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!