Detroit Tigers News: Trade rumors weigh heavy

All Star Game thoughts

Pretty funny that that would have been the fastest game of the entire year. Thank goodness that the game no longer means anything. Guys had fun. Smiles were produced. Someone high-fived Angel Hernandez. Let the guys enjoy it. And let’s not effect World Series with meaningless games ever again.

The weight of trade rumors

In a surprising revelation Tuesday, it appears that the Cubs have moved on from Justin Verlander to other Tigers starting pitchers, specifically Daniel Norris and Michael Fulmer. The deal would have involved Kyle Schwarber in return. No word on how quickly Al Avila hung up the phone or how much laughter was produced.

Justin Wilson and J.D. Martinez remain the most likely to depart, but with those two entering trade talks, it now seems as if every single player on the roster has at least been mentioned in trade talks.

The talking point all year has been, “We don’t worry about that noise,” and “Just keep our head down and keep playing.” But obviously hearing you may have to pick up and move at any moment takes it toll. And Miguel Cabrera is just about fed up.

“We’re humans, man,” he said. “We think and we feel and we feel everything, so it’s hard when you hear that every day.”

It’s an understandable reaction without any real solution. The team will continue to entertain deals and these conversations will leak all the way until the trade deadline. It just adds to the frustration of a lost year.

Ken Rosenthal on Verlander

I give grading things an F

It’s the mid-season break, which means its time to hand out some player grades! This beat writing exercise is only slightly less lazy than power ranking things, but it makes for content so have at it.

I could barely make it past Chris McCosky’s first slide where he gave Alex Avila a B. He must have been comparing him to Buster Posey? Anyway, as I continued to scroll I realized that no one on the entire team got over a B+ so maybe he’s just unaware of A’s.

Anthony Fenech’s outfield grades are significantly more acceptable with J.D. Martinez and Justin Upton leading the way. They also provide a fun reminder that Tyler Collins played many games for this team.

Stats are stats

The Wall Street Journal questioned whether Justin Turner almost missing the All-Star Game an example of baseball taking it’s new found hate for old school stats too far. It was a pretty egregious omission but the new school vs. old school argument is inherently dumb. All stats are useful as long as you understand what they are actually measuring.

For your free time

Read both Ashley’s story on Miguel Cabrera’s relationship with his home country of Venezuela and Evan Woodberry’s story from MLive. A fun look back at how five former Tigers All-Stars became former Tigers. Hey, better juiced balls than juiced players (and smaller balls). Rob Manfred is actually just using the expansion rumors as leverage for new stadiums. I personally approve of Bryce Harper’s idea of leading vote-getters picking teams. With some help of course.

Baseball is awesome