The Daily Fungo says the Tigers should steer clear of Jose Valverde, if the Astros shop him around.  Valverde posted 44 saves, a 3.38 ERA, and 83 strikeouts in 72 innings this past season.

  Yahoo! Sports' Tim Brown thinks Detroit should have a paddle in the CC Sabathia auction.  If, you know, they want to stay competitive with the Yankees and Red Sox in the American League.

  Big Al just wants Dave Dombrowski to do something.  Throw us a bone.  And it wouldn't hurt if Jim Leyland tried to push his boss to take some action.

  The Tigers had to submit their 40-man roster by last night, so we'll probably know about it soon enough.  In the meantime, Eddie at Detroit Tigers Thoughts predicts how the final list will shake out.

  Darren Oliver's agent says he's had several conversations with the Tigers, as they likely try to figure out what sort of offer they'll make.  10 teams have apparently expressed some form of interest in the free agent left-hander.  However, nothing will happen until after December 1, when the Angels have to decide whether or not to offer Oliver arbitration.

  Nate Silver takes a break from analyzing polls and appearing on seemingly every cable news show to preview the AL Central's off-season for Sports Illustrated (on behalf of Baseball Prospectus).  Should Carlos Guillen be the guy the Tigers should look at trading?

(Hat tip to Kurt for that one)

  I already said my piece on Tom Gage's MVP vote for Francisco Rodriguez yesterday, but he made his case in a longer piece for yesterday's Detroit News.  I'm not sure he justified basing his vote on K-Rod's save totals any better, but at least he attempts to explain himself.

  Over at The Spot Starters, Blake tries to figure out where Clete Thomas fits on the 2009 Detroit Tigers.  The Cult is pleased.

  Speaking of Blake, he's joined up with me and Mike McClary at our all-baseball blog, Baseball Blend.  "You have an all-baseball blog?"  Well, that was our intent, but after the first month of the season, we completely buckled underneath the self-imposed workload.

But Blake has been doing a great job at BB over the past couple of weeks, being the posting field we all know him as.  Please click over there and check him (us) out, if you get a chance.  We're just getting warmed up.  We have cool cartoon avatars.

  I've been plugging other things too much on these "Stripes" posts lately, haven't I?  Sorry about that.

Remember back in 2007, when the Detroit News' Tom Gage was one of two lone writers (the Oakland Press' Jim Hawkins being the other) who gave their first-place American League Most Valuable Player vote to Magglio Ordonez instead of Alex Rodriguez?

Even Detroit Tigers fans acknowledged (perhaps grudgingly) that A-Rod had a better season than Maggs.  Yet Gage and Hawkins looked like total homers in voting for the guy they watched - by virtue of their jobs as Tigers beat writers - every day. 

"I went with what I saw," [Gage] said.  "So many times, you have to vote off the stat sheet.  I fully expected A Rod to win.  He had a great year.  But I saw an MVP year.  There were stats to back up the impression that I came away with from the regular season."

This year, Gage apparently voted off the stat sheet again.  And the stat that clearly impressed him the most was saves.  The 62 saves that Francisco Rodriguez compiled this past season for the Angels warranted a first-place MVP vote from Gage, making him the only writer to put him at the top of his ballot.  To his credit, at least he owned up to it.

Meanwhile, 16 of Gage's colleagues gave their votes to Boston's Dustin Pedroia, who actually won the AL MVP award.  Finishing second with seven first-place votes was Minnesota's Justin Morneau, while Kevin Youkilis and Joe Mauer each received two votes. 

Perhaps Gage was so impressed by saves because the team he covers for a living had such incredible difficulty accumulating them.  Hey, I'm just trying to understand.  It's the first step toward helping.

By the way, the Tigers' Miguel Cabrera finished 13th overall in AL MVP voting.

EDIT (9:30 p.m.): Thanks to Mike McClary for pointing out an error.  I originally wrote that Gage's MVP vote for Magglio was in 2006.  Oops.

  Apparently, it was Kenny Rogers' idea, not Jim Leyland's, to be taken out of the starting rotation.  Not only did he know he wasn't pitching well enough to keep getting starts, but Rogers realized the team needs to take a look at other pitchers on the staff as they plan for next year.

   Has Curtis Granderson been the best leadoff hitter in the majors since the All-Star break?  The Spot Starters (with Blake's snazzy new layout) decided to see if the numbers support such an assertion.

   I think the general consensus in Tiger Town is "just say no" to Frankie Rodriguez.  Newsday's Ken Davidoff says the Mets aren't interested, and the Cardinals could be the front-runners for K-Rod.  But he's keeping the Tigers in the picture, while acknowledging they need to cut payroll, not add it.

(via MLB Trade Rumors)

   Instead of a hugely expensive free agent, maybe the Tigers should look to the far east for relief.  Both The Detroit Tigers Weblog and Detroit Tigers Thoughts think Detroit should explore getting into the Junichi Tazawa business.  The 22-year-old Tazawa throws in the low 90s and struck out 56 batters (vs. four walks) in 54 innings, while helping his amateur team to a championship.

Signing Tazawa would also make my mother happy because she often asks me why the Tigers don't have any Asian players, and she's not buying my "because Jim Leyland doesn't speak Japanese" rationale.

   Over at Roar of the Tigers, Samela has coined an expletive that is sure to catch on.  At least over the next two weeks.  "Catdamn!"  Which player will it be directed at the most? 

  Just when you thought this Kyle Farnsworth deal couldn't work out much worse fo the Tigers, it looks like they won't even get a draft pick for him once he enters free agency.  What a revolting development.