pug marks 2/16, incredibly important Tigers things

illustration by Samara Pearlstein

Austin Jackson climbing redwoods, OK. I actually tried to think of some reason behind this so that it would make a good post, but I couldn’t come up with anything. This is just what happens when it’s February and I haven’t seen baseball in forever and my fevered brain is crying out for sweet baseball relief. Austin Jackson climbing redwoods happens. You kind of signed up for this when you started reading this blog.

On to the paw prints!

pug mark 1
Brad Penny has declared that he is in favor of sartorial splendor, he is on the side of righteousness, he will wear his socks high forever and ever, amen.

[M]ost of the players are dedicated to the sock-less look — or else Daniel Schlereth wouldn’t have grabbed a pair of scissors as soon as he arrived at the clubhouse on Monday and cut through the elastic band at the bottom of his uniform pants.

The one holdout with the high sock look?

Brad Penny.

“I’ll never switch,” he said.
Tom Gage/Detroit News

That is exactly right, Brad Penny. You will never switch, and in fact you should do your best to convince other Tigers that it is only right to switch. There is no one true way to wear a baseball uniform, but all the correct ways to wear it involve high socks. FACT.

And shame on you, Daniel Schlereth! Shame.

pug mark 2
Jim Leyland likes to torment his pitchers. He believes that it’s the best way to get some of them involved in boring Spring Training exercises.

Remember Jim Leyland’s running challenge to Justin Verlander on PFP grounders in workouts last spring training? Leyland would crow whenever he got a ground ball past Verlander, who’s competitive enough that he wants to win at that. Kept waiting to see if they renewed the challenge Monday, the first day of spring workouts, but Leyland found a new target for his fun: Jose Valverde.

“I set you up, baby! And I can do it again if I want,” Leyland bragged when he got a tricky ground ball past his closer.

“Anytime I want. Just a little on, a little off,” he said after another one.
Jason Beck

This is the kind of psychology you use on five-year olds– turning a mundane task into a competitive game so they are tricked into approaching the task with enthusiasm and increased effort– but everyone knows that professional baseball players are developmentally similar to five-year olds in a number of ways. Jim Leyland is a genius.

pug mark 3
In the same post Beck notes that Max St. Pierre is still alive and playing Tigers baseball. He also speculates about the bullpen hair situation for the coming season. His guess is that it will be all about the beard this year. I could live with that.

pug mark 4
Scott Pickens has his St. Bernard Wallace back at camp again this year. A couple of days ago, Tom Gage posted this:

Speaking of dogs, big ol’ Wallace – the 140-pound St. Bernard of bullpen catcher Scott Pickens – let lively pup Diego know who’s boss on Monday.

Also a St. Bernard belonging to Pickens, Diego spent about an hour on the disabled list.

Just a minor mix-up between Saints, that’s all.
Tom Gage/Detroit News

A SECOND ST. BERNARD?? And then there was a PHOTO! Yes, look at them! Those are Brad Penny’s Very Pale Legs, but look at the dogs! Look! LOOK! LOOK AT DIEGO OH MY GOODNESS. You are looking at a creature that demands by its very existence infinite cuddles.

pug mark 5
Robbie Weinhardt has snatched up Bondo’s number. I have to admit that it’s going to be weird to see a non-Bondo Tiger wearing #38.

pug mark 6
The Axis of Evil had some words with Patrick Leyland, who is in Lakeland this year as an actual Tigers prospect, instead of just hanging around as the coach’s kid. I’ll bet Jim Leyland feels super old right now.

pug mark 7
The Mothership’s blog has been posting a photo (or several photos) of the day for a while now, and the February 7th post showcased Truck Day. Now, Truck Day in Boston is a public event, where people go down to the stadium to watch the truck get loaded in the freezing cold (seriously) (I was there a couple years ago), so I was kind of sad to see the Detroit truck getting loaded up without any fans around to wave it off.

