Baseball Historians

It’s getting close to that time of the year when the Hall vote is revealed.  My guess is that Goose Gossage gets in with Bert Blyleven making a jump to where he finally gets his rightful place as an inductee.  Two 1984 Tigers are still on the ballot with Alan Trammell and Jack Morris staying [...]

Kevin Goldstein at Baseball Prospectus recently published his list of the top eleven Rangers prospects and while a number of these guys weren’t drafted by the Rangers, it’s nice to have a restocked farm system principally after the trades of Eric Gagne and Mark Teixeira.  Neftali Perez, who came over in the Braves trade for [...]

The Padres signed hometown boy Mark Prior to a one year deal in another pickup of an injury plagued pitcher.  Earlier in the month, they picked up Randy Wolf to a one year deal and you wonder if the logic is, if they pay Prior and Wolf to the equivalent of a decent starter, one [...]

Hopefully everyone had a nice holiday.  I’ll probably touch on this in a year end piece later this week, but with Christmas coming and going, it’s now time to get back to it and it’s going to be a busy next couple of weeks with work on both the Hardball Times Season Preview and Tigers [...]

It’s rare that I find myself dumbfounded. One time was certainly the moment a few months ago when an old friend from college told me he was gay. I was pretty awestruck when I realized that Christina Aguilera had gone way past Britney Spears on the attractiveness scale (something I never thought possible). [...]

This is one of those deals where you tend to let your emotions get the best of you.  Josh Hamilton won over the hearts of Reds fans last year with a solid campaign after they picked him up in the Rule 5 draft.  Now after just that one solid season, he’s been dealt to the [...]

The Tigers have rumored to have given Dontrelle Willis a three year, $29 million contract extension.  More on this tonight.
***UPDATE***
Alright, I’ve had some time to digest the extension and my initial thought is that it’s a good thing.  You have a solid pitcher with a pedigree (that 2005 season has to have Tigers salivating) and [...]

I’ve been working with Bill Dow, a freelance baseball writer, on the 2008 Edition of Tigers Corner and when he mentioned he had an interview with Ron LeFlore that one of the big papers didn’t end up running, I asked him if he’d like to put it up on Tigerblog.  Fortunately for us, he was nice [...]

I read a rumor that Homer Bailey was in a proposed deal for Eric Bedard of the Orioles during the Winter meetings. I was initially shocked to see that but it’s fair to say that Homer, while he has HUGE upside, is not yet an established MLB starter. Bedard on the other hand [...]

The much anticipated (for a variety of reasons) Mitchell Report was put out yesterday and at least in my opinion, it didn’t live up to the hype.  Most of the report centered around Kurt Radomski’s testimony and while he had evidence, you’re talking about a lot of fringe players to go along with a few [...]

The Tigers had until last night to make a decision on their non-arbitration eligible, non-free agents and the they signed one and non-tendered the other.  Tim Byrdak, who eventually filled the gap left when Jamie Walker left the team as a left handed relief specialist, signed a one year, $712,500 deal.  Byrdak had 49 strikeouts [...]

This news report talks about how the Tigers are in talks with the Pirates about a trade that would include Chad Durbin.  They don’t specify who the Tigers would get in a deal but whenever I hear about the Pirates in a trade, I think of the Jack Wilson fiasco last year.  The Pirates already [...]

I’m a huge fan of live comedy and one of the best shows I ever went to was back in 2005 when we saw Mike Green at Mark Ridley’s Comedy Castle in Royal Oak.  Mike is from the Detroit area and he’s both a Tigerblog reader and a big Tiger fan (even though at the time, he made [...]

One of the relievers the Tigers were talking too, veteran Latroy Hawkins, signed with the Yankees earlier this week.  At this point, the free agent market for reliever is a little thin so we’ll see what the Tigers do to fill this final hole in the 2008 team.
Jason Beck has his latest mailbag installment and [...]

This shouldn’t come as a huge surprise, but Brandon Inge has told management that he’d rather start for someone else rather then play a reserve role with the Tigers.  Jason Beck talks about the Giants being the team that’s most likely to want him and it’ll be interesting to see what we can get for [...]

