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Happy Friday, fellow Tigers fans! Pull up a chair, help yourself to some strong coffee (with or without booze, that's your call), and have a heaping plate of crisp-n-greasy headlines and hot, buttery news items.
If you somehow missed all of Thursday's hot stove action (perhaps you got unusually involved in an intense reading of The Brothers Karamazov and stayed off the grid for 24 hours), the big news is that the Tigers traded starting pitcher Rick Porcello for Yoenis Cespedes, and also made a trade for former Reds starting pitcher Alfredo Simon.
What's that you say? You had a strong attachment to "Kid Rick," and don't know how you'll face 2015 without him on the team? You're not alone.
The End Of #RickPorcelloNightInAmerica
Poor Neil. We'll always have those back-to-back complete game shutouts from 2014, though, won't we?
Moves make Detroit Tigers better than last week, not markedly better than last year
Chris Iott makes a point very much worth paying attention to: "Wouldn't it be more fair to compare Cespedes to Torii Hunter, the player he is replacing both in the outfield and in the lineup? ... [Cespedes] is a definite upgrade defensively over Hunter. But ... [in] 2014, Hunter had a better offensive season. The same could be said of 2013."
In other words, let's not get too crazy thinking that Cespedes is going to be some kind of one-man wrecking crew on offense.
On defense, though?
The Best Yoenis Cespedes Videos — The Man Has A Rocket For An Arm!
Yeah, baby. Now that's more like it.
Motown moves: Tigers add pop, All-Star arm
Beck: "Once it came together, the Tigers had the right-handed hitter they had eyed ever since he defected from Cuba." According to Dombrowski, the Tigers would have been in on the Cespedes bidding war from the start, but Prince Fielder's contract made that impossible.
So the question is, now that they're free of Fielder's contract, will they try to extend Cespedes beyond 2015?
And speaking of 2015 ...
2015 now all-or-nothing for Tigers
Now here's an interesting sentiment that seems to be gaining more traction ever since last year's Trade That Shall Not Be Mentioned: "... unlike past years, there isn't that immediate feeling that Dombrowski fleeced his trading partners. The Doug Fister and Joakim Soria deals gradually chipped away at the benefit of the doubt Dombrowski justly earned."
Perhaps there are more Davenostics and Davetheists than we realize.
Oh, yeah, and in addition to Cespedes, the Tigers picked up some dude named Alfredo Simon, who at 6' 6" and 265 pounds has already earned the nickname "Big Pasta." And he wasn't cheap.
Dombrowski: Tigers gave up 'quite a bit' for Simon
There's a lot that could be said about giving up Eugenio Suarez and Jonathan Crawford in order to get a pitcher with Simon's stats, but I think I'll let blogger and friend-of-BYB Scott Rogowski (aka "Rogo") have the last word:
Randy Smith is somehow to blame for this. Eff Simon.
— Scott Rogowski (@DNR_Rogo) December 11, 2014
Suarez and Crawford? I just had eleven strokes. Good gawd...
— Scott Rogowski (@DNR_Rogo) December 11, 2014
Enjoy the weekend, kids. See you on Monday.