a taste of a Tiger-striped future, today!

photo by Emily Smith

Things are afoot!

Cameron Maybin has been called up, which will give us all our very first look at the much-ballyhooed tiger cub here at the big league level. He had just been bumped up to Erie last week, so talk about whiplash: the kid barely had a chance to get all excited about being promoted to AA ball, and now he’s going to be in a Tigers uniform in Yankee Stadium.

In order to make room for him, Craig Monroe has been designated for assignment. This makes sense. It had seemed more and more obvious, as the weeks wore on, that the Craig Monroe era was drawing to a close. There’s only so long that the Tigers could stick with his .637 OPS… for comparison, Maggs has a 1.025 OPS. Pudge has a .724 OPS, despite the fact that he walks basically NEVER, and even Brandon Inge has a .708 OPS. Mike Rabelo, the EMERGENCY BACKUP CATCHER, pressed into action only because the regular backup catcher is dead, has a .677 OPS. A .637 OPS is essentially unacceptable for a starting Tiger.

It was especially unacceptable because Cameron Maybin existed. Maybe, maaaaaaybe if the Tigers had had nothing of note in the minors, Monroe would’ve stuck around. But it made no sense to keep him with something a lot better in the wings. I mean, if nothing else, just think about how fast our outfield looks right now. Hot stuff.

It’s a LITTLE weird that this happens now. Why not wait ’til September?

Scary side-thought: Monroe will probably clear waivers. Jack Wilson, I think, just cleared waivers. I thought those trade talks had finally died, but if they haven’t… urgh. DO NOT WANT. Especially not since Wilson was only yesterday wheezing on the field.

The other move made was a call-up of Ramon Santiago and a corresponding demotion of Omar Infante to AAA. This makes less sense to me. Yeah, Omar’s not exactly tearing up the world with fire and vigor right now, but he’s not doing terribly for a bench guy, and I can’t see that Santiago is going to make much more of an impact. I would hope that the Tigers aren’t making moves just for the sake of making moves, and I doubt that they are, but the reasoning behind this one is not immediately clear to me.

edit: If you put some stock in the Monroe/Wilson rumor, I guess you have to consider the chance that Omar’s demotion was part of some machinations to send him to the Pirates along with Craig. If that is in fact the case, I hate it. Monroe for Wilson isn’t SO bad… I still don’t like Wilson for the money, but at least we wanted to get rid of Craig anyhow. But I do NOT like the idea of giving the Pirates anything useful for a player that we should not at all be trying hard to get. And I consider Omar to be quite useful. Also: young. So if THAT is what the plan is, yeah, I’m going to be fairly unhappy about it.

pug marks, Jan. 17

illustration by Samara Pearlstein

From now on, when I have an odds and ends post that I can’t think of a better name for, it’s getting called “pug marks”. The zoologically-inclined among you will recognize the term, and for those of you who are not familiar with it, pug marks are pawprints left behind by tigers and their awesome tiger toe-pads. Pawprints, and post titles for lazy bloggers who don’t want to write “odds and ends” and see it glaring back at them from the top of the page.

pug mark 1
Dave Dombrowski is the anti-arb.

Signed to one-year contracts are Craig Monroe, Nate Robertson, Omar Infante and Fernando Rodney. This means that none of them go to arbitration, and Mr. Dombrowski doesn’t have to sully his hands with the base squabbles of commoners. You might think that, in this whacktarded market, Nate or Fernando could have gotten a bit more if they’d really pushed the issue, but nowadays the cool kids all WANT to come to Detroit, and don’t consider it quite the desolate punishment it once was (i.e. what it still is for pro football).

We have way too many Omar-equivalents on the roster right now. Ramon Santiago is basically a less interesting Omar, and Neifi Perez is basically a more loathsome Omar. This may not bode well for the actual Omar. Billfer thinks the amount of money Omar got may indicate a willingness on the part of the Tigs to stick with him, but Rotoworld seems to be under the impression that they don’t favor him.