But Paws in a box made it all better.

pug marks, 11/8

illustration by Samara Pearlstein

It has been approximately one thousand years since our last pug marks post, so you know what that means! No you don’t, you’ve forgotten because it’s been so long since we did one of these. Anyways. It means that it’s time for a pug marks post.

pug mark 1
Apparently the Tigers have signed Jhonny Peralta to a two-year deal. Good news for a team without a hot sexy shortstop prospect chomping capably at the triple-A bit, bad news for twitchy newspaper editors. Jhonny had said that he wanted to stay in Detroit, so nobody is exactly screaming with uncontrollable joy, but everyone is moderately pleased, and that’s fine by me.

pug mark 2
Brandon Inge won the Marvin Miller Award for being so freakin’ awesome. This is a league-wide award, mind you, not one of those where one guy on every team gets it. Brandon Inge is such a stand-up fellow that the entire league stands in awe of him. Am I surprised? No. Of course not. Am I pleased. Yes. Yesssssssss.

pug mark 3
Were you wondering who won the pumpkin carving contest? Wonder no more. Although technically that is a scraping, not a carving. Also I think that to win a Brandon Inge bat, you should have to create a Brandon Inge-themed pumpkin. I believe that would have only been fair.

pug mark 4
The Tigers sent Brent Dlugach to the Red Sox for the usual cash-or-a-PTBNL. I’m assuming that most of you don’t really care, but he has been in the system for a while so maybe someone has strong feelings about it. I hope he makes it up with the Sox so I can listen to Jerry Remy struggle to pronounce his name.

pug mark 5
Happy belated Diwali! I don’t have an image of Paws holding a bunch of candles ready to go or anything, so have some Comerica lightbanks. That works for a festival of lights, right? Right.

pug mark 6
Will Rhymes has been having some dog problems.

The dog is a pug; I can’t remember whether or not we know his name, though. Anyone? This is vital information.

pug mark 7
Lee is doing a contest: correctly guess the first new player to sign with the Tigers (from outside the organization), win a book! It’s a pretty good book, you know. It’s got some nice cartoons in it.

pug mark 8
So I guess it’s really the offseason now. If there’s anything you’ve been dying to see rendered in Terrible Cartoon form, speak now and maybe I will draw it. I’ll need little drawing warm-ups now that it’s coming into Wicked Massive and Intense Holiday Card Creation Season anyways.

pug marks, Feb. 23

photo illustration by Samara Pearlstein

It’s been ages since we last had a pug marks post, hasn’t it? Let’s see if we can manage to pug mark things that aren’t Traitor Damon.

pug mark 1
Carlos Guillen is just fine with a DH role. Which is good, ’cause, uh, it’s what he’s going to be playing. Logic, the composition of the lineup as it stands right now, and Guillen’s baseball-elderly body would all seem to make this an easy decision. It’s only an issue because of an interview Guillen did back in October, where he said things like this:

“I’m not trying to make big trouble,” Guillen said. “I know we’re coming off a tough year. I just want to make everything clear and prepare myself for the next year, because I don’t know what [the Tigers are] going to do.”
…
“I’m happy with the organization,” Guillen said. “We have great players, great fans. But I think the best way I can help my team is on the field.”
Jason Beck, DetroitTigers.com

Now he’s saying things like this:

“I’m very happy,” Guillen said. “We had a good conversation this morning.”
…
“I made a mistake,” Leyland said.

That made a point with Guillen.

“I’m happy he understands,” Guillen said.
Jason Beck, DetroitTigers.com

It’s not surprising that Guillen wants to play every day, and it’s not really surprising that he had some trouble imagining himself happy in a reduced role. He is after all a professional baseball player, which means that in his little baseball player heart he believes he is 22 years old and made of adamantium. So it took some time and some pointed front office communication to get this through, but it sounds like everyone got there in the end, and that’s the main thing.

pug mark 2
Our very own Lee of Tiger Tales has done a book! A WHOLE BOOK, YO. It’s called Beyond Batting Average and it has numbers and words and things in it.

