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A Look at the 2012 MLB Season

Brian Borawski — Tue, 06 Dec 2011 03:13:38 +0000

It has been just over a month since the Cardinals won the 2011 World Series and I, along with a lot of folks, already miss baseball very much! Now that the official MLB schedule is up, that means 2012 MLB game tickets are now available for sale! I can’t wait to get back to the stadium to watch my favorite players take the field, and I’m sure that’s the truth for a lot of us baseball fans. Take a look at the most popular series for the 2012 season so far:

>> Yankees @ Red Sox: April 20 – 22

>> Cubs @ Cardinals: April 13 – 15

>> Cardinals @ Marlins: April 4

>> Rays @ Red Sox: April 13 – 16

>> MLB Exhibition Yankees @ Marlins: April 1 – 2

>> White Sox @ Yankees: June 28 – July 1

These are just a few series that are sure to sell well, but a lot will be changing as the off-season progresses. Trades will be made and rosters will not be the same. Managers will leave and Minor leaguers will break through to the Majors. That’s the beauty of baseball and it can’t come soon enough!

Still Little Interest In Jeremy Bonderman

Brian — Sun, 13 Feb 2011 02:41:48 +0000

It looks like Jeremy Bonderman’s prospects for a major league deal are close to zero. Indians beat writer Paul Hoynes tweeted that the Indians are still interested in Bonderman, but only with a minor league deal. That’s not too surprising considering Bonderman’s last few years but I thought he might be able to pull off [...]

Tigers Close to 4 Year Deal for Victor Martinez

Brian — Tue, 23 Nov 2010 16:22:08 +0000

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.

Ten Greatest Living Players

Brian — Sun, 21 Nov 2010 19:20:46 +0000

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).

Joaquin Benoit, The 40 Man Roster and Lions’ Cheerleaders

Brian — Sun, 21 Nov 2010 14:14:25 +0000

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 [...]

Tigers Close to Signing Joaquin Benoit

Brian — Wed, 17 Nov 2010 16:09:13 +0000

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 [...]

What if the 1987 Braves Didn’t Trade Doyle Alexander?

Brian — Tue, 16 Nov 2010 14:47:03 +0000

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 [...]

Marlins Trade Andrew Miller, Cameron Maybin

Brian — Mon, 15 Nov 2010 15:09:44 +0000

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 [...]

Hot Stove Shutout?

Brian — Mon, 15 Nov 2010 01:42:30 +0000

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 [...]

1987 Draft Do Over

Brian — Wed, 10 Nov 2010 16:23:37 +0000

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 [...]

The Jhonny Peralta Signing

Brian — Mon, 08 Nov 2010 16:11:36 +0000

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 [...]

Quick Hit: Eddie Bonine Still In The Tiger’s Plan

Brian — Mon, 08 Nov 2010 00:17:36 +0000

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 [...]

Tigers Even Closer to Signing Peralta

Brian — Sun, 07 Nov 2010 23:02:44 +0000

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 [...]

What If the Tigers Drafted Tim Lincecum?

Brian — Sun, 07 Nov 2010 16:51:21 +0000

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 [...]

Big Bats

Brian — Sun, 07 Nov 2010 12:42:05 +0000

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 [...]

Tigers Close to Signing Jhonny Peralta

Brian — Sat, 06 Nov 2010 21:32:12 +0000

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 [...]

Free Agent Signing Eve

Brian — Sat, 06 Nov 2010 12:21:38 +0000

Or should it be Hot Stove Eve? I don’t know but whatever you call it, tomorrow players are able to negotiate and sign deals with any team, effectively kicking off the baseball off-season. And a little segue, but this is one of the best things about baseball. There’s very little downtime and there are always [...]

Tigers Trade Brent Dlugach to the Red Sox

Brian — Fri, 05 Nov 2010 18:55:20 +0000

The Tigers sent minor league shortstop Brent Dlugach to the Boston Red Sox for the infamous player to be named later (or cash consideration) yesterday. Dlugach was a September call up in 2009 but he spent all of 2010 in Toledo where he had a mediocre season at the plate. At this point, and at [...]

More Sparky

Brian — Fri, 05 Nov 2010 11:37:25 +0000

Sparky Anderson got a lot of love on all of the various Tigers sites yesterday. Here’s one more by Chris Jaffe, the author of Evaluating Baseball’s Managers, where he gives the run down on Sparky as well as some interesting tidbits on his career.

