Tiger Geist

I was watching Sunday’s Tigers / Royals game while doing research about possible September call-ups.  Jim Leyland mentioned that he wasn’t going to have many call-ups this year, which I found interesting with a team so… ‘challenged’.  I’ll get to that in a few days, but after the 10th inning fiasco, I really feel Detroit needs to make an internal move.  Tomorrow.

I don’t blame Sunday’s loss on Ryan Raburn, but the fact is Raburn isn’t much of an infielder.  He seems to be challenged at third, and he’s had to learn first base on the fly this year.  Considering that he appears to be an average outfielder — which changes my original opinion of Raburn, where personally i thought he was above average as an outfielder — its a rough time having Raburn as your utility player.  So I feel Detroit needs someone who can fill in at third base adequately while Brandon Inge gets his off day.

I see two very important goals while Detroit makes a playoff run (well, two goals that don’t involve Miguel Cabrera staying 110% healthy):

1. Make the playoffs
2. Get Brandon Inge to a point where, if Detroit made the playoffs, he could play every day

I feel this last point is very important — we’ve seen how vital Inge’s defense (and solid offense in 2009) is to this team.  Detroit has to get to a point where Brandon can play every day in October.  To do that, they’ll need some days off for Inge, and its becoming apparent that Raburn probably isn’t the best replacement.

Oh, this far in and I haven’t mentioned who to call up?  My bad.  Don Kelly.  I’m not sold on Kelly as an everyday major league player, but he has the ability to play five positions well (third, first, and every outfield position).  He can spell either corner infield position (and seriously, Guillen doesn’t look good at first***).  He’d be an upgrade in left, and could work as a platoon with Marcus Thames.  He didn’t have an awesome stint batting in Detroit this year, but he is tearing up AAA (hitting over .320).  In other words… he makes a whole lot of sense to bring up RIGHT NOW, instead of September 1st.  I imagine he’ll be on the expanded roster either way, but I can’t see why they would hesitate to call him up before Tuesday.

This is nothing against Raburn, but defensively, Kelly fills a lot of needs and its not like Raburn is hitting .300.  Kelly gives them speed and another left handed bat to play with off the bench as well (again, probably not an awesome bat, but how surprising was it to see Alex Avila pinch-hit today?)

To summarize… on Monday, I’d demote Raburn to Toledo and call up Kelly.  This move is strictly to give more flexibility defensively to the team, and hopefully not feel rushed to insert Inge as a defensive replacement.  Now that no one seems to understand the playoff roster rules, most likely Detroit can figure out who gives them the best chance to win during the pennant race in September.  But Kelly gives them the best chance to win in August.

*** The “Carlos Guillen sucks at first base” thing is one of the most puzzling aspects of any major athlete.  First base is where they stick the guys who can’t field.  For a guy who was once ‘decent’ as a short stop, how can he not grasp first base?  This baffles me.