It ALSO has drawings in it! Because Lee was concerned that numbers and words might be kind of boring for some people, he wanted inky doodles to break up the tedium, so he asked me if I would terribly mind making some appropriately inky contribution. Of course I agreed, for great baseball justice and moderate lulz. Here’s a preview to whet your appetite:

Lee also did a wee interview about the book with BYB, which can be found right over here.

pug mark 3
The G-Money situation is resolved. For now. He’s pleading no contest to the charges, and in exchange will have to attend anger management classes, which is probably a good thing anyways. Maybe we should have all the Tigers attend with him. You know, to be proactive.

pug mark 4
Relatedly, sort of, Dane Sardinha has been arrested for driving drunk. He’s with the Phillies now, but he was ours just recently, and in light of the Cabrera and G-Money incidents it seemed worth a mention.

I don’t know what, if anything, MLB is doing to address the drinking culture of the players, but it’s starting to look more and more like they need to do SOMETHING. Also, people who drive drunk are the scum of the earth, so if all Tigers can please remember that they make more than enough money to pay for a cab from now on, that would be swell.

pug mark 5
Bobby Seay has been shut down for a few days. He’s got bursitis and tendonitis (read: swollen bits) in his throwing shoulder. The team doesn’t seem to think it’s a huge deal, but they’re taking the Better Safe Than Sorry and Without Bobby Seay When You Need/Want Him approach.

pug mark 6
Some interesting spring visuals, via Roger DeWitt/hueytaxi:

–When did Ramon Santiago get so jacked?
–The Bondo tattoo situation is even worse than we initially thought. The tribal bicep route, Bondo? Really?
–Behold the new svelte Zoom.
—Max St. Pierre lives!
–If Phil Coke keeps this look during the season, he’s going to make himself much easier to cartoon. Do it, Phil, do it!
–Magglio’s hair report: still tragically short.
–Ryan Perry really needs to kill the chin strap thing he’s got going on right now.
–One of the first photos of Max Scherzer I’ve seen. Gorgeous, fierce, flawless, etc.

pug mark 7
Oh, fine, one Traitor Damon pug mark. Please take a look at Mr. Dombrowski’s shirt at the ‘Hey we signed this dude for real’ press conference. STRIPED PERFECTION. That shirt is everything my cartoony mind has ever dreamed of for our GM.

pug marks, Nov. 5

illustration by Samara Pearlstein

pug mark 1

Brandon Inge’s knee surgery is successful. Yay! I am throwing confetti in the air. Metaphorical confetti. Throwin’ metaphors. Anyways, this was not a particularly risky surgery, but it’s still good to hear that it all went well, they didn’t discover any teratoma monsters living in his joints, Inge still has both of his knees more or less attached to his legs in approximately the right places, etc.

Now Mrs. Inge will have six weeks of dealing with an increasingly bored Brandon, as he’s not supposed to put any weight on either knee for that long. I predict a great many video games in his immediate future. My official blogger’s recommendation is to stay away from the Guitar Hero, though. That way madness lies.

pug mark 2

FredFred is the Tigers’ Rookie of the Year. Not the big one, the team version.

I don’t know about you cats, but I am SHOCKED. Shocked, I tell you. I never would have expected FredFred to win this award… I was totally expecting it to be, um… uh… Alex Avila and his 61 at-bats! Obviously Porcello richly deserved some recognition for the season he just had– 14 wins and a sub-4 ERA while he’s still too young to legally get drunk off his rump– but it’s not like this was a tight race with a veritable horde of Tigers rookies getting tons of playing time and all contributing mightily.

How cool would that have been, though? SIGH. Maybe in the future.

pug mark 3

Chris Getz was probably traded to the Royals, in exchange for Mark Teahen and Josh Fields. I say ‘probably’ because neither team has confirmed it as of right now (6 pm on Thursday), but it seems likely to get done.

Why should you care? Because it is good to root for former Wolverines in the Majors. But while Getz was on the Wrong Sox, it was quite difficult to root for him, because, well, you know: Wrong Sox. Sure, he’d still be going to a division rival, but I can gloss over Royalty for a Wolverine. Wrong Soxness is a much more potent state of evil, and thus much harder to ignore.

pug mark 4

The Cubs have just become the first major league sports franchise to have an openly gay owner. That would be Laura Ricketts, a lawyer, out lesbian, and member of the billionaire Ricketts Family, who (as a group) recently purchased the Cubs.

