Hello Doug Fister and David Pauley

Doug Fister

The MLB trade deadline has passed and the Tigers have made a move that I believe really improves their chances at making the playoffs.  The Tigers traded away Casper Wells, Charlie Furbush, Minor League 3b Francisco Martinez and a player to be named later.  First off to the people who say that the Tigers gave up too much are crazy.  They gave away two players who have played a little in the majors this season and look like they could be good but not great.  They also are players who don't really have a lot of potential in my opinion.  But the player that people are really mad that we gave up is minor leaguer Fransico Martinez. People are wondering how we could give up our 3b of the future, but those people obviously don't pay attention to the Tigers minor league system.  The real 3b of the future for the Tigers is Nick Castellanos.  He is younger, putting up better offensive numbers and has less errors in the field.  The Tigers have known this for a while and that made Martinez expendable.

David Pauley

The Tigers are getting some pretty good young pitchers in return as well.  In Doug Fister the Tigers are getting a 27 year old starter from the Seattle Mariners.  People cannot judge him off of his win loss record because he received the worst run support in the league while pitching for the Mariners.  Plus his other numbers are superb.  He has a 3.33 ERA and 1.17 WHIP.  Those numbers are better than his former teammate in Seattle Felix Hernandez.  He is a good pitcher who really makes the pitching rotation a lot better and will give the Tigers a chance to win the game every time he takes the mound.
The other pitcher the Tigers received in the trade was a relief pitcher named David Pauley.  He is having a great season posting an ERA of 2.15 and a great WHIP of 0.99.  He started his career spending two seasons in Boston before joining Seattle for the last year and half.  Since joining Seattle he has put up good numbers.  The addition of Pauley really makes a bullpen, that at times looks shaky, a lot more reliable to get the job done.  These two players were exactly what I think the Tigers needed to make them the Central Division Champions.

Hello Eric Wright, Stephen Tulloch, and Justin Durant

Stephen Tulloch

The NFL lockout is over and the Lions have made some very nice moves in free agency already.  There were a few in particular to me, that stood out as being possible difference making moves.  The signing of Stephen Tulloch is the signing that i believe will have the biggest impact.
Stephen Tulloch is a middle linebacker who spent the first five years of his career as a Tennessee Titan.  This means that he has played for Jim Schwartz before and is familiar with the scheme the Lions play.  His career has really taken off in the last two seasons.  He finished the '09 season with 121 tackles and the '10 season with 160 tackles.  These are the numbers we should expect from Tulloch this season with him playing behind such a great defensive line.  Since he is only signed to a one year contract he is going to need to continue putting up big numbers to get a big contract next season.  This is a risk for the Lions because if he has a huge year they may not be able to afford him next year, but this is a risk I think is worth taking.  This is the perfect move for the Lions considering the holes they had at linebacker coming into this season.

Justin Durant

Another big move the Lions made was signing another linebacker named Justin Durant.  Justin spent the first four years of his career in Jacksonville with the Jaguars.  This is a good move that has some big question marks.  The reason it is a good move is because when Durant plays he puts up big tackle numbers and seems to have a nose of the ball.  The big question mark on the deal is the fact that Justin is yet to play a full season in his four year career.  The most games he has played in a season came in the '08 season when he played in 14 games.  Last season he played in a career low 10 games.  If Durant can stay on the field the Lions will have improved their linebackers immensely over the offseason.

Eric Wright 

The final big signing the Lions made was that of defensive back Eric Wright.  This is another move that has some risk but also has high reward.  Eric had been with the Cleveland Browns for all 4 years of his career.  His best seasons were the '08 and '09 season when he had a combined 7 INT'S and caused 5 safeties.  He also had good tackle numbers for a defensive back finishing in the mid 60's both seasons.  After those seasons he was considered around the league as a up and comer who had a bright future ahead of him.  But last season Wright took a step backwards,  only playing in 13 games and only having one interception.  If Wright can return to his form of the '08 and '09 seasons, this could be a great signing for the Detroit Lions.  This would allow the Lions to have found the big play corner they needed without spending the big time money on some of the bigger names on the market.  If these three signings pan out the way the Lions anticipate, the playoffs should be in the very near future.

