Phil Rogers at the Chicago Tribune struck down a trade for Curtis Granderson that would involve top prospect Starlin Castro.  The shortstop prospect had a solid season (.302 batting average) at High A ball and at Double A (.288 average, 12/10 strikeout to walk ratio) as a 19 year old and he raked in the Arizona Fall League (.376 in 101 at bats).  Curtis is of course Curtis and it sounds like it’ll be tough to make a deal with the Cubs that won’t involve Castro.

Permalink | Posted in 2010 Tigers | 1 Comment »

Marc Hulet at Fangraphs gave a nice synopsis of the Tigers last few draft classes.  He says some pretty nice things about Jacob Turner, the Tigers first round draft pick this year, and while the Tigers minor league system was gutted with the pre-2008 season trades, the front office has been able to stock things back up in a hurry.

I was kind of out of it a few weeks back.  Did the Tigers offer arbitration to any of their unsigned free agents?  Just wondering if we might be getting an extra draft pick or two.

Permalink | Posted in 2010 Tigers | 1 Comment »

Lynn Henning wrote today that he wouldn’t be surprised if the Tigers ship a player or two to Seattle.  It still bothers me that there’s all this talk of the Tigers trading for prospects after such a close run last year but what happens in these next couple of months will show what the front office really thinks of the team.  Most of the season, the Tigers played like a .500 ball club and while that might be good enough to make a run in the AL Central, it’s probably not good for much more then that.  Just look at the Twins, who continually make the postseason only to get bounced in three or four games in the first round.

Some of the prospects he mentions are interesting though.  I’d stay away from Carlos Triunfel because he’s only 19, unless of course he’s part of a package.   I wouldn’t mind seeing Brandon Morrow come over either although he had a tough season last year because the Mariners couldn’t decide whether to start him or bring him out of the pen.  His last start was encouraging though (eight shutout innings, one hit, nine strikeouts).

The White Sox are close to making a move.  It looks like they’re going to bring in Omar Vizquel and his eleven gold gloves to fill in at shortstop.  Vizquel only played in 62 games last year and he turns 43 in April.

Permalink | Posted in 2010 Tigers | 1 Comment »

The Tigers added four players to 40 man roster today in anticipation of the midnight deadline.  All four were position players and they included future second baseman Scott Sizemore.  Audy Ciricao (shortstop), Ryan Strieby (first base) and Brennan Boesch (outfield) were all protected as well.

That leaves quite a few pitchers unprotected heading into the Rule 5 draft at the end of the Winter Meetings.  DTW gives us the details on who’s left out there with Luis Marte being the most interesting name on the list.  Marte was lights out for Lakeland in 2008 but he struggled once he hit Double-A.  This year, he spent the entire season at Erie and he put together a good but not great season.

Permalink | Posted in 2010 Tigers | No Comments »

Tigerblog just entered the 21st century.  I finally figured out to how to set up a Facebook fan page so if you want to follow the site that way, sign up as a fan.  You can also find me on Twitter at @tigerblog.

Free agent signing season begins today.  I expect things will be rather subdued until the Winter Meetings when the general managers can collude coordinate.  Everything is going to be about the economy and Bud Selig is already crying about how an unspecified and unnamed number of teams lost money last year.  December 7th is when the Winter Meetings kick off.

Permalink | Posted in 2010 Tigers | No Comments »