Detroit Tigers begin building the 2015 roster

Detroit Tigers General Manager Dave Dombrowski has begun to build out his  roster for the 2015 season. Attending the annual GM meetings Dombrowski has acted quickly once again this off season. His first move was to resign Victor Martinez to a four year 68 million dollar deal. He then traded the top prospect in the Tigers' farm system, Devon Travis, to the Toronto Blue Jays for OF Anthony Gose. There are no rumors that the team is shopping C Alex Avila.

With these moves we start to see what the 2015 Tigers will look like. Once again the Tigers are in win now mode. They are hoping they can win a World Series title before their championship window slams shut. They are closer to that, and to being the Philadelphia Phillies (minus a ring of course) then they are as legit contenders for said title.

This is a roster that is still too top heavy, and that might be good for ticket sales, and that might be just good enough to win the division, However after four straight divisional titles, and four post seasons that do not end with a win how much longer will Tigers fans be content with simply winning the division. The simple truth here is the two things that help a team win in he playoffs are the two things were this roster continues to be deficient. Those two things are of course team defense and a strong reliable bullpen.

I am more than sick of hearing how this team is built for the post season. If that is true why do the Tigers lose in the playoffs so GD always!! Every other team minus the Cleveland Indians have won a World Series title since the Tigers last one won. The Kansas City Royals just won the AL pennant, the way the Tigers have been going about this clearly doesn't work.

The simple fact here is the roster is too top heavy. This was certainly true last year when they dealt away Prince Fielder. It remains true after trade deadline deals and the beginning of the hot stove season has seen the team deal away a number of its top prospects. Granted prospects in baseball are hardly known commodities but as good as the stars on this team is exactly how bad the bottom of the roster is and they need more balance to truly be considered legit contenders for a World Series ring.

Gose is fast, and he looks to be a legit Center fielder. The plan looks like he will platoon with Rajai Davis out there. However he has no bat, and he strikes out far to often to be considered a legit leadoff guy. So in effect the Tigers have added another bottom of the order guy, and it seems like he main plus to this situation is he will make the minimum salary over the next two seasons.

I am not as concerned about losing Travis as others. Since Ian Kinsler is likely going to be here for the foreseeable future and the club also has Hernan Perez. I would like to see Perez play 2015 in Toledo continue to develop while Jose Iglesisas and Andrew Romine man the middle infield in Detroit. I am ok with that situation.

It is far to early to start predicting the job Dombrwoski is doing to build out the roster for 2015. A big chunk of that will be what winds up happening with Avila. It would be nice to add another bat to the middle of this lineup.

Detroit Tigers news and notes

Detroit Tigers position by position review: second base

The second base spot on the Detroit Tigers roster has been in flux for some time. Ever since the team let Placido Polanco walk out of town without so much as on a offer following the 2009 season. It got so bad that the team had to add Omar Infante back to the roster last year at the trading deadline. That sort of made up for the rather poor decision to trade away Infante in the first palce for Jacque Jones a move that helped lead to the disaster that was 2008. Jacque would only last on the Tigers till May of 2008 and we can argue that the Tigers could have used Infante at short if not at second nearly all of that time. Granted the team had an aging Carlos Guillen, Polanco as well as Ramon Santiago on the roster so there was a surplus of infielders but I think the team would have done better to keep Infante.

Granted none of that is here nor there, and the Infante for Jones deal is hardly the only trade Dave Dombrowski made that backfired. Now the Infante is on the open market, and due a pretty big raise based on his performance for the Tigers the second base situation once again is in flux. It seems to me the first name to sign a contract this off season will be Max Scherzer and no other commitments will be made till that is done.