This doesn’t have anything to do with the Tigers, I just think it’s pretty freakin’ awesome.

pug mark 5

Chad Durbin’s team lost a game to some bunch of dudes. I guess it was kind of a big deal? I don’t know, I was only paying attention to Chad Durbin.

pug marks, Jan. 21

photo illustration by Samara Pearlstein

It’s been a while since we had a pug marks post over here, eh? Let us rectify this tragic oversight now!

pug mark 1
The Tigers signed everyone who was arbitration-eligible, except for Verlander. Bobby Seay will make $1.3 million, Zoom will make $735,000, Edwin Jackson will make $2.2 million, and Gerald Laird will make $2.8 million.

Apparently Verlander is asking for $4.15 million and the Tigers are offering $3.2 million. They have until Feb. 1 (that’s ten days from now) to work it out, otherwise it’ll go to arb. And we all know how much Mr. Dombrowski hates that arb…

pug mark 2
Nate Robertson is a soccer mom, uses Pilates to try and get back into shape.

Of course I somewhat obliquely mentioned this in the latest cartoon, but I figure it deserves linking just because of the Pilates-love in this article. Also, because Nate is saying things like this:

“I feel that flexibility. I really do,” Robertson said. “I think it’s worked out real good so far. Everything feels more loose.”
MLB.com article

Feel that flexibility, Nate! Yeah, baby!

pug mark 3
Chad Durbin interview!! Hat tip to Kurt, who sent me the link.

Chad Durbin will be forever beloved around here for his good sense of humor about the whole pimp thing, and it warms my fuzzy little heart to see him saying stuff like this:

BR: Aside from Philadelphia (for obvious reasons), where did you like playing the most (KC, Cleveland, Arizona or Detroit)?

Chad: Cleveland and Detroit stick out most because of the personal relationships I had with some great guys. Kansas City will always be memorable because it’s where I broke into the Big Leagues.
BaseballReflections.com article

Nuts to you, Arizona!

pug mark 4
Pre-Spring Training photos! The early bird get the worm, the Floridian ballplayer gets photographed by the always-diligent HueyTaxi aka Roger DeWitt. I spy Cale Iorg, Ryan Raburn, Justin Verlander, and Alex Avila.

He also captured this highly disturbing image of a scruffy, bearded Jim Leyland from October. Um. Hopefully that will be gone by the time Spring Training proper rolls around.

pug mark 5
Lynn Henning has a bunch of quotes from new pitching coach Rick Knapp. The whole first section is about Knapp’s thoughts on Verlander, with whom he’s already been working in Lakeland.

“Watching him play catch, I noticed how after he finishes, he finishes way off-balance,” Knapp explained this week, by telephone from his home in Port Charlotte, Fla.
…
“He was maybe getting a bit too high. That can lead him to arch, and to fall off as opposed to stepping around after the ball crosses the plate… So, doing long-toss, we had him keeping his hands away from his head a bit more, which seems to free up his arm and his release a bit more out front.

“It was a small little adjustment. But he felt it almost immediately. I’m used to having to sell guys on things because they have a hard time feeling it. Justin picked up on it like that. He was in tune with it.”
Detroit News article

It’ll be interesting to see if this has much of an impact. I also find it curious that falling off weirdly was Verlander’s problem: he’s known for having very good defensive skills, and pitchers who fall crazily off the mound are generally rubbish defensively, as they end their pitching motion in no good condition to field the ball.

Also worth noting is this quote about Bonderman:

“But the thing that stands out to me,” Knapp said, “is how physical he is. I was talking to Gene Lamont (Tigers bench coach) the other day and I said to him, ‘Dang, that guy’s firm.’ He looks strong. I don’t know what else he could do to make his body right — he’s strong as an ox.”
Detroit News article

Who among us has not watched a guy pitch and said to ourselves, DANG, THAT DUDE IS FIRM! Right? Right.

pug marks, 8/4/08

photo illustration by Samara Pearlstein

Offday, offday, hooray. THE BULLPEN CAN’T HURT US WHEN THEY AREN’T PLAYING.