The official RotT position on this is “yay Omar”, “boo hiss Neifi”, “eh Ramon”.

pug mark 2
Dear Gary Sheffield: I am still trying to come to terms with the fact that you are on a team that I root for and that I now, by extension, have to root for you. This is not an easy thing for me, because I hate your Yankee tenure, your bat wiggle, and your guts. But I am TRYING, because you are a Tiger now and I have to.

Why do you have to make it harder for me?

“I’m able to lift weights that I never lifted before,” he said. “My wrist had been bothering me since Atlanta, and finally it kind of gave way. Now I’m back and I’m putting up weights like I never have. I haven’t done the things I’m able to do now in a long time.”

MLB Tigers article

WOW THAT DOESN’T SOUND LIKE YOU’RE ON STEROIDS AT ALL. I MEAN IT’S NOT AS THOUGH YOU’VE BEEN UNDER SUSPICION OF THAT, SO THERE’S REALLY NO REASON FOR ANYONE TO EVEN GO THERE IN THEIR MINDS. THIRTY-EIGHT YEAR OLD BALLPLAYERS WITH DECAYING BODIES OFTEN SUDDENLY GAIN THE ABILITY TO LIFT WEIGHTS THAT THEY HAVE “NEVER LIFTED BEFORE”.

I’m not necessarily saying he’s ‘roiding, because holy freakin’ cats would that be stupid of him right now, but WHY DID HE HAVE TO SAY THAT? Why did he have to be SO BLOODY FREAKIN’ DUMB to say something as BATGUANO INSANELY INCRIMINATING/DODGY-SOUNDING AS THAT?

“But speak out intelligently. I think that’s the key. When you’re talking about stuff that doesn’t make sense, then it becomes a problem. But when you’re making sense, then it’s valid.

“I know I don’t always make sense. It’s just knowing yourself…. Because I speak on subjects that you might not get today, but you’ll get it tomorrow.”

Oh. Alright then. I suppose this will sound loads better tomorrow.

pug mark 3
Please turn your attention to this Free Press article, and more particularly to the photo at the head of it.

Apparently the Team of the Year trophy is a small green granite tombstone. Curious design choice.

And speaking of curious design choices… I don’t know if anyone has told Brandon Inge this lately, but he’s really, REALLY pale. I mean, blonde as all get-out, and wicked pasty white on top of that. So WHY would he go about wearing the kind of pumpkin orange shirt/orange and yellow 1974 tie/gleaming brown pinstriped suit combo that even Deion Sanders might scoff at?

(Note that this is complete hyperbole to make the point; Deion would wear that outfit in a second, with several pounds of diamonds distributed carefully over it, and possibly a matching orange fedora. Also, it would look better on Deion, because he’s not WHITER THAN NASCAR.)

pug mark 4
TigerFest is this Saturday. It’s sold out (!!!), so I will not be in attendance. If you’re going, have oodles of fun and rest assured that somewhere, in the dark cold depths of Ann Arbor, there’s a student cultivating a deeply jealous sulk because you are there and she is not. I’m probably not going to make it out to any of the caravan events either (sulk sulk SULK)… they’re in Ann Arbor at some point, but I think it’s the sort of thing you have to pay through the teeth to get into, and the art school is happily making sure I don’t even have any teeth left to pay through by the end of the semester.

pug mark 5
You may have noticed some difficulty reaching this site/getting it to load properly/etc., of late. The web dude is aware of the problem, and since I have bothered him at work I can assure you that he is trying very hard to resolve it. Basically the issue is that the entire server is dependent on a team of highly trained chinchillas, and the chinchillas are in revolt. It’s a pretty touchy situation. No one wants to oppress the rights of the chinchillas, but their sudden and unexpected demands are really putting a cramp in our web service style. Hopefully they’ll see reason soon, and things (and their frail yet finely furred little legs) will run smoothly again.