Breaking Dawn

Can you feel it?

Feel what, you ask? Why, just the glorious sensation of this 2013 baseball season finally, mercifully starting up again. Pitchers and catchers officially reported to training camp today, and it feels like the beginning of something beautiful.

While the Indians may be making wanna-be flashy, late off-season moves, our team doesn't have to. Our Tigers are, once again, the team to beat in the AL Central, and THIS year our boys have the leadership and all-around experience to make another post-season run. The question is: are they going to put us through as much pain and stress as last year?

Seriously. You remember the absolute torture of last season. The last month was fun and exciting, but we do not deserve the up-and-down emotional roller coaster of 2012. But this year, we have our beloved V-Mart back, and the addition of perennial leader Torii Hunter. They can hopefully keep our team on pace and not give us so many heart attacks.

But lets get to one of the burning issues of the offseason, a question which we're sure you're all sick and tired of, which has been dissected by almost everyone and talked about at length. But who cares, because we're going to talk about it anyway!

There aren't many uncertainties on our roster this season, but the biggest and most obvious one would have to be Bruce Rondon.

Welcome to the team, Bruce! The haters have already started talking about how his inexperience and youth are going to doom our closer spot and wreck our chances at being an elite ball club. While it is true that having a crappy closer  can definitely affect the swagger of a team, how is it fair to say that Bruce Wayne Rondon is going to fail before he even starts?

Look. If Jimbo and our main man Dave Dombrowski think that the kid has the stuff to be a closer for this team, then he does. It's just a matter of him executing. We think Master Bruce is talented enough to close for our club. Whether he can handle the pressure remains to be seen, but we're not going to count him out before he even steps on the field.

The sun is rising once more on our team. It is no coincidence that our team is seemingly getting better and better as the years go on, but we think that our time is now. Who knows how long we're going to have all of these superstars and young talents together? It's time for our boys to take what is theirs, and it all starts in Lakeland. We can't wait to see what happens next.

NoTORIIous

Well!

So, it's been a while. Fifteen days, to be exact. We don't know about you guys, but the three of us needed to take a breather from baseball. There is still too much pain after that World Series From Hell, and we needed to to remove ourselves from that situation.

But, as per usual, the game we love sucks us back in, in none other than the form of a notorious, card-carrying Tiger Killer, Torii Hunter. When we first read about the Tigers showing interest in the slick-fielding outfielder, our interest was piqued, but we didn't pay too much attention to it. We knew other teams were interested in him, and we figured Torii would need to take some time to weigh his options.

We were so, so wrong.

Torii Hunter doesn't wait for you to contact him, HE goes out and contacts YOU. We have never heard of a player pitch himself so strongly and confidently to a team, let alone our own Tigers. Remember when Dombrowski & Co. had to beg people to play in the D? Those days are clearly long, long gone. Now we have All-Star Gold Glove winners banging on our door, demanding to be let on the American League Championship team.

Times, they have a'changed. To put it crudely, the Tigers are suddenly the hottest bitches on the block, and everyone wants a go. Best part is, everyones on the same page: Hunter wants a WS ring. So does Illitch. The time is now.

Do people even realize what has happened? We have gone from Delmon Young and Brennan Boesch to Victor Martinez and Torii Hunter. In what world does this happen? Yankee Land, maybe, but not in Detroit. This is absolutely crazy.

So we guess it's time to cross Mr. Hunter of our hate list and nestle him in our hearts, because he is now One Of Us. It only makes it that much sweeter that Torii wanted to play in the Old English D. What can we say? We're an appealing club.

We will address the issue of JV's Cy Young loss and Miggy's impending MVP decision (gulp!) soon. Right now, let us bask in the glow of another already successful offseason.

Haters Gonna Hate

Trust In Them.
Photo Courtesy of the Detroit Free Press

At the Tigers' Spring Training this year there have been three big stories. The first is everything and anything that has to do with Prince Fielder. The second is Brandon Inge's supposed diva-like behavior, or lack thereof. The third and only really pertinent story (at least in our minds) is how well Miguel Cabrera can play third base.

This has been a hotly debated subject since the arrival of Prince to our team. At first, we didn't really care, because we got Prince freakin' Fielder. But now that we have had a month to calm ourselves down, it's probably best that we take a moment to wonder if this whole Miggy-at-First thing will really work.