We haven’t had a pug marks post in a while, have we? I guess things have just been THAT EXCITING in the world of the Detroit Tigers.

pug mark 1
Leyland ripped into the team before Sunday’s game.

He is “ashamed,” “[taking] it personally,” “more than disappointed– probably shocked,” and “embarrassed,” by the team’s performance of late. Surprise! so are we. Maybe a little less with the ‘taking it personally,’ but everything else, spot on for the fans as well.

It remains highly puzzling to me that the Tigers can have the players they have, can have the alleged talent they have, and play like this. I know a lot of it’s down to injuries and a lot of it’s down to the bullpen and some of it’s down to (perhaps under)performance from the starting pitchers. I was worried about the season before it began, for a variety of reasons, but I still didn’t expect THIS. We may safely assume that it’s much the same for Leyland.

pug mark 2
Why wasn’t Farnsworth with the Tigers the game after the trade was made? Because cats forbid he fly down to join the team and deal with moving his stuff and family and such later, like every other suddenly traded ballplayer in the history of modern baseball.

Two hours after Farnsworth got home, he and his wife and their 5-year-old son had packed their belongings, closed up their apartment, and were headed down the Interstate for Florida in the family truck.
…
The right-handed reliever drove until 1 a.m. Then the family stopped at a motel in Virginia. Or was it North Carolina? “It was so late, and we were so tired, I’m not really sure,” the 32-year-old journeyman said.

Less than seven hours later, they were on the road again, driving nearly 13 hours, straight through to Orlando, where Farnsworth resides during the offseason.

“Driving down, I kept thinking, ‘Did it really happen?’ ” Farnsworth admitted.
Jim Hawkins/Oakland Press article

He really couldn’t get a flight out of New York? Not to be all ‘oh, Kyle‘ about this, but really: oh, Kyle. Seriously?

In the same article we learn that he’s going to be renting Jamie Walker’s house in Livonia. I love that a) Jamie Walker still HAS a house in Livonia and b) The Farns at some point thought to get in touch with him. Also:

“I told (Jim Leyland) I’ll pitch whenever he needs me to pitch,” Farnsworth said after meeting with the Tigers’ manager on Friday. “I’ll even go back to being a starting pitcher, if that’s what he wants me to do.”
Jim Hawkins/Oakland Press article

Ah ha ha ha ha ha ha NO.

I’m starting to think that the best thing about the Farnsworth trade is the fact that I already had a tag for him and didn’t have to bother making a new one.

pug mark 3
Curtis Granderson is excited about how popular the Rays have become. He also still had mad crazy respect for Pudge:

He is one of the best to ever play his position and was a great teammate. Now, years down the road, I can say I played with possibly the best catcher ever.
Curtis Granderson/ESPN.com

This pug mark really has no substance, I just like Curtis Granderson.

pug mark 4
The Onion has been on a Tigerlicious roll lately.

Placido Polanco chokes up all the way.

Angry Jim Leyland’s mustache keeps falling off while yelling at team.

This Brewers article has nothing to do with the Tigers (unless you count anything about Prince Fielder as vaguely Tigers-related), but it delighted me nonetheless.

pug mark 5
Joel Zumaya: still broken.

Leyland noticed something in Zumaya’s mechanics on Friday night and although the Tigers’ medical staff did not find anything serious after the game, the club will continue to err on the cautious side.

“Seems like he gets to a certain point where he doesn’t finish pitches,” Leyland said.

The hard-throwing Zumaya left the game on July 27 with tightness in his right triceps, and cited throwing too many curveballs as part of the problem.

Zumaya worked through the initial tightness and was slotted back into the ‘pen on Tuesday, as the Tigers didn’t expect the minor condition to linger.

