photo by Samara Pearlstein
Right after I complain about the Rotation Situation, the Tigers sign Brad Penny (not yet official, contingent on a physical, etc). OK! It is nice to know that they take the threat of panicky bloggers vomiting forth extreme amounts of frantic words on the internet seriously. It is, after all, a very serious matter.
Now, I’m not exactly going to dance down the street screaming that our rotation is saved, because I live in Massachusetts and if I went outside and yelled, “BRAD PENNY IS ON OUR TEAM! EVERYTHING WILL BE OK NOW,” people would laugh in my face, and then possibly call the cops, because anyone loudly supporting Brad Penny must be unbalanced and dangerous to the general public. We had him here in Boston and he was… not good.
Of course it was only part of one season, but in 24 starts he literally never went more than 6.1 innings in a game. He allowed two or fewer runs only six times, and he left the mound without allowing a run only ONCE in the entire time he was here. He tended to completely lose it once or twice a month, throwing solid and unimpressive outings the rest of the time, the kind of outings where he wouldn’t leave the team totally scrabbling from behind, but you’d still need a good bullpen and a fair amount of run support to pull off the win. He generally wasn’t HORRIFIC; he just wasn’t… you know… good.
He had persistent shoulder problems in 2008 and was DL’d with a DEADLY OBLIQUE STRAIN last season. He has had plenty of time to rest up from that and normal people might not believe it’s something we need to worry about anymore, but we all know the history the Tigers have with the DEADLY OBLIQUE. I don’t think we can ignore the fact that something in the Detroit air/water is incredibly bad for obliques.
Here’s his fairly boring Twitter account, if you’re one of those tweetin’ sorts. The ‘Words with Friends’ thing he keeps tweeting about is apparently some sort of iPhone crossword game, so maybe he can play word games with Max Scherzer on the plane during the season. There’s also this, which, uh… yeah.
He does wear his socks up, and this would only be a one-year, $3 million deal. There’s also a chance that his partial season in Boston was a fluke and he’ll do just fine in the AL this time around. We are no longer 100% reliant on Phil Coke as a starter. There, see: I’m thinking positive thoughts.
Roar of the Tigers 
… Is he posing with lobsters?
Yeah, I’m pretty sure they’re California spiny lobsters. He was in Cabo, which always now makes me think of that Joe Mauer commercial.
That’s just your two cents on the subject. HaHaHaHaHa.
At least I make myself laugh.
Scot Drucker has also mentioned the Words with Friends thing on his Twitter account. Anyone know what that is?
Well, I don’t know in detail since I don’t have an iPhone, but it’s a competitive crossword game. So instead of doing your crossword nerdily and alone, you battle other people for crossword supremacy. Or something.
That’s not nerdy all. That is rather bada**.
Wait, wait, how are those two things mutually exclusive? ;)
Words with friends is actually a scrabble knock off where you play dozens of games at once with different people, so as to not have to wait forever for a person to make a move.
As far as I can tell, it is EXACTLY Scrabble, except in mysteriously non-infringing ways. I think there are more/less of some numbers perhaps…I don’t know, I’m not a lawyer, though I dated one; I would guess they have a licensing agreement.
Bonus: if he’s ever traded for a player to be named later, I can use the headline “Penny for a Guy?”
…and nobody will get this because British people won’t be on websites that have headlines about baseball, and baseball people won’t know things about British historical phrases.
But I will be happy with it.
Too bad Laird is gone, it would be funny to have Penny piching to $.
First time all winter I have been sincerely sad that G-Money is gone.
So um, heh, I realize that this is neither the place nor (well, it is the time, actually) to bring this up, but seeing as many of you all may follow sports outside the sphere of baseball, and many such fine patrons of this blog website may also reside in Michigan, perhaps I could enquire as to the author’s opinions regarding one Brady Hoke.
As an aside, he strikes me as awfully cartoonable fellow.
And relating to the Brad Penny thing… high socks are good.
Not happy. I’m not saying he’s doomed to failure, but he’s not a proven winner as a head coach– I mean, Ball State and SDSU? Given the type of offense he likes to run, I’m concerned about Denard fleeing for safer harbor. I think the search was conducted on a ridiculous timeline, making it certain that our ability to recruit for 2011 has crashed, burned, exploded, and then exploded again into even smaller bits, which in turn may make it harder to recruit in coming years. Even given a fair timeline I’m not exactly sanguine about Hoke’s ability to entice recruits in by himself.
On the plus side, the defense should improve, and Lloyd likes him. So.
Don’t fear! First of all, UM, named Brady… that works out. Secondly, everybody loves the guy. Denard already said he’s staying, Tate wants to come back, and Martin decided not to go pro. Plus, supposedly Harbaugh recommended him to Stanford and they wanted him bad. And he’s bringing his O-Coordinator, and…oh wait, this is a Tiger blog…
First the Red Sox, then the Tigers–this guy keeps turning up like a Bad Penny . . .
His high socks are glorious though, just mind blowing.. I may have signed him on that alone (probably good that I am no teams GM). Our rotation is seriously lacking on the high sock front.
Brad Penny’s anagram name is PAN BY NERD
Or Pen Brandy
Check it out peeps: Raburn got s 2 yr. contract, avoiding arbitration. It’s up at the Mothership, Yahoo Sports, Bless You Boys, MLBTradeRumors and various Tigers Twitters accounts.
*should be “got a” not “got s”. I’m too excited!
It is important to get high socks back in the rotation. I don’t think we’ve had any since Dontrelle, right?
Penny throws hard, has been effective in the past, and was off to a very good start last season before injuring his back. This loks like a classic low risk-potentially decent reward move. He formerly dated Alyssa Milano, which also ought to count for something.
OK, that is not the least reassuring. Because Alyssa Milano was also a Barry Zito girlfriend. At least we aren’t paying Penny 200 million for 10 years or whatever…
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