be on the way out with the return of Placido Polanco from the disabled list. I’m not really sure who it will be. I doubt they’d send down an infielder. Infante has been playing well enough, and they just traded for Mcdonald. It wouldn’t surprise me to see Logan or Granderson optioned out. If Young can play the oufield on the occasion, there won’t be a lot of playing time for either. Then again there is always the possibility of one of the aforementioned trades.

On a side note, my 4 year old has become a huge Tiger fan. His favorite players in this order are Nook Logan, Pudge, Chris Shelton, and Brandon Inge. Mind you he’s 4 so Nook became his favorite because A)He has a funny name and B)he’s really fast. While demoting Nook may be in the best interest of the organization, it could have devastating effects in my household.

Young heating up
With last night’s 3 for 4 performance, Young is hitting 345/406/621 in 29 at-bats since he All Star Break. The Tigers lack of a left handed bat has been magnified by the slumping Dmitri this year, and Carlos Guillen’s lack of power. While another lefty would be a plus, if those two can hit for power the need won’t be as glaring.

On April 30th I wrote the following paragraph about Nate Robertson:

I was legitimately concerned about Nate Robertson after that start, and that concern didn’t really go away for the next 6 weeks either. He wasn’t striking batters out, and he was walking quite a few. The one thing he had going for him was that he was keeping the ball in the park and not allowing homers. But somehow, he managed to keep his ERA low. Courtesy of the Day by Day database, here are his numbers through June 7th, and after June 7th.

          GS    K/9    BB/9    K/BB   HR/9    IP    ERA
Thru 6/7  11    4.2     4.5     .94    .42  64.7   3.48
Post 6/7   7    6.9     1.8    3.80   1.08  49.3   3.10

Suddenly Robertson started striking guys out, and not giving up free passes. He also has allowed more homers, but his rate is still reasonable. His ERA is more in line with what one would expect since June. While Robertson was getting decent results earlier, it wasn’t because he was necessarily pitching well.

Robertson has also been more efficient over that span. In his first 11 starts he pitched 7 innings only twice, maxing out at 7 2/3. In his subsequent 7 starts (there have actually been 8, but I’m not counting his one pitch outing against Tampa Bay), he has gone at least 7 innings five times – including 2 complete games.

I know that Robertson was battling a sinus infection early in the season, and he may have just taken a long time to recover. Perhaps, his arm was hurting or weaker early in the season and he’s feeling stronger now. In any case, Nate Robertson turned the corner in June and is now pitching the way Tiger fans hoped he would. So Nate – sorry for doubting you this spring.

Withdrawal
While I got to attend the Tigers game Friday night with my 4 year old, that was the last Tiger game action I’ve seen. I was up north this weekend so all I had was radio access. Now, with the team headed to the west coast and limited TV coverage, I won’t see much of the team this week either.

As for listening to the game on the radio, I’ve got two comments. First, at times this weekend I was listening continuously, while other times I was tuning in sporadically. For those times tuning in sporadically I have to give both Dan and Jim credit for mentioning the score. I never had to wait more than a minute or two to find out where the Tigers stood. Both seemed to make a effort to update the score regularly. I know that was an area of criticism with Tiger broadcasts and it seems they are working to improve it.

Second, I really enjoy listening to Dan Dickerson call a game. I’ve always thought he did a decent job, but he seems to have really come into his own this season. When he’s doing an inning, the game seems to have a natural rhythm. He’s very descriptive and strives to paint a picture of what is happening on the field. He has a very good understanding of visiting teams and player strengths and weaknesses and he’s uses relevant statistics to bolster those points. I’d like to see Dickerson stick around a long time to become the next great Detroit broadcaster.

I don’t have other details at this point. In the game notes for tonight’s Mud Hens game it lists Curtis Granderson as being recalled. (via Motown Sports)

I’m not sure who’s spot he is getting on the roster. My guess is that either Dmitri Young or Placido Polanco are being sent to the disabled list. This may be one of the moves for tomorrow’s doubleheader.

