Pre-Spring Training update Feb 8, 2013

With Pitchers and Catchers reporting on Tuesday, there is good news heading into Spring Training.

Victor Martinez

Tom Gage of the Detroit News has reported that Victor Martinez looks good hitting in the cages from Lakeland, as he continues to recover from the knee surgery that forced him to miss all of the 2012 season.

Meanwhile, Justin Verlander took some time to participate in the Pebble Beach Pro-Am Golf Tournament.

Justin Verlander 

Verlander might be able to spend more time on the course at Pebble Beach in the future, if he chooses, that is….

Verlander and his agents had to be pleased at the news yesterday that Felix Hernandez of the Seattle Mariners, signed a 5-year $135.5M extension to his contract.

The Tigers and Verlander have yet to comment on the signing, BUT expect the two sides to begin working on an extension to Verlander’s current contract that expires at the end of the 2014 season.  

I would expect to see that some sort of a deal is reached between the two sides before Verlander’s current deal runs out, it wouldn’t surprise me at all, for Verlander to land an extension in the $150M range. 

Pitchers and Catchers report on Tuesday to Lakeland, with some players already there, such as Victor Martinez. 

Here are a couple of Pics to show what is involved in the process of packing up and headed to Lakeland.  (photo's courtesy of the Detroit News)

Where do 2013 Tigers Prospects rank?

Spring Training is just around the corner, so that means its time for the experts who compile lists and rankings of the best baseball prospects to produce their 2013 rankings.

Nick Castellanos

Tigers 3B/OF prospect Nick Castellanos is the consensus #1 prospect in the Tigers system.  He was named MVP of the 2012 Futures Game and his future is quite bright as a major leaguer. The question is where will Castellanos end up playing in the majors? As he is blocked at 3B in the Majors by reigning AL MVP Miguel Cabrera.

Potential closer Bruce Rondon is the generally rated as the Tigers next best prospect.  While the future for Rondon seems bright, 2013 seemingly is lining up as a very pivotal season for the hard-throwing RHP.  Rondon has hit 102 MPH and some in the scouting business say he has even touched 103 with his fastball.  He is also listed as the Tigers closer in the minds of many.  However, this is quite the gamble for the Tigers, as Rondon has only 9 IP above AA ball. 

Bruce Rondon

Castellanos and Rondon, are generally listed as the only 2 prospects to be listed on the various “Top Prospects” lists that are being published.  Both players appear on many "Top 100" lists, but not all of them.  

Detroit’s “win now’ mentality has cost the Tigers as 11 of the Top 30 prospects for 2012 and 2013 have been traded away in deals, in addition Detroit has had to forfeit its top selection in the last three MLB Drafts as compensation for signing Free Agents.

Between trading away prospects and lack of upper tier draft picks, the Tigers minor league system is considered one of the worst in the Majors heading in to the 2013 Season.  

Preview of the 2013 BP Hats

 Paul Lukas' UniWatch on ESPN has a preview of the 2013 Batting Practice Hats to be worn during Spring Training Games, as well as BP during the season.

Here are the new Detroit Tigers hats (Home hat on Top, Road hat on bottom)

Home

Road

Boy I really don't care for the new "home" version of the hat.  It just reminds me of the 70's Atlanta Braves hats, that resurfaced as "trucker hats" later.  

Paul Lukas' doesn't care for the Gray on the Road cap, calling it "snoozers" but I like it more than the home version.  

Is it time for the boys in the Old English D's to start wearing their Normal hats yet???

Tigers continue to tweak rosters as off-season continues.

Jeff Kobernus

The Detroit Tigers left the MLB Winter Meetings without making any major splashes or signings.  The “biggest move” as I commented on was moving Gene Lamont from the 3^rd base coaching box to the bench…Hardly an earth-shattering move, in the grand scheme of all things Detroit Tigers, but I’m SURE that it will be considered one of the top 5 off-season moves by legions of Tigers fans.

Detroit continues to make efforts to work on re-signing SP Anibal Sanchez.  The signing of Zack Greinke by the L.A. Dodgers will impact the Tigers in the short and long-terms, but most importantly it takes a team that was on the short list of potential suitors for Sanchez off. 

In the Rule-5 Draft last week the Tigers traded for two players that by definition of the Rule-5 draft, must remain on the Tigers 25-man roster for the entire season.

The Tigers traded IF/OF Justin Henry to the Boston Red Sox for second baseman Jeff Kobernus, and traded cash considerations to the Mets for LHP Kyle Lobstein.

Kyle Lobstein

Detroit also added its second catcher to the roster in 7 days when Detroit signed C Brayan Pena to a 1-year contract.   Detroit designated LHP Matt Hoffman for assignment to make room for Pena. Detroit now has 10 days to trade, release or outright him to the minors. 

The Tigers have been letting teams know that OF Brennan Boesch is available in a possible trade, as is SP Rick Porcello. 

As of this week, the Seattle Mariners and Tigers were in discussions for Boesch, while other sources indicated that interest is high for Porcello. 