Unfortunately, Friday’s outing brought back the same familiar tightness, although it is now slightly above Zumaya’s triceps. The right-hander reported no problems throwing any breaking balls and only felt tightness on a portion of the fastballs he threw to six Rays batters.
Brittany Ghiroli/MLB.com article

“Slightly above the triceps” is an exceedingly diplomatic way of saying “shoulder”.

It is also my understanding that breaking pitches are more immediately dangerous for a pitcher’s elbow (at least partly due to arm rotation) while power stuff is more immediately shoulder-related (of course a pitcher can bollocks up any part of his arm with pretty much any pitch: pitching ain’t good for human arms, period). So that last sentence, where Zoom “reported no problems throwing any breaking balls and only felt tightness on a portion of fastballs,” is not in the least tiniest way reassuring, because if he IS having shoulder problems again, I would EXPECT him to feel it on his fastballs and maybe not necessarily on his softer stuff.

At least it’s not his oblique?

pug mark 6
Have you heard the new Lions slogan?

I’m pug marking myself… can I do that? Of course I can, it’s my friggin’ blog.

The beginning of the post is about Manny Ramirez, because I had to write SOMETHING about that trade, but the rest of it is a philosophical examination of the possible meanings and ramifications of the Detroit Lions new slogan, as heard in ads on FSND. They really make you THINK, those Lions do.

…………..

Tomorrow’s game is at 8:11 pm EDT (not 8 pm, not 8:10 pm… 8:11), in Chicago. Nate Robertson takes on Gavin Floyd. It’s a very important series, so I fully expect to see Tiger relievers vomiting copiously onto the pitching rubber before each and every batter they face. Failing that, I expect to learn that at least two of our players have injured their obliques. Go Tigers!

pug marks, Feb. 4

photo illustration by Samara Pearlstein

pug mark 1
Tony G is no more. If you recall, he had hurt his shoulder, had surgery on it, and recently re-hurt it. So saith Dave Dombrowski:

“Unfortunately, Tony has not be able to recover from his previous surgery and it does not appear feasible for him to continue his career at this time.”
Detroit News article

Harsh, man, harsh. That is straight-up saying that Tony G is considered Permanently Breakable in a Mark Prior kind of way. That’s a dire sentence indeed.

Of course we wish him the best of luck in his future potentially baseball-related endeavors, but, given how highly the team rated him when he was starting out in the system, you have to believe that they would have to be very convinced of his inability to heal in order to release him.

pug mark 2
Dontrelle Willis listed 5 players he would pay to see, if, y’know, he wasn’t a professional baseball player who was actually getting paid to, in effect, see these guys. I find it adorkable that he has two guys he played with on the Marlins in there. And I do have to agree with him especially about Jimmy Rollins; I’ve had occasion to see him play in person before, and the dude is SERIOUSLY fun to watch.

pug mark 3
The Mayor is coming to Boston! Yeah, I’m happy about this. I get to keep actively rooting for Sean Casey! And of course this is good for the Red Sox… he shouldn’t be a disruptive presence, even if he’s only backing up all season, and he’s pleasant and even-keeled enough to be able to handle Boston (well, we think. I mean, you never can quite tell who can and who can’t hack it, but Casey seems pretty impervious to things like talk radio and Dan Shaughnessy).

And since we’re on a player blog kick, you simply must read the Mayor story that Curt Schilling told over at his blog. It is heart-warming and happy-making and yay Sean Casey!

pug mark 4
Apparently Miguel Cabrera had “some sort of soreness” in his left leg near the end of winter ball. Nobody’s worked up into a rabid lathering panic over this, so far as I can tell, so it’s probably nothing. Probably. And it never hurts to be overly cautious this time of year anyways. Probably. I mean, everything is fine. Fine fine fine. Totally.

