Tomorrow is the deadline for teams to offer arbitration to their free agents. (Players have until December 7 to decide whether or not to accept.) And with that, several Tigers blogs have weighed in on what Detroit should do with Placido Polanco, Fernando Rodney, and Brandon Lyon. The Detroit Tigers Weblog believes Lyon might be the only one to receive an offer. Mack Avenue Tigers and Tiger Tales each think Polanco won't get arbitration. (Lynn Henning, however, thinks all three will get an offer.)
Just agreeing with everyone is kind of boring, but I'm swimming with the current here. I don't think Polanco will receive an arbitration offer. (Lyon and Rodney will.) Detroit has Scott Sizemore ready to take over at second base, and the smart baseball move is to let that happen. (I'm guessing the Tigers have felt this way going back to last season, too. It was just a matter of which second base prospect - Sizemore, Rhymes, Hollimon, Worth - was ready first.)
Hoping for a first-round draft pick - a pick teams likely won't be willing to give up to sign Polanco - isn't reason enough to make an offer. Unless the Tigers don't think Sizemore's ready (or are concerned about his broken leg), it's not the right decision.
Jon Paul Morosi continues torturing Detroit Tigers fans by coming up with a handy, dandy chart to illustrate which teams might be a good fit in trades for Edwin Jackson, Curtis Granderson, or Miguel Cabrera. Four of the team teams he lists are matches for all three. This dot-connecting exercise is based on Morosi's opinion, not necessarily conversations he's had with any baseball executives.
Morosi also spoke with a National League executive who believes the Tigers could receive "an enticing prospect package" for Cabrera if they were willing to cover approximately $5 million of his annual salary.
Henning's popularity among BYB readers hasn't exactly soared in recent months. His latest blog post probably won't help with that. Henning puts a percentage on the likelihood of Jackson, Granderson, or Cabrera getting traded.
Is this the year either Jack Morris or Alan Trammell is finally voted into the Baseball Hall of Fame? Jason Beck presents the case for each player with career retrospectives. Morris might be gaining some momentum as his vote totals have increased the last two years. Trammell, unfortunately, slipped last year.
Here are the other candidates for the 2009 Hall of Fame class. It'll be interesting to see what kind of support Edgar Martinez gets, as he was primarily a designated hitter throughout his career. (The tour guide who showed us around Safeco Field back in May was very hopeful of his chances, as you might imagine.) Second baseman Roberto Alomar and shortstop Barry Larkin look like favorites to win induction.