Baseball Historians

On a couple of different levels, this piece by Jason Beck about the Tigers looking for a right fielder is interesting.  The first interesting tidbit I took out of it was that it looks like the Tigers are set on Ryan Raburn as the team’s starting…

Some Mets News items: 1- Collins’ staff taking shape: New skipper Terry Collins is reportedly going to retain 2 members of Jerry Manuel’s 2010 staff, pitching coach Dan Warthen and 3rd base coach Chip Hale. Collins will more than likely cho…

Yesterday I talked about the state of the Tigers rotation.  Well, just in the past day, two guys the Tigers could have made a grab for are close to being tied up. It looks like the Brewers and Nationals are going strong after Carl Pavano and now the C…

Kevin Goldstein at Baseball Prospectus recently listed out his top eleven Nationals prospects.  This team still has some talent even though Stephen Strasburg has rolled off the list and there’s no surprise that the slugging outfielder, Bryce Har…

A little over a week after the Pirates designated Zach Duke for assignment, the Diamondbacks picked him up in a deal for a player to be named later.  Duke had a rough 2010 (8-15, 5.72 ERA) but here’s to hoping the one time top prospect can turn …

Looks like I got this one wrong. Alex Avila is going to be the Tigers starting catcher (at least to open the season).  Victor Martinez’s role will primarly at designated hitter but he’ll fill in for Avila when he needs a break.

So far, the Tigers have shored up their offense and their bullpen.  These are both admirable tasks but back in 2006, when the Tigers made it all the way to the World Series, they did it predominately with pitching and defense.  So far, the Tigers hav…

Alright, the Tigers aren’t waiting for the Winter Meetings.  They’ve already inked Brandon Inge, Jhonny Peralta and Joaquin Benoit to multi-year deals and now it looks like the Tigers are very close to inking Victor Martinez to a four year…

Ken Rosenthal broke this one but the Tigers are close to inking Victor Martinez to a four year, $50 million deal.  More to come on this as the story develops.  The Tigers aren’t wasting any time this off season.

According to numerous media reports, former Angels and Astros skipper Terry Collins will be named the Manager of the New York Mets with a press conference more than likely Tuesday. Previously serving as the club’s minor league field coordinator, …

While I can’t argue with many of the guys on this list, I guess I would have thought Al Kaline might have made the cut.  I might have put him in over Koufax but I didn’t think through if there was anyone else off the list that might make more sense then Kaline (and Koufax).

The Tigers signed Rays reliever Joaquin Benoit to a three year, $16.5 million deal earlier this week  and if things go as planned, this should really firm up the Tigers bullpen heading into 2011.  I already talked about Benoit and his sick numbers last year.  He had rotator cuff surgery in 2008, took all of [...]

Jon Paul Morosi wrote this morning that the Tigers are close to signing a multi-year deal to bring Joaquin Benoit to Detroit.  Benoit had a hard time finding work at the beginning of the 2010 season after missing all of 2009 and he opted for a minor league deal with the Rays this year.  The [...]

UPDATES ON  METS MAJOR NEWS ITEMS: 1- Managerial search down to 4 candidates: The 4 finalists to manage the 2011 New York Mets: Bob Melvin, Wally Backman, Terry Collins and Chip Hale, All four will have 2nd interviews with the club before the conclusi…

Austin Jackson had a nice rookie campaign for the Tigers in 2010.  It just wasn’t quite good enough because he finished second to Neftali Feliz for AL ROY of the Year.  When you look at Wins Above Replacement, these two were nearly identical (Jackson had a slight edge with 2.5 to Feliz’s 2.4) so this [...]

The Doyle Alexander for John Smoltz trade is one of the more infamous trades in the Tigers history.  In a late season trade, the veteran Alexander was shipped to Detroit for prospect John Smoltz.  Alexander did his job and was awesome in his eleven starts for Detroit (9-0, 3.9 WAR) and in hindsight it’s safe [...]

It was close to three years ago that the Marlins and Tigers rocked the winter meetings with their blockbuster deal that sent Miguel Cabrera and Dontrelle Willis to Detroit for a package of six prospects.  Not in back to back days, the Marlins have traded the two cornerstones of at least their end of the [...]

Tiger fans are expecting a big signing this winter.  They have a ton of money coming off of the books and that should open the door for one of the big, blue chip free agents out there, right??  Well, my biggest concern is the Tigers could be the odd team out.  They’re rumored not to [...]

The Pirates seem to be interested in oft-injured Oakland A’s pitcher Justin Duchscherer.  When Duchscherer is healthy, he’s pretty good but he hasn’t been healthy for some time.  He’s a reliever turned starter and he’s s…

In an interesting series Geoff Young at the Hardball Times is going through the 1987 draft and imagining what would have happened had each team take what would eventually be the best player available based on WAR (Wins Above Replacement).  The Tigers actually did their job in this draft because they’re one of only four [...]

This offseason could be tough because longtime Ray Carl Crawford as well as Carlos Pena and Rafael Soriano are probably headed elsewhere.  While it could turn out to be a retooling year of sorts, the Rays still have some awesome talent coming up the p…

There’s little argument that 2011 was a train wreck for the Mariners.  After a solid 2009 campaign and some nifty offseason moves, the Mariners tanked out of the gate and there’s little to indicate that it won’t be more of the same n…

I was going to do my analysis but then I ran across this at FanGraphs.com that pretty much echoes my sentiment.  The money for Peralta sounds high, but the big problem is there’s not a lot of alternatives. Once you get past Derek Jeter, who should go back to the Yankees, things thin out quick [...]

Kevin Goldstein at BP recently penned his Pirates Top 11 list today.  The Pirates were busy in 2010 and like Goldstein says, the Pirates are a ways away, but they have some nice pieces coming up the pipeline.  The Pirates have two five star players a…

It looks like the Tigers might not have given up Eddie Bonine quite yet.  Jon Paul Morosi tweeted that the Tigers were interested in signing him to a minor league deal.  It looks like the Phillies are also interested in the right hander.  This wouldn’t the be the first time the Phillies cashed in on [...]

Jon Paul Morosi broke the news a couple of hours ago that the Tigers are going to announce their two year, $11 million deal with Jhonny Peralta some time this week.  Like I said yesterday, this should lock up the Tigers infield.  A lot of people are complaining about the amount of money but I’ll [...]

Baseball America, recently put out their Blue Jays top ten prospect list and topping the list was no surprise.  Kyle Drabek came over in the Roy Halladay trade and he got his feet wet with three starts in September callup.  After a solid season for D…

In the 2006 draft, nine teams passed on Tim Lincecum before the San Francisco Giants took him with the tenth pick.  Kevin Goldstein, in his latest Future Shock, speculates what might have happened if each of the nine teams ahead of the Giants had taken Lincecum. Of course one of those teams was the Detroit [...]

I wrote about this yesterday, but it appears that offense is the Tigers primary focus in the offseason.  John Lowe recently gave us a run down on the guys the Tigers are likely to go after.  I still like Adam Dunn the best, but Carl Crawford is the most intriguing and probably be the best [...]

Beck’s Blog broke the story that the Tigers are close to signing Jhonny Peralta to a two year deal for $11.25 million.  I like the amount because it pretty much shores up the infield, gives the Tigers a solid shortstop option and still gives them plenty of cash to go out and get a big [...]