Detroit Tigers Links: Jordan Zimmermann is healthy, and Daniel Norris is ready for 2017

I hear Tigerfest happened this weekend, and that it was filled with as many crazy antics as pieces of relevant information for Tigers fans. It is but a tiny morsel to satiate our hunger for baseball for a short while longer, but is a welcome one. It’s good to see the boys back in Detroit again, if only for the weekend.

Welcome to Monday. Here’s what we know today.

Pitching

As you know, Tigerfest rolled into town this weekend, and with it came some interesting tidbits. Nick Castellanos’ secondary skills aside, we learned some interesting things about a few Tigers pitchers. Drew VerHagen is on the road to recovery and ready to put a forgettable 2016 behind him. Jordan Zimmermann seems happy with where he is heading into the upcoming season after pinpointing what his issues were last year. Daniel Norris talked about taking the time to listen to the music of pitching coach Rich Dubee and the changes he made to his delivery. If you’re a Tigers pitcher, Dubee is what keeps you runnin’. If you don’t agree with that, well, all I can say is that’s what a fool believes.

...and eat it too!

Here’s the cake for Milwaukee Brewers general manager David Stearn’s wedding. I wonder if this one was built with taxpayer money.

Yordano Ventura and Andy Marte

Early Sunday morning, news broke of the separate deaths of former major league third baseman Andy Marte and Kansas City Royals pitcher Yordano Ventura in separate car accidents in the Dominican Republic. It’s an occurrence that’s becoming far too frequent, and one that I really hope we don’t see again. Marte, a once heralded prospect, had found a measure of success playing overseas in recent years. I don’t need to tell you what we’ll be missing with the loss of Ventura. If you want to know more about Ventura’s journey this article from Vahe Gregorian of The Kansas City Star is well worth the read. Baseball is a beautiful game. It’s a shame these two won’t ever play it again.

Today in baseball history

On this day in 1981, the Boston Red Sox traded center fielder Fred Lynn to the Los Angeles Angels. That was a pretty big trade on its face, but when you stop to consider the why of it, it becomes even more interesting. In a bone-headed move, the Red Sox, who had agreed to contracts with Lynn and catcher Carlton Fisk, put the contracts in the mail two days late. The Players Association contended that both players were free agents. The Sox would eventually come to terms with Fisk through arbitration, then shipped Lynn to the west coast for a handful of guys. One of them being one of the favorite Tigers of my childhood, pitcher Frank Tanana.

If you have a few minutes

Here’s a once-again relevant article on the pressures of being a Latin American baseball player. Ever wonder what a post-expansion MLB might look like? The history of baseball and tobacco.

Baseball is awesome

Joe Niekro was many things. A magician wasn’t one of them.