Also, there are reports that the Tigers have acquired infielder John Mcdonald from the Blue Jays. Mcdonald combines a good glove with a .590 career OPS to be a very uninspiring pick-up.

UPDATE: All of the above is true, and here are the accompanying roster moves: Doug Creek has been designated for assignment, Placido Polanco has been placed on the 15 day DL retroactive to July 12th, and Troy Percival has been moved to the 60 day DL.

EDIT: I forgot to mention that Toronto will receive a player to be named later in exchange for McDonald.

Thoughts on a number of things while I gargle to get rid of that bad taste that was last nights game…

• A couple months ago I complained that the scoreboard at Comerica Park displayed very little information despite it’s size. Fortunately, this has been remedied. During the last homestand I noticed that for each hitter, the scoreboard displayed doubles, triples, stolen bases, and on base percentage – in addition to the traditional at-bats, hits, RBI, homers. Thank you Tigers organization!

  Now for my next request. Back in the old days when I was a kid, it used to be that you could get merchandise from the visiting team. It wasn’t an extensive collection, but the one thing my dad would always buy me was a pennant from the visiting team. The pennant would go on the wall when I got home, and a simple glance around my bedroom would show all the teams I’d seen come to town. Unfortunately that option doesn’t exist anymore, and I’d love to continue the tradition with my son.

• On Terry Foster’s blog he has an interesting piece of information about the Tigers broadcast situation. According to his source, the Tigers offered the rights for free to UPN 50 but UPN didn’t want to broadcast the games. If this is true, than the Tigers organization deserves an apology from everyone who slammed them for missing the boat – including me.

  It does make you wonder if Illitch Holdings would consider their own station/production company. Between the Red Wings and Tigers there would be enough content. While Illitch would bear all the costs associated with television production, he would also get all the ad revenue in addition to the cable licensing.

• Tigers sixth round pick Clete Thomas has made quite the impression. The outfielder from Auburn started off at Oneonta. He had a short stay though due to his performance. In 18 games he posted a 386/488/529 line and was successul in all 9 stolen base attempts. He earned a promotion to West Michigan where in his first 7 games he’s hitting 304/348/500.
• On a related note, if you want to find this year’s minor league statistics – or any minor league information check out Minor League Baseball. And if you want to find anyone’s career minor league numbers head over to the sports cube.
• John Sickels has a retrospective look at Carlos Guillen as a prospect in the minors.
• The Tigers are averaging 25,008 fans per game. That puts them on pace for just a shade over 2 million for the season. The Tigers haven’t drawn more than 2 million since Comerica’s inaugural season.

With Placido Polanco still hurting, and Rondell White and Dmitri Young unable to play in the field, the Tigers are going to be hurting (literally and figuratively) come Saturday’s doubleheader. There is no way that Ordonez and Guillen will play both ends of the doubleheader (and they probably shouldn’t). Plus, the Tigers will have to make room after the 1st game for Verlander.

So who are the 3rd outfielder and middle infielder in the 2nd game?

One possiblity is to DL Young and bring up Marcus Thames. That takes care of the extra outfielder. Then Infante/Hooper could take the middle infield in the first game, with Guillen/Infante playing middle infield the 2nd game after Hooper is optioned for Verlander. Of course, with this scenario, Young is only retroactive to yesterday.

Another possibility is to wait until Saturday and see if Polanco can play. If not, he could always be DL’d to make room for Verlander. The advantage to this is Polanco could be retroactive to July 11th, meaning that he could be activated on the 26th. The disadvantage is that Kevin Hooper ends up starting both ends of the DH (one in the infield, one in the outfield).

I don’t know how they are going to get through this. What are your thoughts?

Kyle Farnsworth was suspended 6 games and Jeremy Bonderman was suspended 5. My guess is that both players will appeal. Farnsworth will appeal to get his suspension reduced. Bonderman will appeal to delay the suspension. With the doubleheader and no off days until July 28th, the Tigers will need all their starters. Bonderman will probably drop the appeal after pitching on Sunday. At that point the Tigers can look to the off day an get by with 4 men. The rotation will get shuffled, but Bonderman would then be eligible to pitch on the 31st. The end result being he pitches on 6 days rest instead of 4.

