unacceptable, Tigers

screaming tiger by Samara Pearlstein

There is a rumor going around saying that the Tigers are shopping Edwin Jackson and Curtis Granderson.

In short:

NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO

NO

Just go ahead and try to read this without vomiting and/or bursting into tears:

In a cost-cutting frame of mind, the Tigers have let teams now [sic] that Curtis Granderson could be had for the right package, an NL executive told The Post.

Granderson would be attractive to many teams, with the Yankees near the top of the list.

NY Post article

Every time I try to type out how this little blurb makes me feel, I end up just mashing my hands repeatedly on the keyboard while screaming and twitching. asl;dfkjhas;ldkfjasl;dkfjas;dlfkjas;ldfkj. aAalkjasdflikuhoiqwefih;ashv98yq9283rydf, I say. This is, basically, NOT OK. It is possibly the LEAST OK thing I can think of right now when it comes to the Tigers. Holy FREAKIN’ cats, I know it’s the Post and the grain of salt we should take this with is therefore more like a hearty salt boulder, but even the MEREST, SLIGHTEST HINT OF A THOUGHT of this happening is derailing my brain. Screeeeeeech, thud, brain splattered all over the tracks.

Curtis Granderson stays. Period. End of sentence. END OF SPECULATION ABOUT SOMETHING SO HORRIFIC AS THE DEPARTURE OF CURTIS GRANDERSON FROM THIS DETROIT TIGERS TEAM. I hate to get fuzzy on you here, but he is really the heart and soul of the squad, he is one of the most popular guys on the team with the fans (if not THE most popular), he is amazing for the community and for baseball and HE IS A DETROIT TIGER, HE STAYS. HE DOES NOT LEAVE. IT IS NOT ALLOWED.

MR. DOMBROWSKI. I HAVE A LOT OF RESPECT FOR YOU, GENERALLY. AND I KNOW THAT THE ECONOMY IS CRUDCATS RIGHT NOW, ESPECIALLY IN DETROIT. BUT YOU ARE NOT WITH THE MARLINS ANYMORE, please do not manage this team all Firesale-in-Florida style. I am begging you. As a blogger who wishes to exit this offseason with at least one strand of sanity left intact, I am begging you to let this rumor remain a rumor and never even sniff the gamy hindquarters of reality.

After that, the Jackson trade rumors seem downright mundane, although they are truly hilarious and absurd. I mean, think about it. The Tigers had soooooooo much extra starting pitching this past season! They can totally spare a dude or two! They practically had starting pitchers coming out of Paws’ ears by the end there, right?

Oh wait, what’s that you say? You say that the Tigers were so strapped for pitching that they spent most of the latter half of the year trying to limp by with three starters instead of the customary five? Ahhhh, so it was. Can’t believe I forgot. Must have blocked all those horrible memories out as a defense mechanism for my poor, suffering brain.

If the Tigers trade Jackson, that amounts to them saying, “You want to see baseball in Michigan this season? Perhaps you should start following the Big 10.”

Now (as I take a blog-version deep breath), these are rumors. Probably nothing will come of them. Probably. Because if something were to come of them… well, that would be crazy and wrong. You know, I know, Paws knows it. Right? Just making sure we’re all on the same page here.

say hello to your 2009 gold glove winning second baseman

photo by Samara Pearlstein

Is there anything fiercer than Placido Polanco? Anything more stylish, more elegant, doing more with such a large head? At second base in the American League, the answer is NO. There is Placido Polanco, and then there are the pedestrians.

Placido Polanco is an amazing defensive second baseman. He’s been great in the past and he was great again. The man was 33 years old this season (his birthday’s in October, so he’s 34 now), playing at an infield position that demands quick reflexes and good flexibility. Do you know how many games he played in this season? I will give you the answer: almost all of them.

I don’t even care about your ~*~defensive statistics~*~ and whatnot, although I know he had good ones (the Mothership sez so). Just watch this fierce cat play. He’s short and a little chunky and very balding and sometimes his little ears get cold so he wears a snood/spandex hoodie under his hat, ok, and he fields screaming line drives like a freakin’ ballerina in cleats. HATERS TO THE LEFT, YO.

He’s a free agent this offseason, so I guess this will only help his/his agent’s pleas for cash’n’years, but let me just say

WE LOVE YOU, PLACIDO, WE ARE THE ONES WHO LOVE YOU BEST, COME BACK TO USSSSSSSSS

the River Thames flows on

photo illustration by Samara Pearlstein

The Tigers have effectively released Marcus Thames tonight, sending him off into the thorny wilds of free agency. At the same time they set Matt Treanor free, but we barely got to know him. The River has been with us since the ’04 season.

~*~the end of an era~*~

And what a weird era it was. The River showed promise here and there, usually in the form of power. Most of us probably have a memory or two of some favorite, massive, awe-inspiring Thames home run. That was where he excelled. His ability to hit for average was always pretty weak, and his ability to get on base was usually not massively better (although it WAS better). He didn’t have much speed and he was an indifferent outfielder. But when he got around square on a baseball… hoo boy.

As Rod Allen would of course say: COUNTRY STRONG!

The River only played in 100+ games twice in his Tigers career, in 2006 and 2008. In both those years he had solid numbers: slugging percentages over .500, 20+ home runs, OPSs over .800. He was never really a proper regular, though, not even in those years. Despite their willingness to trot out all kinds of disasters at various times, the Tigers never did seem to warm up to the idea of an everyday River. Jim Leyland never acted like he thought Thames was a legitimate starter, even when there was a dearth of legitimate starters on the team. Obviously this did not work out well for The River, who ended up sitting more than he wanted to and perhaps quite a bit more than he would have on another team.

Why? I don’t know. I can assume (hope) that the coaching staff and front office had their reasons. Like I said, it’s not as though The River was some sort of star fielder, or had some amazing ability to get on base. He was always a fairly depthless power guy. But that never seemed to stop the Tigers where other cats were concerned.

The River will be 33 next season. He’s done with the Tigers; here’s hoping he catches on somewhere else and tears it the heck up. So long as said tear-ups don’t immediately and negatively affect the Tigers.

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.

let this be goodbye, Jarrod

photo by Samara Pearlstein

Jarrod Washburn had surgery on his knee, expects to be ready by Spring Training, and sure as squirrels will not be back with the Tigers.

That article is from the Mariners mothership and mostly talks about Washburn from a Mariner perspective, but he does say a few things about the Tigers:

“The knee limited me to what I could do [for the Tigers],” he said. “I was doing everything possible to figure out a way to get through it, but unfortunately it never happened. But they were very understanding and helpful.”

…

he admitted to having mixed feelings when the Mariners traded him to the Tigers.

“Going to a first-place team was nice,” he said, “but I was leaving a group of players that I loved. It was both good and bad.”

Jim Street, MLB.com

Well, Jarrod, it was mostly bad. But I guess we were all pretty optimistic for ten seconds or so back when the trade first went down.

In other news, there is no other news. Akinori Iwamura was just traded to the Pirates. Vicente Padilla shot himself in the leg at a shooting range. I am rooting really, really hard for the Phillies to pull this thing out. The Lions are terrible at football. What sad times these are.