The common consensus among NON-Tiger fans is that it can't, won't, will-not work. Cabrera is too big, to slow, too poor defensively, and hasn't played third in four years. Valid arguments. Except Cabrera has lost a lot of weight. He's been training since the end of last season to play third, and it's not like we have a Hanley Ramirez on our hands who isn't willing to move. Miggy wants to play third more than anyone.

Plus, people are making him out to be an atrocious defender. Sure, he's not exactly Gold Glove material, but he's not bad. He made thirteen errors last year at first. That's not good, but it's not consistently bad. He's not going to make vintage Brandon Inge-like acrobatic plays, but we really don't think he's going to be bad.

We also must not forget the man who is playing to Cabrera's left: the much ignored, unfairly maligned Juh-honny Peralta. He proved last year that, while he might not be on Asdrubal's level defensively, he is still pretty damn good. We think he will be more than ready to take on a bigger role defensively now that Inge isn't playing third.

Our defense isn't going to be good. It will be mediocre at best, which will not result in good things for Rick Porcello's ERA. But with our very, very good offense and our very, very good pitching staff (don't let anyone tell you otherwise) we should be alright. We should learn to trust more in our coaching staff and front office--in the span of a year they have brought us nothing but good things.

The doubters? Some have they're reasons, but others are just jealous haters. And haters gonna hate.

Dave Dombrowski is a Sly, Sly, Dog...

...and we LOVE it!

In case you have no Twitter, no Facebook, and you haven't checked the Tigers' homepage in a few days, Prince Fielder is coming to Detroit!

This was probably the best kept secret in all of baseball because it surprised literally everyone. According to the idiots at ESPN, Jim Leyland didn't even know about the deal.  All of a sudden, Detroit baseball is on the map.  The major sports news teams are all abuzz about how amazing we will be in the years to come. We have the pitching, we have the hitting, and now, with Prince, we have the power!  Apparently, he will hit behind Cabrera in the lineup, replacing poor, injured Victor, and Miggy and Prince will split first base and DH.

The best and worst part about this deal?  The length. The deal is for NINE years, and 214 million dollars.  This is excellent because Prince is a career .280 hitter, with an OPS of just under one.  He hits with a lot of power, and if he's hitting behind Cabrera in the lineup, then Cabby will get a lot of on bases.   Cabby/Prince could be the best one-two punch in the American League, if not all of baseball. The negative to this is that if Prince can't make the adjustment to the Tigers, we're saddled with a very expensive benchwarmer.  We think it's an excellent move, however.  The tigers get a great DH to replace Victor Martinez, and when Victor comes back, we will most likely have the best hitting lineup in baseball.

Another great thing about Prince Fielder is that he's the son of Cecil Fielder, who played in Detroit for seven years.  Prince spent a large part of his childhood in the Detroit, and was certainly at one point in his life a tigers fan.  Love of the organization might make his transition here easier.  We're expecting more dugout shenanigans and hopefully another large personality on the team.

What does all this mean for Detroit?  Only good things.  We have an amazing pitching staff inVerlander, Fister, Porcello, Scherzer, Valverde, Coke, and Aburquerque, and we have some of the best hitters in baseball in Cabrera, Peralta, Avila (and least for a catcher), and now Prince.  We also have three of the biggest stars in the game: Fielder, Cabrera, and Verlander.  This all will put Detroit on the map in terms of both skill and star power, and we might have more exposure on the nation networks. (We can dream, right?)

We have to tip our caps to Dave Dombrowski for orchestrating what was probably a last minute trade in response to Victor's ACL injury.  Bravo, Dave, and welcome home, Sweet Prince!

P.S.  We screamed for a full 30 seconds when we saw this, no joke.  WE HAVE PRINCE FIELDER, SUCKAS!

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...

Hey Dave! Your Genius is Showing!!!

What a G(M)!

In case you haven't noticed, Dave Dombrowski is a genius.

This isn't something we've said in recent years. It's not that we've hated everything he's done, it's just that the trades he's made in the past couple of years haven't been amazing, or season-changing, or memorable.  This year however, has been exactly the opposite.  Dave Dombrowski has somehow managed to give this team  everything they've needed without giving up anything that was anywhere near essential.  Without his trades, the Tigers might not be the post-season quality team that they are at this point in the season.

