Random Tigers Thoughts From Laura: 12/28/11

I'm back! Finally. Not like much has happened since I left, but still...

Predictably, the three of us have been too busy/depressed to update when we say we will. Why are we depressed, you ask? It's because we have entered that horrible post-holidays pre-Spring Training time of the year. The sky is forever grey, the ground is covered with ice and horrible slushy brown snow, and the hot, sunny, baseball-filled months seem years away. Rough times.

And what has big bad Dave Dombrowski done to brighten these dreary winter days? Nothing. Nada. The only thing of note for the past few weeks has been poor Al Al going on the DL until the All-Star Break. Not exactly the ray of light us Tigers fans hoped for.

Plus, of course, no TigerFest. I'm disappointed, as I was actually planning on going this year. It would have been a perfect opportunity to stalk meet my heroes, but of course the Tigers had to snatch away that small joy too.

At least I, like most of you, got to celebrate the holidays. And with the holidays comes the chance to receive some more random Tigers stuff. TigerFest would have been the perfect platform to debut some of my finery, but since I obviously can't do that, you can see it below. You're welcome.

Tigers gear + church clothes = good look

What else? Besides the the Detroit Tigers website's thrilling news that Don Kelly likes to play Catch Phrase, all has been maddeningly calm in the baseball world. One thing you can do though is check out Roar of the Tiger's Eight Days of Terrible Chanukah Cartoons. The are equal parts informative, hilarious, and brilliant.  Click over there for some last bits of holiday cheer!

That's it from me. I wait with bated breath for ANY news AT ALL from the Tigers, but who knows what's going on with them. Until next time!

We're Horrible People

Or at the very least, horrible bloggers.

What with the holidays and a constant stream of NO NEWS AT ALL (come on, Dave! Do something fun!!!) from our Boys, we have not been very diligent blogger people. We will have new stuff hopefully by the 26th!

We love you all! Happy Holidays!

-Laura, Megan, and Rosie

These Times...

…they definitely are a-changin'.


Over the past few days the Tigers have suffered a few casualties of the offseason, and while we think these moves were definitely made for the good of the club, we can't help but mourn the loss of some of our quirkiest personalities.

Goodbye, Ryan Perry (Agent P). We loved your cute baby face (which was sometimes adorned with ill-advised flesh-colored facial hair), 6-4 frame, and, of course, your tattoo sleeve which was badass and really sexy. Your inconsistencies and postseason woes aside, we loved having you on our team if only for the fact that you made a great RP-duo with your roommate, Rick Porcello. You will be missed.

Farewell, Will Rhymes (Mighty Mouse). You surprised us all with your scrappiness and grit when you came up during the 2010 season, and you shocked us more when you hustle and pluck won you a spot as the starting second-baseman in April. Unfortunately for you the job was to be short-lived, but your hilarious (and sometimes biting) tweets were to continue. So goodbye, Will Rhymes. Stay cool. Stay scrappy. Stay small.

Also, peace out, TigerFest (?!?!?!?!). We really, really, reeeallllyy wanted to go this year to stalk see all our favorite players and pester them ask them lots of questions, but it was not to be. Construction to our beloved Comerica Park is the one thing standing in the way of the three of us going to the Promised Land  TigerFest. FINE. If that's the way Marketing wants to play it this year, whatever. Pffffft. Who really wants to meet Justin Verlander anyway????

Some good news, though. Welcome to the D, Octavio Dotel! A (good) veteran long-reliever is exactly what our already solid bullpen needs. With Dotel, Coke, Alburquerque, Benoit and Valverde, our bullpen will have the depth that it most decidedly did not have last year. He also says he "feels like I'm at my house" since he knows most, if not all, of the Latino players on the big league roster. This can only help the feeling of camaraderie that our team already has. Team chemistry never hurts!

Plus, we really like his name. Octavio. How very cool.

Another addition to our above-average bullpen, we welcome Collin Balester to the fold. We don't know too much about him yet, but he has a twitter and he can grow a fierce mustache. These things only work in his favor, to be quite honest. Could it be, personality-wise at least, that we have a new Casper Wells on our hands?! We can only hope.

We're sure the Tigers front office, spearheaded by our fearless leader Dave Dombrowski, will make some more offseason moves in the near future (Yoennis Cespedes, anyone?). In the meantime, we can make our peace with the loss of two fine players, and welcome our new, better ones. Out with the old, in with the new!

Oh The Weather Outside is Frightful...

As the Michigan representative of April in the D, I have some news to report. You probably all know this by now, but Brandon Inge was in a multi-car crash today! It is because Michigan is mean and temperamental, and we already have snow everywhere. Actually, it's way worse than snow because it's just warm enough so that the snow melts during the day and then freezes at night, and now we have a dangerous ice slick. You would think that Brandon would know how to drive in Michigan by now, but apparently he does not.

Now before you all get your panties in a twist, I am glad to report that there were no injuries involved.  So not only is Brandon Inge not hurt, but he's probably not facing any lawsuits either.  We do have to admit that we were still really scared when we heard about it, but we sure are glad that everything is okay!

We've had enough problems with Tigers and cars, and we don't want anymore!

-Megan

DIBS!