Hello Wilson Betemit

The Detroit Tigers finally filled a huge hole yesterday when they traded for 3rd basemen Wilson Betemit.  Even though Wilson Betemit isn't a big name addition he will still be a huge help to the Tigers.  Brandon Inge was hitting a dreadful .177.  Also he had only one home run, which was not cutting it, it was the equivalent of having a pitcher bat.  He has also been having terrible at bats lately where he would swing at the first pitch and pop out, or strike out on 3 to 4 pitches.  His defense has also been suspect this year.  He already has 9 errors, which is all he had for all of last season.
Wilson Betemit isn't going to be an all-star player for the tigers, but he is going to be a respectable one.  He is hitting a respectable .281 after hitting .297 last season.  He also only has 5 errors at third base this season, ill be it in less games played there then Inge.
While Wilson Betemit may not have been the all star name some people were looking for, he is going to really sure up the bottom of the batting order for them.  Now it is time for them to start looking for a good starting pitcher, which is now the biggest need the Tigers have.

How the Detroit Tigers become a contending team

The Tigers record right now is 43-37 and are in first place.  They have the Cleveland Indians only a game behind them, and the Chicago White Sox are only 5 games behind.  Since about a month into the season I have been debating with people what the Tigers should try and get at the trade deadline.  It started with me thinking that they needed a bat because I didn't think that their lineup would get the job done.  After watching the lineup continue to produce with great contributions from Alex Avila and Jhonny Peralta I saw a bullpen that was getting hammered every night and decided that the Tigers needed to get some relief help to make a good run into October.  Now I am seeing the bullpen turn it around thanks to an unknown rookie named Al Albuquerque and Joaquin Benoit finally starting to pitch well again.  This brings me to what I now consider to be the Tigers main hole to fill if they want to make a series run at a championship this season.  I believe that the tigers need to go after a starting pitcher.

JV has been carrying the Tigers rotation lately

With the exception of Justin Verlander who has a 2.38 ERA no other starting pitcher has an ERA under 4 which is horrendous.
Max Scherzer has nine wins because he is getting a tremendous amount of run support.  Max cannot expect all this run support all season and needs to pick up his game and start pitching better.  In his last few starts Max has shown better command with his pitches and is striking out more hitters.  I believe Max will turn it around this season and go back to pitching like he did at the beginning of the year, but he better do it soon because this team really needs him.
In Rick Porcello's last four starts he has given up 21 earned runs in only 18 1/3 innings.  In his last start versus the Giants he pitched a lot better but was wild hitting 3 batters and throwing 3 wild pitches.  This needs to change because there is a huge difference for a team to have three good starting pitchers compared to just two.  Dating back to last season Rick hasn't been pitching well.  He has shown some signs of returning his form to that of his rookie season but just seems to take two steps forwards and then one step back.  Rick is a sinker ball pitcher and when sinker ballers get the ball up they get crushed.  During the good starts for Rick this season he has gotten the ball down well, but lately I have noticed a lot of pitches up in the zone.  If Rick can fix this I believe that he can be a good starting pitcher for the Tigers for the rest of the season.
Brad Penny has had an up and down season but I really didn't expect anything from him.  Now the Tigers just took Phil Coke out of the rotation and gave his spot to Charlie Furbush.  I like this move because Coke wasn't cutting it in the rotation and I believe that Furbush has looked good coming out of the bullpen so far.  I also believe that having Coke in the bullpen will help this team because he is the best lefty in the pen now.  If Furbush struggles in the rotation there are some other people I think the Tigers might give a chance.  The first person to get a chance would probably be Andy Oliver who is considered on of the Tigers top prospects.  He hasn't had a great year so far in Toledo but he has already gotten the call for one start against the Red Sox and looked pretty good.   So he will probably be the first person to get a chance after Furbush.  The second player who I think might get the call is a lefty in Toledo named Duane Below.  He has pitched the most innings in Toledo this year and has pretty good numbers so far.  He is sporting a 9-4 record and a nice ERA OF 3.06.  Those are some other pitchers who might get a shot at the fifth spot in the Tigers rotation if Furbush struggles.
To get back to what I was talking about at the beginning of this blog I think the Tigers need to go after a starting pitcher at or before the trade deadline this season.  I think we need to forget about Jose Reyes or any other position player.  If the Tigers can get a fourth or fifth starting pitcher from someone I believe it would help the team greatly because our fourth and fifth starters are not getting the job done on a consistent basis.  Also who knows there always seems to be some big name pitcher that suddenly becomes available around the trade deadline.  If a big name pitcher was to suddenly become available around the deadline then I would consider giving up some prospects to get him because I think that would really help the team get some more wins.  I don't know if adding another bat would really help the team get more wins because they score a lot of runs now but their pitching has let them down throughout the season.  Hopefully the Tigers can keep themselves close enough to the top of the division until they can get some pitching help because once they do, they could really become a dangerous team in the American League.