Baseball America put out their list of Dodgers top ten prospects and there’s little surprise that left handed starter Clayton Kershaw tops the list.  The left handed pitcher dominated the Midwest League and then he was just as solid in Double A.  Kershaw will probably spend some time back at Double A but it wouldn’t [...]

Chase Headley heads the list of Padres top ten prospects put out by Baseball America.  He struggled when he got a cup of coffee in September but he rocked Double A pitching with an impressive OPS of 1.017.  Right now, Headley looks like he’s ready for the Padres but they have to make room for him.
Last [...]

Randor Bierd was the best of the three players the Tigers lost in the Rule 5 draft yesterday.  Bierd could turn out to be a solid middle reliever for a big league team and while he wasn’t a huge loss, this is a guy who could have played a role with the Tigers in the [...]

It’s not official yet but all signs point to the Royals signing Jose Guillen to shore up their outfield.  The slugger has had a troubled past but this is kind of what the Royals need to do.   Let’s call it the Tigers Model.  They were really bad and no free agent wanted to sign with [...]

According to the latest Rumor Mill column at Baseball Prospectus, the Red Sox aren’t as close to trading for Johan Santana as we thought.  In addition, it’s unclear whether Jacoby Ellsbury or Coco Crisp is part of the deal but even without Ellsbury in there, it looks like the Red Sox are giving up two [...]

The Dodgers made their first big splash of the offseason when they signed slugging centerfielder Andruw Jones to a two year, $36 million deal.  The shorter term deal is probably a win/win for both Jones and the Dodgers because we’ll get to see whether Jones’ poor 2007 season was a fluke or not.
This makes Juan [...]

This isn’t a huge surprise with the Tigers designating Chris Shelton for assisgnment but they dealt him to the Rangers for minor league outfielder Freddy Guzman.  Chris Shelton is one of the more interesting players the Tigers have had in a while.  A Rule 5 pick, Shelton put together a solid 2005 season then took [...]

The best analysis I’ve seen on the six prospects the Marlins received in their trade for Dontrelle Willis and Miguel Carbera was Kevin Goldstein’s over at Baseball Prospectus.  Best case scenario is that Andrew Miller and Cameron Maybin turn out to be the studs everyone expects them to be and Dallas Trahern and Eulogio De [...]

First off, Detroit Tigers Weblog compiled a lot of the blogger comments from yesterday’s trade.  It’s worth checking out.
In a perfect world, a trade works out for both teams so it’s interesting to speculate on how this trade should go for both the Marlins and Tigers.  For the Tigers, they sign Dontrelle Willis and Miguel [...]

You don’t see these kind of blockbusters much anymore but the Marlins and Tigers pulled it off.  I’m beat and going to bed but I’ll evaluate the prospects received tomorrow.

What happens to Brandon Inge?  You have to think he might be on the way out unless he’s willing to revert back to a super sub like he did back in 2004.
How does this lineup look:
1)  Curtis Granderson  CF - Should Have Been an All Star
2)  Placido Polanco 2B - 2007 All Star
3)  Gary Sheffield  [...]

Well, the deal isn’t done quite yet, but what looked like a deal that wasn’t going to happen this afternoon turned into a fact when the Tigers traded Andrew Miller, Cameron Maybin, Dallas Trahern, Eulogio De La Cruz, Mike Rabello and Burke Badenhop to the Marlins for Miguel Cabrera and Dontrelle Willis.
Wow, the Tigers gave [...]

There’s a rumored deal I heard on WXYT that would have Andrew Miller and Cameron Maybin going to the Marlins for Dontrelle Willis and Miguel Cabrera.  This would be a huge deal if they could pull it off.
***UPDATE***
Jason Beck is on the radio now and he indicated that this deal is unlikely and that the [...]

The Rays parted ways with the troubled Elijah Dukes today when they sent him to the Nationals for minor league pitcher Glenn Gibson.  Dukes could still be a star but it’s the second bad apple that the Rays have gotten rid of in a week.  Dukes played for a couple of months as the team’s [...]

Over the weekend, the Nationals traded Lastings Milledge who had his problems in the past.  This goes way beyond on this as the Nationals traded minor league pitchers Glenn Gibson for Elijah Dukes.  The centerfielder was accused of violating a restraining order last year and was placed on the temporarily inactive list after the Rays [...]