Cabrera is currently looking to sign a contract extension, so I really only note this in the sense that it may be a worrying Sign of Things to Come if Cabrera doesn’t keep way up on top of his conditioning.

pug mark 5
Johan Santana is gone from the American League, gone from the AL Central, gone gone gone to the Mets. Happy days for those teams who no longer have to deal with him, such as THE TIGERS.

pug mark 6
Eli Manning is a wanker.

pug marks, Dec. 11

illustration by Samara Pearlstein

Happy last night of Chanukah from Hank Greenberg and Roar of the Tigers! On to the pug marks.

pug mark 1
Lee has a really nice post up comparing Miguel Cabrera and Brandon Inge. If you want to argue about their relative merits and demerits, I would suggest you read that post. In fact, I think it should be required reading. The general idea is that, yes, Cabrera is an upgrade over Inge, we all agree on this because it would be completely bonkers not to, but when you factor in both offense AND defense, the difference is not so large as you might think.

Brandon Inge fans will note that something they knew intuitively all along is indeed borne out by the numbers. Satisfying!

pug mark 2
The Tigers just re-signed Timo Perez to a one year contract, and Matt says “ew”. I tend to agree. Why bother? Our big league outfield is our most comprehensively covered area right now, with the Granderson/Magglio combo in there for sure, Jacque Jones splitting time with someone (Raburn? Thames? Inge??), Clevlen a possibility, Freddy Guzman a not-very-exciting possibility… we really need Timo in there? Whatever, I can’t even get that worked up about this yet.

pug mark 3
According to the Free Press, the Tigers have been talking to the Pirates about Inge. I expect them to talk to every single team about Inge at some point, just for the heck of it, but I will note that both the Pirates’ big league catchers are 26 years old and not as completely terrible with a bat as some. Not that I think this is going to happen. Just saying. And I would be marginally less upset about trading Inge if we got some kind of viable catcher in return, because you all know my obsessive concern with our catching situation.

pug mark 4
Just in case you missed it, Lynn Henning talked to Big Red after he was traded to Texas. Despite the generally positive spin (“Yay, starting! Yay, new opportunities!”), Shelton still comes off as a little sore that he didn’t get more chances to stick in Detroit. He did have lots of chances, in my opinion, but then again he also was kind of blocked out by the fact that a cushy, old-man-friendly position like first base isn’t where you want to be as a marginal player.

pug mark 5
Not strictly Tigers-related, but I thought this was interesting. The MVP, Cy Young, and rookie awards given out by the Baseball Writer’s Association of America can no longer be monetary incentives in player contracts. The idea is keep the awards about the awards themselves and not something guys gun for out of a desire for cash. Purity of the game and all that.
You can debate the rationale behind this, but in any event they do mean business:

Starting in 2013, players with such bonus clauses in their contracts will be banned from receiving votes for any BBWAA awards.
Detroit News article

Lots of big guys have these clauses in their contracts, although obviously only a very few are ever ‘activated’ each season. I guess the 2013 date is to give players time to purge the offending language from their contracts and to avoid it in new ones, but if someone leaves it in (accidentally or otherwise) and ends up being a deserving candidate, would they really be banned from consideration for the awards? Harsh, man, harsh.

pug marks, 9/28

photo illustration by Samara Pearlstein

pug mark 1
The Free Press has a set of useful little charts up to show who the Tigers have signed for next year, who’s a free agent, who’s arb-eligible, and who’s under club control (mwah ha ha ha ha, they are ourrrssssss). Have a look, start your speculation engines, and note that things may not always be what they seem: while we have, say, Carlos Guillen signed for next year, he may not be spending next year at shortstop…

pug mark 2
You’ve seen Emily Smith’s photos ’round this blog before, and you can see even more at her flickr site. She’s now selling some of her Tigers photos over here, especially for YOU, Tigers fan reading this blog. A perfect gift for a Tigers fan, including yourself.

pug mark 3
Want more? Make sure you check out the Flickr Detroit Tigers photo pool. Some good stuff’s been posted there lately (along with some not-so-thrilling stuff, but hey, this is the internet).

pug mark 4
I’m sure by now you’ve all heard Jonesy talking about how he wants to test the market this offseason, not because he no longer wants to be on the Tigers but instead because he wants to control his own career a little. All well and good… but you know who this sounds EXACTLY like? Kyle Farnsworth. Wasn’t that his reason for not signing long-term with the Tigs, leading to his eventual trade? Not that many of us regret that move now, of course… it’s just that the similarity of the reasoning was interesting to me. Ballplayers seem to have a bit of a Thing about control.

