It's only a matter of time before the Tigers are linked to every veteran hitter who is getting up there in years and/or coming off a poor 2011 season. Whether or not they have interest in all of those players, who's to say?
Today, for example, the Tigers were in the news -- at least on Twitter -- for the following reported reasons.
- They pushed hard for Roy Oswalt, even had Justin Verlander give him a call, but he does not want to play in Detroit. (CBS Sports' Danny Knobler says.)
- Raul Ibanez and Hedeki Matsui may be of interest. (Knobler)
- Johnny Damon may be of interest (Fox Sports' Jon Paul Morosi)
- Don't forget Juan Pierre. (Morosi and Jim Bowden)
In the coming days I expect to hear about a push for Vladimir Guerrero, as well, and probably more.
And I haven't even brought up trade rumors! So I just wanted to write a few notes about rumors.
I will point you toward Motor City Bengals for a longer post on reasons why, but in short, I find the MLB Insider News Twitter account dubious and will not report on its rumors. The account may try to tell you it was first on some story, but generally it's just incorrect. Ignore them.
Most of what the national media members report doesn't occur either, but they don't tell you it's a done deal. They just tell you what they pick up in chatter from their sources, which may or may not have a snowball's chance of occurring, and which may or may not come from sources with agendas. (It's their job as journalists to sort out who has an agenda and how it impacts what they say, but I worry that some of that is lost in the Twitter age.)
Sometimes the Tigers deny these rumors were ever the case. Just remember, not every rumor comes from solid truth, and not every denial has to come from solid truth either. It's hard for us to know which side was closer to the truth, so I find it best to just keep a healthy skepticism of everything.
Sources closer to Detroit like MLive's Chris Iott, MLB.com's Jason Beck, the Oakland Press's Matthew B Mowery, the Freep's John Lowe or the News' Tom Gage or Tony Paul probably aren't going to throw rumors at the wall at all. So when they tell you something is happening, there's a good chance it is. (The News' Lynn Henning does seem to toss things at the wall, so I remain skeptical of his reports.)
What sports radio does is frequently spitball ideas. And unfortunately, a lot of hosts just like to make noises and don't know what they're talking about. So most of what they say isn't even reporting rumors, it's just throwing names about.
As for us, we're more in the analysis business than the breaking news business, but from time to time I do break news. (Also: wind.) I don't want to be wrong. Like, ever. To me, credibility is huge and I want you to keep testing what we say against what actually happens. So if we've got some news here that no one else has yet, it's because I feel pretty darn confident in reporting it.
So with those messages out of the way, I now return you to rumor central.