And for the record, Runyelvs Hernandez is appealing his 10 game suspension.

At the beginning of the season, the Tigers had a plan for closing out games. Kyle Farnsworth in the 7th, Ugueth Urbina in the 8th, and Troy Percival in the 9th. Of course Urbina had to be traded (I am kind of curious who he would have chosen to fight with had he been in the brawl?), and with yesterday’s announcement that Percival is out for the season the Tigers are in need of a new plan. Of course Farnsworth moves into the closer’s role, but what happens beyond that?

Reader Jeff sent me this email (and to his credit this was prior to Monday’s collapse by Chris Spurling)

Jeff is correct in that I do agree with him in large part. In Spurling, Franklyn German, and Fernando Rodney there are 3 pitchers who are all capable of going multiple innings, and who are only recently starting to seperate themselves based on performance.

Player            Games     IP  H HR   ERA    K9 BB9
Fernando Rodney     11  15 2/3 16  3  2.87 12.64 1.72
Franklyn German     12  13 1/3 13  2  3.38  4.05 5.4
Chris Spurling      16  15 2/3 17  4  5.17  3.45 2.87

These stats are since Urbina was traded, when everyone’s role was bumped up. Keep in mind that 75% of the homers, and half of the runs that Spurling has allowed came on Monday. And for Rodney a third of his strikeouts came in that spectacular 7 K performance on Friday night. Up until that point, the stats among the 3 were fairly comparable.

In the same email Jeff sent me a link to an article in which Trammell even seemed open to the idea…

…but…

Now riding the hot hand would indicate that Rodney should be the set-up man, and I don’t think too many people would argue with that. But back to the point that Jeff was getting at, if a guy cruises through the 7th, don’t hand the ball to the annointed set-up man automatically to start the 8th. And just to continue the thought a little further, don’t be afraid to use the hot hand in the 7th if the game is tight or on the line…

Which brings us to the debacle on Monday night. I’m not one of the people who have been calling for Trammell’s head, and I’ve found myself defending him against some of the dumber criticism he has received. It’s my belief that managers have little effect on the outcome of games. That being said, I put Monday’s loss squarely on Trammell’s shoulders.

I don’t fault Trammell for taking out Sean Douglass. While the 6th was uneventful, he had pitched through several jams and was over 100 pitches. The Tigers have had a solid bullpen so it made sense to trust it. I also don’t fault Trammell for his choice of Chris Spurling who had been solid. Trammell had no reason to believe that Spurling would allow a homer on the first pitch, or 3 well hit balls after that. However, after several well hit balls, something needed to be done.

Rodney was throwing in the pen, but he requires a long time to warm up (as we now know). However, with things going down hill quickly, the Tigers need to stall to get Rodney more time. Or at least get one of the other relievers who are quicker to get loose ready. Spurling made bad pitches, and he got hammered. However, he shouldn’t have been out there to give up the last two homers.

I’m not a big fan of hindsight because it typically just frustrates you, and it’s hard to know if someone is telling the truth or not. I know there are no guarantees that whoever would have come in would have been successful. If German comes in and gives up the homer, I’m frustrated with German. Trammell would have done what he could at that point, and it was up to the players to get the job done. Instead, by sticking with a pitcher who didn’t have it, the manager let a game get away.

Now I’m not slamming Trammell as a manager. I don’t agree with all of his decisions, but that is more a matter of having a different philosophy. And really, I should probably give the guy with 30 years of experience in baseball the benefit of the doubt. I’m criticizing him for his actions (or inactions) in this game.

Will these be the week that we find out whether or not this Tiger team can compete for anything? The Tigers seem to have reached many of these critical points over the last month or so – and despite all these defining moments the team is pretty much right where it has been all season.

Three weeks ago today, the Tigers were 36-36 with a 6 game homestand about to commence – starting with the White Sox. This was to be a big week for the Tigers as we found out what they were made of. After dropping 5 of the 6 games, and the first two games in Clevland the Tigers record stood at 37-46 and the season looked over.

