The league I'm currently in with people from my home town has yet to draft and I'm getting a little impatient.  Looking forward to it getting up and running but doesn't look like anyone's in a rush to get it going.  Only played on Yahoo's before but I don't really care what site we use if someone has a preference I guess.

Anyone be interested in playing in a BYB league?

So my friend Kyle and I noticed the other night, about 4 am that the Tigers are holding open tryouts to anyone over the age of 18.  Leading us to figure, hey, lets go on Spring Break a week early and try out (and get cut) for the baseball club we love.  We're heading down to the Lakeland/Tampa area on March 3rd-16th, and was wondering if anyone would be in the area, either Spring Breakin' or you just live in Florida, cause we're lookin for places to stay for a few days at a time.  Don't worry, we're good folks, just need a roof from time to time.  So if you feel like helping a hand for a few of your fellow Tiger fans, let me know on here, or on Facebook (Ross Johnson, University of Indianapolis network).  Also you can follow us on Facebook if you'd like, search for the group "Two Men, One Dream, and a Thousand Miles of Seperation"

Thanks, and Go Tigers

-Rojo

Interesting post about him, compares him with other players this season on total bases and home runs, and with players from the past who've had lop-sided seasons like his.  The main focus is on how many bases he had on how few home-runs.  It was cool to look at, only takes a few minutes to scroll through, here's the link:

http://www.baseball-reference.com/sotd/archives/539

I'm an officer over on the Facebook Tigers Fan Application, and just approved a bunch of photos someone took from the event.  They aren't the best quality, most like cell phone pictures, but they give you an inside look of what day-to-day operations go on.  You get to see stuff like Leylands office and junk like that so if interested head on by and check out some of the photos.

-Rojo

With the payroll in the $130 million range, and being 3rd behind the Yankees and Boston, we as Tiger fans have to do our best to support the team.  The holidays is the perfect time to get your loved ones some Detroit gear.

If we're gonna be competing on the Redsox-Yankees level, we gotta start letting Illitch that we appreciate him investing in the team.  Bring on the fair-weather fans.  They buy hats too, don't give em too much of a hard time for being bandwagon'ers.

Now before I begin, I think this has to be 110% bullshit, but thought I'd post it up to see if anyone could denounce it or not.  But I was reading about a trade for Brandon Inge and Nate Robertson, with the Tigers picking up a lot of Inge's contract in exchange for Johan Santana.  This made no sense, as I think right now we're trying to lose a lot of contract weight and well that'd do the opposite.  Plus trading your ace to a division rival is basically saying your not even gonna give the postseason a thought next year.

Had the Cabrera-Willis deal not just happened out of the blue, I wouldn't have posted this up, given the fact that it seems pretty impossible as it stands.  But it would be pretty nice.  Ian, possible you can check some of the sites you frequent for Tigers info to see if there is anything to back-up/deny this rumor?

I just wrote this article on the Facebook Tigers Fan application, and I'm sort of a rookie with this kind of thing so take a look and tell me what you think.

Recently the Mets acquired Johnny Estrada from the Brewers for one of their crappier relievers, and it made me wonder whether or not we could've picked him up at the end of the season for someone like Grilli.  We're paying Pudge 13 million this year, and if trends continue as they have over the past three seasons, this should be his most lackluster year yet.  Estrada shapes up nearly the same as Pudge in every category except Caught Stealing, where Pudge threw out 10 more runners than him.  His Range Factor was higher, and offensively he had a better On Base Percentage, plus half as many strikeouts as Pudge.  Another plus, Estrada's a switch hitter, which would be a great asset in our right- hand dominated line-up.

Estrada's contract is worth 3.4, roughly ten million less than Pudge.  Imagine where that money could've been spent.  Picking up Schilling or Glavine (I doubt we could've lured Glavine, but it was still a possibility) for a year?  Having enough bucks to lure someone like Rivera or Cordero to come close for you, rather than have to rely on Todd to get it done.  A solid closer for the next few years would be nice, having already picked up a veteran pitcher like Schilling or Glavine would make our position in negotiating with Kenny a whole lot better, and if Rogers did come back our rotation would be bullet proof with two veteran starters.  Or we could've just gone out and loaded up on some middle relief, which everyone would agree that we're lacking.

Personally the Tigers are not a high budget team, and I hate to see our money wrapped up in an overpaid player with declining talent.  Freeing up an extra ten mil could've totally changed our post-season strategy.

Now in Ivan's defense, he is a great catcher, and his leadership within the Tigers' organization could be the reason they kept him around for 2008.  I've only been considering this because of management's meeting in October discussing whether or not to exercise his option.  I think it was a mistake, personally, but I hope he'll bounce back this year.  God knows we need him.

Estrada wasn't the only option behind the plate, but after seeing him recently being traded to the Mets for essentially nothing, it made me think.

-Rojo

Do you really like the two trades made recently?  Edgar Renteria was the best SS out there, but we gave up two stellar prospects inorder to get him, Jair was shaping up to be a pretty good pitcher, perhaps in a few seasons along the caliber of Bonderman and Verlander, and that'd be a hell of a tri-fecto starting pitching rotation.  I'm not gonna talk much about Gorky since I didn't follow him much in the minors and never saw him make it to the show, but from what I've read around the net he was a developing stud.  If Jair's shoulder injury would've affected the rest of his career then I think we got a steal, I just hope we didn't pull another Doyle Alexander with this deal.

About the Infante deal, I'm not necessarily for it either.  I liked Infante, and the idea of having a great utility man whom you could count on to play almost anywhere.  Honestly I don't think he got enough playing time, he hit well enough when he was in and was solid in the field.  I'm not going to call this a bad deal yet, because I didn't watch Jones play much this season, or enough to make a call on this.  My Cubs fan friends really liked this deal, makes me nervous.  What do you guys think about the deals?  I can't back up my arguments with stats or anything, just my gut feelings on them.

-Rojo