Michigan and Notre Dame jerseys revealed for "Under the Lights" Game

I like the jersey for both teams and cannot wait to see them playing in them.  I really like the numbers on the helmet of the Michigan Jerseys and I like the shamrock on the Notre Dame Helmets.  Both teams will be looking good for the first night game at Michigan Stadium.

Detroit Tigers Finally Hitting Their Stride

The Detroit Tigers are finally playing some good baseball.  They went on the road to Chicago and Texas and won 4 out of the 6 games.  I was especially impressed with the series win in Chicago because the Tigers usually don't play very well at US Cellular Field.  The series win in Texas was very impressive because the Rangers had been playing very well themselves and had just finished off a sweep of the first place Cleveland Indians.
The Tigers have been playing complete baseball for the past few series.  The starting pitching and the bullpen has been great.  The lineup has finally started to show some consistency, and have started to do a better job at driving in the runners from 3rd base with less then 2 outs.
I have been especially impressed with some of the younger players on the team.  I have been impressed with Andy Dirks.  He has done a great job of knocking in some big runs and has also saved some runs with his great defensive play in the outfield.
In the bullpen Al Albuquerque has really impressed me.  He has an outstanding strikeout rate of 16 k's per 9 innings.  It is always nice to have someone in the bullpen who can come in and get a big strikeout.
The Tigers have just started a 4 game weekend series with the Seattle Mariners.  They have split the first two games of the series.  I think that the tigers will end up winning the next two games of this series and will be in first place of the American League Central by the end of the weekend, and if they keep playing this strong they could be taking over first place for good.

The Tigers Need To Become More Consistent

    We are nearing the end of May and this Tigers team is still facing many questions.  It is May 22 and the Tigers have a 22-23 record.  They sit tied in second place with the Kansas City Royals, 7 games behind the first place Cleveland Indians, and only 2 games ahead of the Chicago White Sox.  The Tigers have had an up and down year so far.  They have gone on a 7 game losing streak as well as a 7 game winning streak.  They are currently going through a 5 game losing streak and have just lost the first 2 games to the Pittsburgh Pirates.  The Tigers will need to start playing with a lot more consistency if they want to go far this season.
     One of the biggest question marks for this Tigers team has to be the bullpen.  The only bullpen pitcher who has done well so far this season is Valverde.  The rest of the pen has been terrible to say the least.  Benoit has given up more runs this year than he gave up all of last year.  He has recently struggled so much that he has been removed from the set-up role.  Ryan Perry just can't seem to get his control down and is walking way to many batters to be a 7th inning pitcher.  The Tigers are getting good starting pitching on most nights but if the middle relief doesn't improve they won't go very far this season.
       One way I believe that the middle relief can improve is by moving Phil Coke back to the bullpen.  Coke has been inconsistent as a starter this year but we know from last year that he does really well when coming out of the pen.  I believe that the Tigers should bring up Andy Oliver who has looked good at Toledo this year and put Coke back in the bullpen.  This won't solve all the relief problems but it is a good start.
      If the Tigers start playing more consistently as a whole they could be a strong contender for the AL Central title this season.