So, a lot of you guys probably know about Bless You Boy's annual DIBS (Detroit Independent Baseball Scribes) Awards, celebrating a plethora of Tigers achievements throughout the season. Well, for some reason, they let the three of us join the fun this year, and we got to weigh in on who won the awards.

(There was also an opportunity for us to create our own categories. We had some ideas, but we didn't think our fellow bloggers--especially the male ones--would appreciate voting on the "Most Stunning Physique" award.)

Without further ado, here are the winners in their respective categories, with additional commentary on who we voted for and why!

Most Valuable Tiger
Winner: Justin Verlander
Our Choice: Justin Verlander

MVP, Cy Young Award Winner, Triple Crown champ--there is no other person who made more of an impact on not only our team, but the whole league. The obvious choice.

Best Rookie
Winner: Al Alburquerque
Our Choice: Al Alburquerque

Since Al Al's only competition was Andy "Run-Forest-Run" Dirks, this was another obvious choice. It should be mentioned that Al was quite the surprise this year, and we look forward to watching him become the next Joel Zumaya seeing him make hitters look like absolute fools next year.

Best Role Player
Winner: Ramon Santiago
Our Choice…Alex Avila (Ramon Santiago)

We make fun of people for acting like idiots, so we should just go ahead and laugh at ourselves right now. We misread the category and voted for Avila, but if we weren't so dumb we would have voted for Ramon. He is very solid defensively at both short and second, and while Some People (Read: Don Kelly) play more positions, that doesn't mean they play all those positions that well.

Best Moment
Winner: Austin Jackson Double-Play
Out Choice: ALDS Game 5 Win

There were so many great, unforgettable moments this season. Jackson's DP. Raburn and Cabrera's home runs to come back from 7 down against the White Sox. Verlander's no-hitter. But in the end, for us at least, there was never a moment where we were more proud of our team than when Valverde struck out A-Rod to beat the Yankees at Yankee Stadium. Where everyone and their mother said we would lose. It was truly a team effort, and an exciting game we could watch over and over again.

Team Clown
Winner: Phil Coke
Our Choice: Phil Coke

Obviously there is no one else who could take this title away from insane Phil Coke. This is the man who, when we were at the ALCS, ran over to the tarp-covered field and literally started throwing water in the air (much to the delight of the two of us and the rest of the rain-soaked crowd). We love you Phil. Never change!

Best Hair
Winner: Alex Avila
Our Choice: Alex Avila

We're sure balding men everywhere, when not making fun of his ridiculously fast beard growth, are bemoaning the fact that they can't have as much hair as Avila. It's certainly entertaining for us to literally watch his five-o-clock shadow become noticeably darker by the end of a game!

Tiger's Organization Name of the Year
Winner: Doug Fister
Our Choice: Doug Fister

Ha. Hahahahaha. Poor Dougie. Let him take solace in knowing that he freaking rocks at throwing a baseball and makes millions. That should dull the pain.

Goofiest Moment
Winner: 3-way tie
Our Choice: Don Kelly igniting in flames

Justin Verlander should get a medal for that. Supposedly the real victim was supposed to be poor sweet Bumble Below, but since DK is loveably oblivious, he got hot-footed instead.

Best Victor Martinez
Winner: Senior
Our Choice: BOTH

Aw, come on, we know the answer is Victor Martinez Sr…but who can resist that face?!?! Too cute.

That was fun, kids. Now we go back to "studying for finals" when what we're really doing is obsessively checking Twitter for news on whats happening in the Winter Meetings. College Student
Problems…

G-Money (and Others) in the D

Ca$h Monayyyy

He's baaaaaaaaaaack!!!

We think we speak for most Tiger fans that we weren't all torn up when Gerald Laird left Detroit last year. Sure, he was solid defensively, but he wasn't the best hitter and he had been known to start brawls. So needless to say, it wasn't with a heavy heart that we watched him go.

But now Rod and Mario can pull their favorite nickname out again, because G-Money is back in business behind the Tigers' plate. But he's not the other oldie-but-goodie coming back. Ramon Santiago has just inked a two-year deal with the Tigs, so he's returning as well.

Okay. Now, the G-Money deal? It's a good one-he knows the staff, he knows the organization, and he can play decent defense. He'll be a good backup to our ALL STAR SILVER SLUGGER STARTING CATHER Alex Avila (we love typing that). However, seeing Ryan Doumit go to the evil Twins organization makes us die a little inside. He was our dream backup catcher, but it appears that G-Money will suffice.

The other reason we love Laird back? Because we get to type G-Money all the time. Maybe we'll just shorten it to G-$$$. Sorry readers, after this post you'll probably never see us type out Gerald Laird's full name again.

But the Santiago deal? Uhhhhhhh. If he's playing backup, that's cool, but Ramon Santiago, as lovable a person as he apparently is, is not a long-term option at the second base position. Sure, he had a pretty hot end of the season. But lets not get crazy, Dave & Co. You just kept Santiago around because he's a clubhouse fave, right? We're still holding out for Martin Prado, right?

Speaking of which, Winter Meetings are coming up. That wily old fox Dombrowski always has something cray cray up his sleeve. If the interest in Prado, Mark Buehrle, Coco Crisp, Amaris Ramirez, and others are anywhere close to true, then we think these winter meetings are going to be very interesting. Very interesting indeed...