pug mark 5
Charity makes the baby tigers happy, especially when it involves sports memorabilia. The Pat Maloy Cancer Scholarship is having a massive auction of goodies as a benefit. There’s a lot of Wolverines stuff, but also scattered pro football and baseball things. Basically, you can’t go wrong: you get gear, you give money to a good cause. The auction can be found here. It’s through the U of M School of Kinesiology, and ends November 4.

pug marks, Sept. 3

photo illustration by Samara Pearlstein

The glory of an offday link dump is that I don’t have to think too much to post. This is a good thing, because I am still mentally (emotionally?) recovering from the Michigan game (if indeed that’s something from which one can truly recover) and this is coloring my attitude towards the Tigers right now. I know things are not looking up even from the rosiest of standpoints, but I am probably seeing the situation as even more dire and depressing than it truly is due to my current state of mind.

It will be hard to break free of this morass, but I’ll bet many of you are suffering along with me. Hopefully the Tigers will start playing well again in an effort to, if nothing else, ease the suffering of the many thousands of near-clinically depressed Wolverines that they count among their fans.

pug mark 1
Sports Club Stats has a page calculating the Tigers’ Playoff Chances. It’s a pretty cool little piece of internet gadgetry, up to date and all that, and it includes games the Tigers care about, and how their playoff chances change based on the outcomes of those games. Much more fascinating when I am not convinced that the entire world is sadness and woe.

pug mark 2
This is a little bit old, but if you haven’t seen it yet, you really, REALLY need to. It’s a music video from High School Musical 2 called I Don’t Dance and there are a whole slew of MLB players in it, including Justin Verlander. You know how sometimes you watch something and your eyes start tearing up in sympathetic embarrassment for those involved? That’s what this video did to me the first time I watched it. Equal parts hilarious and agonizing. A definite must-see.

pug mark 3
Can I pug mark myself? A bit meta, but oh well. See, there’s this independent league team, the North Shore Spirit, that plays very close to where I live in Massachusetts (bear with me here). The last game I went to before I left for the fall was against a team called the Worcester Tornadoes. You can see all the photos from that game right here if you want to, but the pug marked point I’m making is this:

That Tornado is Omar Pena, baby brother of former Tiger Carlos Pena. I had no idea Carlos even had a brother before I went to the game and saw this kid. He looks A LOT like Carlos, and the scoreboard said he was from Haverhill, MA, which is where Carlos is from, so I immediately suspected the relation. As soon as I got home I dashed off to the magical internet, which told me that my suspicions were correct. Not a thrilling pug mark, but I got a kick out of it at the time.

pug mark 4
Curtis Granderson continues to blog away. In this August 31 entry he had this to say, in response to a question about who on the Tigers was the worst dressed:

I would have to say that Sean Casey or Mike Rabelo are the worst dressed. Casey makes designer t-shirts look bad, and loves to wear old Nike gym shoes that he got for free. Rabelo loves to wear shirts from fishing stores. It almost looks like he goes to stores, fills out a credit card application and gets a free shirt. As far as best dressed, I would have to say Marcus Thames. When he wears the free stuff from Nike he matches it up from head to toe, from the wind suit to the shoes to match.

I just have to say that I don’t think wearing one brand from head to toe exactly counts as dressing well. But I’m not too surprised that Casey and Rabelo are high on Granderson’s list of sartorial offenders (I am a little surprised that Pudge’s crazy shirts didn’t get a mention, though. Maybe that counts as good fashion among ballplayers?).

pug mark 5
If you’re wondering what the late-season call-ups are doing to the various Tigers minor league teams, look no farther than this tidy little catchall post on Take 75 North. ‘Cause MVN is your best source for minor league Tigers blogging, as always.

pug mark 6
Are you bored? Are you a big Tigers fan? Then if you’ve got some time to kill you might like to take a crack at this Tigers trivia post over at the Tigers Livejournal group. If you get frustrated, you can go right to the answers. Fun for all.