The Fister/Pauley trade was perhaps the most important trade we've made so far this year, and people, Dougy was a steal.  The Tigers were obviously having a severe problem with winning when their fifth pitcher was on the mound, as evidenced by Phil Coke's 1-8 record. However, it was worse than that. Before the Tigers acquired Fister, the Tigers had a 4-17 record when the fifth starter was pitching, as opposed to a 52-34 record when the other four were starting.  Obviously the Tigers needed a new starter, and Doug has delivered.  He has a 3-1 record in his five starts so far with the Tigers, and he also has pitched seven innings in three of the games he's started, giving our bullpen a break.  He was totally worth it, and even though we miss Casper Wells' stellar personality, we cannot say that we needed his bat, or Charlie Furbush's arm or two of the minor league prospects, as much as we needed Fister on the mound.

The acquisition of Wilson Betemit was also just what the Tigers needed.  Yes, his defense hasn't been amazing, but at that point in time, with our top third basemen being Brandon Inge (who was hitting .177) and Don Kelly (who really should play off the bench) the Tigers really needed to find a guy that could produce offensively. With Wilson in our line-up we are an incredibly formidable team.  As a Tiger, Wilson is hitting an astounding .324, which is obviously much better than the production we had been getting. Yes he's already made four errors, but with Don and Brandon waiting on the bench, he can come out in late-inning defensive situations. To have this sort of offensive production from a place in our line-up that seemed hopeless is huge for the Tigers offensively.  And once again, who did we lose to obtain him? Just two class-A prospects that really couldn't have helped us in this year's pennant race.

Delmon Young has been a huge help to the Tigers as well since he's been here. We have to admit, we were a little bit skeptical of Delmon, considering that he was not only a Hated Minnesota Twin, but he was also a Tiger Killer. We basically hated Delmon whenever he played us.  But now that we think about it, it's great to have that kind of power on our team instead of against us. In his 12 games with the Tigers he already has 10 RBI and is hitting .308. Considering he's helping to support Magglio Ordonez, who is only hitting .230 this season with 24 RBI in 77 games, he is dead useful.  Once again, defensively he's not that best.  But with Austin covering 80% of the outfield anyway, who really cares?  Delmon's clutch hits in some of our recent games have given the tigers the runs they've needed to win some close ones.  And once again, we didn't lose anyone that could have possibly helped us get to the post-season this year. Dave really has put us in great position to win the American League Central for the first time since 1984.

So Dave, props to you. Fantastic job this year, good buddy.  You have somehow managed to construct an incredibly talented team that, we think, has what it takes to get to the post-season.  Cheers!

Teach Me How To Dougie

NICE.

We changed the Look of April in the D a little bit! Like it? Don't like it? Please, let us know! We don't mean to brag, but the three of us love it. 

So. The Trade. We have to be honest--at first, it made us incredibly sad to think that our beloved Casper "Upstate Baller" Wells would not be filling the Tiger's dugout with his absurd handshakes or flooding twitter with his crazy tweets. But we must say, this was one of the better trades that Dave Dombrowski has made in his time here in the D. We got a good starter (Doug Fister aka Dougie) and a solid reliever (David Pauley aka Pauly D) without giving up any of our key young players, which was what we were worried about to begin with.

On one hand, we kept reading and hearing whiny Tigers fans bitch about Dougie's record was 3-12. Look, idiots. This guy had the lowest run support in Major League Baseball. In fact, by the time the Tigers had scored him three runs, Doug had received more run support than he had all year. That's how bad the Mariners are.

On the other hand, we kept reading and hearing whiny Tigers fans bitch about how Cleveland got Ubaldo. Listen up, folks. We would have had to give up Jacob Turner, Brennan Boesch, and Rick Porcello/Max Scherzer for friggin' Ubaldo Jimenez. Guess who has a lower ERA than Saint Ubaldo? Doug Fister does. Suck on that, Indians. One good starter can't save you now!!!!

But for the most part, the Tigers fans/blogosphere had been fully supportive of The Trade, and anxious to see how our newbies would do.