Brayan Pena

I continue to believe that the Tigers will end up being in the “finals” to re-sign Anibal Sanchez.  Owner Mike Illitch seems determined to give GM Dave Dombrowski the leeway to make whatever moves are needed to get a World Series winner back in Detroit, SOON. I can’t help but think that the Tigers still have some financial resources to get Sanchez under contract, they just aren’t going to break the bank to do so.

Matt Hoffman

The signing of Pena means he will fill the role of Alex Avila’s backup this season, with Gerald Laird signing in Atlanta.  Pena’s contract this season will be the same salary that he made as the back-up in Kansas City last year.  The switch-hitting Pena will allow the Tigers to have Bryan Holaday back at AAA-Toledo to get another year’s worth of experience before becoming the backup to Avila for 2014. 

Catcher Ramon Cabrera, who was acquired from Pittsburgh for LHP Andy Oliver, will proved organizational depth and probably spend most of the season at AA-Erie.

Getting back to the Greinke deal in LA, the money Greinke signed for has to give the Tigers cause for concern as Justin Verlander is arguably a much better pitcher than Greinke, and with Verlander’s 5-yr/$80M  extensions up at the end of 2014, he could easily break the “record” deal signed by Greinke.  I would doubt that JV and his agents would be willing to give the Tigers a “hometown” discount, considering the fact that Verlander will be entering the prime of his career, without winning a title in Detroit.  

TigerTizzy.com as always would like to thank you for following this Detroit Tigers blog, and I acknowledge that I can not give you the information about your Tigers without the help of the "pro's" like Jason Beck and those at MLBtraderumors.com, who's links are credited here on this blog.  

Tigers biggest Winter Meetings move is? (Thus far)

Gene Lamont

So the Winter Meetings are now in Day 3 and the “biggest move” made by your Detroit Tigers, was Gene Lamont to the bench. 

After “kinda-sorta” hinting that something like this would be made, shortly after the World Series, Tigers Manager Jim Leyland confirmed, yesterday, that Gene Lamont will move from coaching 3^rd base for the Tigers to the bench, assisting Leyland as the Bench Coach.

Tom Brookens moves from coaching 1^st base over to Lamont’s old 3^rd base position, and Rafael Belliard, moves into Brookens 1^st base coaching slot. 

Tom Brookens

Leyland did say that the move was not related to Lamont’s aggressive coaching in the World Series, just saying that “it might be time for him to come over to the bench with me, and put Brookie (Brookens) out there”. 

Meanwhile in other news…

The Tigers remain one of 5 or 6 teams courting the services of RHP Anibal Sanchez. A report that Sanchez was “insulted” by the Tigers 4-year $48M offer, have turned out to be inaccurate, however the rumors persist that Sanchez is looking for a deal in the area of 7-years and $100M, and if that is indeed the case, expect the Tigers to opt out of the discussion. 

Tigers head into Winter Meetings looking to make more moves

With the Major League Baseball Winter Meetings taking place this week, the Detroit Tigers continue to search for keys to bringing home an elusive World Series title.

Let’s take a few quick moments to review the Tigers off-season moves, thus far into the Hot-Stove league season.

At the end of October the Tigers exercised the contract options on SS Jhonny Peralta and RP Octavio Dotel, and Signed Manager Jim Leyland (and his entire staff) to a 1-year contract.  The Tigers also announced that they would not re-sign RP Jose Valverde and OF/DH Delmon Young. 

Torii Hunter

Bruce Rondon

In November the Tigers signed OF Torii Hunter to a 2-year $26M contract, while sending INF/OF Don Kelly outright to Toledo, and releasing OF Ryan Raburn. The Tigers also selected 3 contracts of 3 players from Toledo, the most notable of them being RP Bruce Rondon.

With the winter meetings starting, the Tigers are rumored to have interest in adding a Shortstop this off-season, despite exercising the option of Jhonny Peralta.  Potential targets for the Tigers appear to be Stephen Drew and Asdrubal Cabrera.

Also high on the priority list is signing FA-SP Anibal Sanchez, who according to sources is looking to get a 5-year deal as a Free Agent. 

Anibal Sanchez

Despite making the World Series last season, after what some would deem a “disappointing” regular season, the Detroit Tigers have been aggressive thus far this off season, with the signing of Torii Hunter and announcing that RP Jose Valverde and OF Delmon Young, the Tigers all-time leading post-season Home Run hitter.

SP Rick Porcello and OF Brennan Boesch are players that the Tigers are discussing as “trade-bait” as General Manager Dave Dombrowski continues to try and tweak the roster to get his team over the hump and bring a World Series title back to Detroit for the first time since 1984. 

Tigers expected to exercise club option on Peralta

According to www.mlbtraderumors.com, the Detroit Tigers are expected to pick up the club option on SS Jhonny Peralta’s contract for 2013.

There were rumors towards the end of the season that the Tigers might have let Peralta test Free Agent waters, but his strong post season (12 hits in 35 AB, in the 2012 post-season, including 2 HR) combined with a weak free agent shortstop class have put the Tigers in position to consider Peralta’s $6MM option “reasonable” according to Jon Heyman of CBSSports.com. 


Personally I was hoping that the Tigers would explore other options at SS for next season, but as reported on www.mlbtraderumors.com  Yunel Escobar is about the best available option to replace Peralta as the Tigers SS next season, and the Tigers appear to have no interest in him.