Infante hit .318 with 10 home runs and 51 RBI and was a nice fit in the bottom third of the Tigers batting order. However, his defensive skills are his value to the Tigers with Prince Fielder at first and Miguel Cabrera at third the Tigers need middle infielderd with range. They had that with Infante and with Jose Iglesias at short. Now they either resign Infante who made 4 million in 2013 or they go with the youngster Hernan Perez at second and save some money to address other needs. The only way I support doing so is if the Tigers go out and upgrade the catching situation. Alex Avila does not have enough offensive production to justify having him hit every day along with the light bats of Iglesias and Perez.

The preferable option is to bring back Infante, but economics might decide that. How much can the Tigers afford to pay him is not known but there seems to be a big fall off from the top free agent 2nd baseman, Robinson Cano, to Infante to the rest of the free agent field at this position. The crazy option, and Mr Illitch has been know to go this route from time to time, would be to sign Cano to a huge deal and get a second baseman and a lead off guy this roster so desperately needs.

I do not think the Tigers can afford to pay Infante anything more than 6 million dollars or so. I also happen to think there is a team out there that will offer him more. That means you take the savings where you can, and play Perez here and look to upgrade the situation at Catcher to help improve the bottom of the order. Good teams, winning teams have a good mix of high priced free agent acquisitions and younger kids that can play adequately and who have good defense. I think Hernan Perez is the likely 2014 starter at second.

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Detroit Tigers 2013 week in review: Week 19

The Tigers won 12 games in a row till Friday when the lost to the New York Yankees in New York. They then spent the weekend dropping another and losing the series to the Yankees, and winding up the 2013 season 3-3 against those damn Yankees. We saw the highs went the Tigers won game #12 in a row and everyone was ready to elect Dave Dombrowski the king of baseball, and then we saw the lows as the bullpen he constructed went out and sort of dropped the ball in the Empire State. The thing to remember about baseball is to not over react to any one game or series, but Tigers fans have a very hard time accepting that truth of this sport.

The simple truth is the Tigers destroyed a division rival last week, are in first place by seven full games and as long as the offense does not fall completely asleep the Tigers will be just fine. And let us be clear this is an offense problem not a bullpen problem. In fact since the All Star Game the bullpen has performed quite well.

When we look at the box score from yesterdays game we see that the Tigers had 13 hits but scored only 4 runs. The good news is the Tigers offense has been scoring runs late in games in fact three of the four runs yesterday came past the 7th inning, but they are not scoring in the middle innings putting games out of reach. When they do score runs in the middle innings there W-L record is quite good, when they do not the late innings W-L numbers are a bit more uneven.

The news of the week is Alex Avila has been placed on the 7 day concussion DL, and the team is quite concerned about this development. Alex handles the pitching staff very well and so far in the second half of the season has had a hotter bat. Bryan Holaday was added to the active roster to take his spot for the week, this likely means we will see Brayan Pena a lot this coming week.

As always a quick look at the splits. The team is 69-47. At home they are 37-19 and on the road they are 32-28 when they play they way they are capable of plying they look unbeatable however the offense still has the annoying habit of going to sleep at key moments. Over the last ten they are 8-2 and if they keep that up the division race will be over before we get to September.

The Good:

• Speaking of Pena who is very solid behind the plate but over 146 at bats this season is hitting .299. He might not have a lot of power with just four home runs but 46 hits and 18 RBI are strong numbers for a bottom of the order guy. 
• Drew Smyly- He has pitched the most innings of any Tigers reliever so far this year and still has a Whip under 1.00, and a very good ERA of 1.98. Drew is the real deal, and let's hope he is not a one year wonder. 
• Max Scherzer- he is an unreal 17-1 with a 2.84 ERA and leads the team with 175 strike outs. Legit Cy Young numbers. 

The Bad:

• Phil Coke- it looks like Jim Leyland has figured this one out and will pick the spots were Coke pitches very carefully. It looks like he is once again the left handed specialist only and he will likely only see left handed batters for now. His 5.19 ERA is the reason why
• Hernan Perez- He is getting lots of playing time with Omar Infante still out. He has just over 30 at bats but is hitting just .214 The Tigers offense needs Infante's bat back. 

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