Quick Hit: How Good Have the Tigers Been

Brian — Fri, 05 Nov 2010 01:46:33 +0000

This was a curiosity but it warrants some talk. On August 7, 2006, the Tigers stood 40 games above .500 at 76-36. Since that point in time, the Tigers have gone a combined 348-351 over the last four seasons and change. They’ve had some moments (like a nice run in 2007 and the good first [...]

Eddie Bonine Elects Free Agency

Brian — Fri, 05 Nov 2010 01:41:37 +0000

With all of the Sparky news, this one kind of got lost in the shuffle. Tiger’s started Eddie Bonine filed for free agency after he was outrighted to Triple-A. He’ll be joined by minor leaguers Max St. Piere, Jay Sborz and Jeff Frazier once the five day deadline passes and players can talk to other [...]

Farewell Sparky Anderson

Brian — Thu, 04 Nov 2010 19:06:36 +0000

“Players have two things to do. Play and keep their mouths shut.” Sparky Anderson Man, it wasn’t that long ago that I was writing something like this about Ernie. If Ernie was the voice of the Tigers for me, Sparky was the team’s face. Earlier in the year, I talked about how Ernie was baseball [...]

Quick Hit: Former Tiger Wil Ledezma Signs One Year Deal With Pirates

Brian — Thu, 04 Nov 2010 16:53:03 +0000

Finally some consistency for former Tiger Wil Ledezma. The left handed pitcher played for six teams since 2007 and he had a weird year for the Pirates last year. He gave up a lot of hits, but his strikeout to walk ratio showed some promise (22/6 in 19 2/3 innings). He’s also got a reverse platoon split [...]

Quick Hit: Nate Robertson’s Future

Brian — Thu, 04 Nov 2010 13:35:34 +0000

Baseball Prospectus recently put out a piece on pitchers who might be forced to take minor league deals in order to keep their careers going. Former Tiger Nate Robertson made the list after a rough 2010 season. I always liked Robertson. He was a solid middle of the rotation lefty for a while and he [...]

Quick Hit: Tram in the Hall

Brian — Wed, 03 Nov 2010 13:58:43 +0000

With the 2010 season in the books, it’s time to start thinking about the Hall of Fame. In a pretty detailed analysis, Baseball Reference Blog provides the positives and the negatives to Alan Trammell’s candidacy. It looks like there’s a large consensus that thinks Tram is deserving (close to 68%) but only 14% of the [...]

Sparky Anderson In Hospice

Brian — Wed, 03 Nov 2010 13:44:05 +0000

When Sparky took over as the Tigers manager in 1979, I was eight years old. When he retired, I was 24. So throughout the time I was developing as a baseball fan, Sparky was always there. That’s why I’m saddened to hear that Sparky has been put into hospice care. In the past, there were [...]

Tigers Decline Peralta’s Option

Brian — Tue, 02 Nov 2010 17:56:07 +0000

That didn’t take long. The Tigers opted to not exercise Jhonny Peralta’s $7.25 million option for next year. That doesn’t mean Peralta isn’t going to be in a Tiger’s uniform, it just means they didn’t like that price so now the front office has a few days to get a new deal on the table to [...]

Quick Hit: Tigers Interested in Prince Fielder

Brian — Tue, 02 Nov 2010 15:05:01 +0000

I just got done listening to today’s ESPN Baseball Today podcast and near the very end, Seth Everett mentioned a rumor that the Tigers were pretty interested in Prince Fielder. Of course Prince is son of former Tiger’s slugger Cecil Fielder so there is a tie and I remember when Prince made the news when [...]

Hot Stove on Steroids

Brian — Tue, 02 Nov 2010 14:02:07 +0000

First off, congratulations to the San Francisco Giants. It’s been a while for their fans and it’s the first since they’ve moved to the West Coast. Still, I don’t like the fact that the Tigers have moved up another notch as far as World Series droughts go. It was interesting seeing all of the former [...]

Alderson Era Begins: Respected MLB executive hired as 12th GM in Mets history

Jay Flannelly — Tue, 02 Nov 2010 03:42:04 +0000

As long rumored, the New York Mets hired highly respected baseball executive Sandy Alderson as their General Manager Friday. The ex Marine and Lawyer is best known for building the powerful Oakland A’s teams(GM from 83-97) of the late 80s and early 90s, he also served as CEO of the San Diego Padres(2005-2009) after the [...]