In typical Tigers fashion, just when it looked like all hope was lost they managed to win 5 of 6 going into the break. Now after a disappointing split against the Royals, things are looking bleak again. The Tigers head into Chicago to play the White Sox who just won 4 in a row in Cleveland. The struggling Tigers are going on the road to take on a hot team. That is followed up with 8 games against the Twins. Of course things don’t look good, but this team as a way of responding. I don’t know what will happen, and the losses to inferior clubs are frustrating, but I’m not ready to write this team off.

Much has been made of two numbers lately, 5 and 7. Tiger optimists point to the fact that the team is only 5 games out of the wild card. Tiger pessimists point to the fact that they are 7 teams away from the wild card, and only 3 teams have a worse record than the Tigers. I agree that the chances of the Tigers leaping 7 teams are slim, why shouldn’t they consider themselves in it?

There are 8 teams within 5 games of each other. Granted, Detroit is at the bottom of that ladder (tied with Toronto), but where is the cutoff point for teams who are in it? Of course Minnesota and New York have a shot since they are on top right now. But then Baltimore is only a half game behind them. So those 3 teams are in it. Of course Texas is still in at only 2 games back, and Oakland has climbed to only 2.5 games back. And then there is Cleveland, who is only a half game behind Oakland. Despite their 5 game losing streak you can’t count out Cleveland…we can go on and on.

What I’m getting at is that despite the Tigers struggles, the overall mediocrity of the league has kept them in it. It would be great to be a couple games or teams closer, but they haven’t put themselves in an insurmountable hole. Also, of the 7 teams ahead of them, they still play a number of games against all but Texas and New York. Maybe I’m an optimist, maybe it is all over, but why not stick it out a little bit longer?

I’d like to say the next 8 games are key to defining the Tigers fate, but I’ve thought that too many times lately.

Zumaya Wild
Joel Zumaya made his AAA debut and had some control issues. He only lasted 3 1/3 with 4 walks, two hit batters, and a wild pitch. For someone who improved his control so much this season, this outing was a disappointment. It will be interesting to see how he responds in his next start.

As for Justin Verlander, he’ll be starting tonight for Erie and you can listen to it here: http://www.seawolves.com/live.htm

While the fight may have been exciting to some, I was more frustrated than anything else. For those of you that were actually excited about it let me point these items out:

1. Runyelvs Hernandez is a punk. This has been established. What he did to Carlos Guillen was intentional and inexcusable. But as near as I can figure, nobody actually fought with him.

2. It is great that Jeremy Bonderman wanted to stick up for his teammates. By now the pitching staff should have definitely earned the respect of the hitters. Between this and Nate Robertson in Tampa, the hitters know they will be protected. But did anybody really want to see Bonderman in the middle of that? The term “career ending injury” just kept running through my head.

3. Yes, Kyle Farnsworth is Superman and the take down was very entertaining. But I’m not sure what he did could be construed as protecting anyone. I don’t know what Jeremy Affeldt did or said, so I can’t really say whether or not he “deserved” it. What I can say is that instead of talking about Farnsworth striking out the side on Saturday night and possible future bullpen roles, I’m talking about a tackle instead.

As for suspensions, the Tigers will be without Bonderman’s and Farnsworth’s services for a couple of days. Carlos Guillen shouldn’t receive any suspension. He was hit twice in the same at-bat, and went to first base. Yes he needed an escort, and he said his piece but the guy just got hit in the head.

The suspensions I’d really like to hear about are those for the umpiring crew. They did a good job issuing warnings early on. However, the home plate umpire missed Guillen getting hit in the foot. If he calls that, Guillen takes his base and there is no brawl. Even setting that aside, the bigger issue is that they failed to get Hernandez off the field. Hernandez came towards Guillen unrestrained. Hernandez’s presence and actions on the field are what allowed this to escalate. The serious fighting came after Guillen had gone to first only to have Hernandez approach him. If Hernandez is in the dugout it would have been over with only some shoving and words being exchanged. The umpires are as culpable as any player (except for Hernandez) for not controlling the situation.