So, in leading up to today's game, we were excited and nervous to see how Fister (tee hee! okay, got that out of the way) would perform. It's not like he had much to live up to, seeing as the Tigers haven't won in the 5th starting spot in a zillion years, but it was an important game to win so we could ride the momentum from Carlos "You Just Got Served" Guillen as much as possible.

We're going to be honest: when we first saw Doug take the mound, our reaction wasn't, "Wow, what pitching prowess he has!" It was more along the lines of "Looking gooooooood!"

Sorry. Girls will be girls. And we'll bet all our female readers agree with our reaction.

Needless to say, Doug Fister did not disappoint, in more ways than one. Without striking out or walking anyone, Dougie gave up only two earned runs and pitched through seven. Jose Valverde got his 30th save. Cleveland lost (again). Ubaldo can only save you every five days, suckas. All is well.

Well, for now. But for the time being, this trade looks GOLDEN.

Spring Training Thoughts

My only picture, and it sucks. Sorry.

As some of you know, last Saturday I (Laura) was in attendance at the Tigers vs. Braves game at Joker Marchant Stadium. We had really good seats--directly behind the dugout--so I was ready to take zillions of pictures of our glorious team. So, naturally, my camera died as soon as I snapped my first shot. But, no matter. I was still able to make a ton of observations on our team!

• Miguel Cabrera is my Tiger. Seriously. You have to see this guy, because he looks amazing. I know some of you have heard Rod Allen and others rhapsodize about how "firm" Miguel Cabrera's legs are, or something equally as disturbing. I also have heard many people say that Miggy is "fat". I am pleased to say that he really is much more muscled than I have ever seen him, and it looks like he lost a lot of the fat. So, for the people complaining about his weight? Muscle weighs more than fat. Duh. Also, some idiot in the row behind me had the audacity to scream stupidly about what a drunk Miggy is. Really? Say that to his face, a**hole. No one wants to mess with a 6-5, 270 pounds of (almost) pure muscled "alcoholic." No one. This has to work in our advantage-- Miggy is now ten times as intimidating as he was last year! And now other teams can't even pitch around him because...

• Victor Martinez is perfect. Even though he didn't get a hit or even a walk in the game I attended, V-Mart is going to do wonders for our team, both on and off the field. Not only are pitchers going to be kept up at night, dreading about how they'll deal with the Miggy/V-Mart one-two punch, but Martinez seems to be one of the nicest, most beloved players in the game. Every time he would walk to the mound to talk to a new pitcher, he would put his arm around him, pat him on the back, give him a hug (kidding about that last one. But that would be adorable). Everyone knows how much the Indians and Red Sox adored him, so our team should be no different. Dave Dombrowski wins again. Speaking of which....

• Dave Dombrowski was at the game! I don't know if he goes to all of them or what, but he was sitting about six or seven rows back behind home plate, just chillin' in his orange-and-white striped polo. I was thrilled to see him. Wouldn't it be sick to sit next to Dombrowski at a Tigers game?! 

• Will Rhymes wins second base spot. I honestly was not expecting this. I thought that Scotty would get it for sure. Neither of them started the game I attended--that honor belonged to danny worth. I can't say I'm not pleased about this, because who doesn't like Mighty Mouse and his twitter? Lets hope he can duplicate his success from last season while simultaneously give us unique tweets.

• Rick Porcello looked sharp...in more ways than one. He gave up one run and only three hits. He did give up about three walks, but he also had two double plays. So it really evened out. I am PRAYING that Ricky is over his sophomore slump and is ready to kick butt in the Verlander-Scherzer-Porcello triumvirate. Also, he looked tanned and gorgeous from the Lakeland sun, unlike some of the other lobster-red, sunburned Tigers. Just an observation.

• Andy Dirks....Detroit Tiger? Andy Dirks, as most of you probably know, is having a monster spring. A non-roster invite making the team? I kind of doubt it, but after seeing him in action on Saturday and driving in two runs in the bottom of the ninth for a walk-off win, who knows? I'm rooting for him, but he is still in a four-man race for only two spots. I feel like Brennan and Casper have the edge. I wish they ALL could make it.

• WTF Moment: Robbie Weinhardt didn't make the team? What?! I did not see that coming. He pitched really well in the game I went to, and he had been having a pretty good spring. Puzzling choice. We'll see what happens.