Tiger Geist

Pretty straight forward statement from a few sources today;  first, Jim Leyland said that Dontrelle Willis will miss his next start in the rotation.

Not a huge surprise after Sunday’s start;  and as I mentioned last week, the fifth spot could technically be skipped after this week’s run through the rotation.  I don’t know what the future holds (Ok, I do, and its not good) but Detroit is trying to prolong the inevitable.  My guess is that they’re trying to convince Dontrelle to take a demotion (Dontrelle has options remaining, but enough major league service to refuse an assignment to the minors).  I bet Dontrelle is willing to take the demotion, but his agent (probably rightfully so) wants Dontrelle back in the national league.  So my hunch is the Willis organization would be fine with a release and accepting a demotion on a small market team in the National League.  Let him work through his problems against less potent offenses, where he’s probably in the upper echelon in terms of hitting ability as a pitcher.  Its not what Detroit wants to hear.  On the flip side, though he’s owed $12 mil next year and a prorated $10mil this year.. they’d save ~$600k+ if someone else picked him up.  Maybe thats better then letting Dontrelle destroy your bullpen.

The logical decision to replace Willis in the rotation is Zach Miner, which you’ll get no complaints from me.  However, that means that Miner will not be able to pitch this week; Willis won’t be pitching out of the pen either… so it looks like a roster move is coming to pitch in place of Dontrelle instead of Miner starting on Saturday.  It would surprise me to run a short bullpen just to start Miner, especially with a few national league games left.  I don’t know enough about the Toledo or Erie rotation to see who might be a candidate if I’m correct here.  There is also a question of if you can run Miner out for 100 pitches on such short notice.  So, while Miner appears the be the logical candidate to start in place of Willis, you would think a roster move to secure another reliever would/will be necessary.

Nate Robertson doesn’t look very good.  If I’m Detroit, you sit him down and discuss his options.  I’d offer him a starting role in Toledo;  let him figure out how to be a junk ball left hander.  If he’s good enough to compete this year, they’ll promote him.  If not, he goes into spring training with a shot at starting.  If he doesn’t make the starting rotation, give him his release in March, 2010.  They’ve paid him a lot of money, and its time for Nate to man up.  If he doesn’t want to stay in the organization, who’s going to take him?  He spent last year getting lit up by the american league, and he’s spent this last week getting lit up by the NL.  Its time to make a move.  This is the easiest one to make, as there is a capable replacement in Clay Rapada waiting to take his place (or, give Fu-Te Ni a chance).  This would also help rest Bobby Seay, who could use a few days off here or there.

In terms of Mike Illitch stating “We’re going to do whatever we’ve got to do” about getting the Tigers to the playoffs… I think i’ll call Mr. I’s bluff here.  I don’t disagree with what he’s saying, but the fact that Nate Robertson and Dontrelle Willis are on your team kind of screams BULLSHIT.  Maybe he means “now that the red wings are done, we’ll do whatever it takes”.  But the fact that the 25 man roster has carried dead weight since spring training that could have been replaced very cheaply make the original statement hard to believe.  Plus, I have no insight to the conversation.  Drew Sharp says they’ll take on payroll, but Illitch doesn’t actually say that; he just says they’ll improve “one way or the other”.  That could simply mean eating existing contracts.  That would be a welcome blessing.

Last, I’m kind of interested in Lynn Henning’s blog post today.  He seems to indicate that Mike Illitch (and / or Dave Dombrowski) are missing the boat in not extending Jim Leyland’s contract.  I agree something smells funny here… but here’s an interesting twist:  Henning insinuates that Illitch is handling this poorly in the same newspaper that has written many articles in the last month about how Illitch is one of the greatest owners in all of sports.  One is about Baseball, the others are about Hockey.  So maybe there is truth to the idea that Illitch / Dombrowski aren’t happy with Leyland for some reason (maybe it was Leyland’s public airing of his contract situation last fall on Detroit radio??).  So I say this with no malice towards either party, as I personally think that Leyland should be extended… do you think Mike Illitch screws up his coaching situations?  Leyland left coaching positions with Florida and Colorado previously.  If you were a betting person, which side would you think is more likely to have a more vested interest in winning in Detroit?  Personally, I split aces and 8′s (except against an ace).  On the other hand, all Henning has to do is mention that Dane Sardinha is unhappy about Leyland’s contract situation to make me think this is an April Fool’s joke.  I’d rather Curtis Granderson worry about his batting average then Jimmy’s contract.