Tigers GM Dave Dombrowski announced that the team will retire #11 in honor of the late Sparky anderson, a long overdue move in my opinion. In addition to this, the team will wear a patch on their uniforms all season. The patch is similar to the one worn last year for Ernie Harwell.



The team will also have a flag in honor for Sparky flying at Comerica Park this season.

[Freep]

[@Official_Tigers] 

The Tigers barely made a ripple in the Detroit news scene today when they signed RHP Brad Penny to an incentive-laden one year contract worth $3 million. Penny will look to overcome a shoulder injury and the dreaded Alyssa Milano curse to help put the Tigers over the top in the AL Central next season. Thankfully, he's already improving the Tigers' high-to-low sock ratio, a crucial stat for any baseball fan.


Hopefully Penny can replicate his Dodger years where he went 46-33 from 2004 to 2008, including consecutive All-Star appearances* in 2006 and '07 (His '06 ASG was the "I'm a man, I'm 40!" first inning, where he struck out Ichiro, Derek Jeter and David Ortiz with just his fastball). He's only 14-13 since then, including some less-than-stellar trends during his 2009 stint in Boston. He started to develop a split-finger last season, a pitch he will definitely need to survive in the AL.

Will he revert to the "hit it if you can" form he had in '06? Will he continue his '09 tour-de-suck? Will he even make the rotation? Who knows. But we're only 5 weeks away from answering those questions, and I couldn't be more excited.

[Jason Beck] 

That headline might have another meaning during this next season, but for now we'll just marvel at Austin Jackson's mad hops.


This might be a reason why he was able to make some of the crazy plays he did during the 2010 season. Maybe he should give Brandon some tips on how to keep those knees healthy.

UPDATE: Test out the new comment system by leaving a picture caption of your own!

[via @Billfer] 

Tigers GM Dave Dombrowski continued his very successful offseason when the club and Magglio Ordonez agreed on a one-year, $10 million contract yesterday. Maggs reportedly turned down 2-year offers from other teams to stay in Detroit. We're not entirely sure yet, but D4L sources indicate there may be some government involvement in this matter.


We might be joking now, but opposing pitchers definitely won't be when the season gets started. With a 3-4-5 like Ordonez, Miguel Cabrera and Victor Martinez, the Tigers should be the early favorites to win the AL Central.

[Bless You Boys] 

The Tigers and C/1B/DH Victor Martinez have reportedly agreed to a 4-year, $50 million contract. Martinez will probably split time with Alex Avila behind the plate, then DH the rest of the time. His awkward smile will hopefully last the entire length of the contract.

Regardless of how you feel about Martinez's defensive abilities (putting it nicely, I'm skeptical), his bat will provide a huge boost to the middle of the order. Switch hitters that consistently top .300, 20 HRs and 80 RBI a season don't exactly grow on trees. I'm not a fan of the length of the deal (I would have hoped for a 2-3 year contract), but it's nice to see the Tigers' front office aggressively looking to improve their roster.

[MLB Trade Rumors]

The Tigers want to shore up their bully for the 2011 season, so, naturally, they went out and bought one of the better available relievers from the 2010 season, Joaquin Benoit.  The Tigers and Benoit agreed to a three-year deal worth $16.5 million, which on the outset seems absurd.

It certainly puzzles Keith Law:

I truly thought major league GMs had moved beyond offering middle relievers three- or four-year deals. The history of those deals is so overwhelmingly negative, and the difficulty of predicting reliever health and performance so evident, the industry seemed to have wised up collectively, to the point where we wouldn't see those contracts for non-closers

Apparently not.

So now we have Detroit giving three years and over $15 million guaranteed to Joaquin Benoit, who signed last winter with Tampa Bay for $700,000 after missing all of 2009 with a sore shoulder. It's an absolutely brutal contract, with a very low probability of yielding even a zero ROI (meaning they get just what they paid for -- never mind coming out ahead).

You truly thought MLB GMs were moving beyond that, huh? What would give you that idea, Keith? The nearly identical contract Brandon Lyon received last offseason?

It's not ideal, but it's difficult to move beyond that when it's the MFtrend being set. These relievers and their penny-pinching agents aren't budging and, quite frankly, GMs don't care if they're afforded the money like DD is. It's not exactly fiscally responsible, but so long as it doesn't prevent the Tigers from going out and nabbing other players they need, who gives a shit if they have to overpay. They got the solid reliever they wanted. Period. Complain all you want, but you're wasting blogs.

Perhaps Benoit clowned the Tigers and maxed out what could've been an aberration of a season, but a healthy Benoit tends to be solid and a more than serviceable reliever, one that I'm definitely happy will be donning the Old English D next season. If Perry continues to improve (hoping), Zumaya stays healthy (grasping), and Valverde finds a happy medium between first-half Valverde and second-half Valverde (dancing), the Tigers are going to have a very strong back end of the bullpen next year. We'll worry about Benoit's 2nd and 3rd years when the time comes, but right now I'm too focused on seeing Benoit doing this again in 2011:

Either baseball writers are getting drunker than this mofo, or I'm missing something. Tigers rookie sensation Austin Jackson finished 2nd in the Rookie of the Year balloting to RP Neftali Feliz of the Texas Rangers. Not only did Feliz play in less than half as many games as Jackson (and usually for only an inning), he also pitched 31 innings in 2009. Umm, shouldn't these guys have seen something like this when they tried to submit that vote?

Many baseball fans expected Jackson to win the Rookie of the Year award easily. He played 151 games for the Tigers, finishing with a .293 average, 181 hits, 103 runs scored, 41 RBI and 27 stolen bases. While Feliz had a good year (he tallied 40 saves in 70 appearances), the fact that he wasn't actually a rookie kinda makes me wonder what exactly is going on in the MLB executive offices. [video via Mgoblog]

[Bless You Boys]

Well, the Pistons and Lions seasons both look to be squarely in the pooper already; so, let us get excited for one of my favorite seasons, the beginning of the hot stove season in baseball.

The Tigers have approximately 50 million dollhairs coming off the books this offseason, and it looks likely much of it will go to Victor Martinez. To me, this makes all the sense in the world. We need a middle of the order hitter, a catcher/DH and a strong left handed bat.  He is 31, so his production might dip on the tail end of an expected 4 or 5 year contract...but the Tigers organization-wide have about the most putrid farm system in all of baseball at this position. If it dips a little, it's still much better than we can expect from a replacement. Seriously, Laird and Avila were awful offensively, but then I'd scan our farm system looking to see who could replace them and we had guys hitting .200 at all levels at catcher. It was depressing.

IF we do sign Martinez, I'd expect him to split time with Avila at catcher. Against righties, I'd expect Avila to catch (he's MUCH better defensively) and Martinez to DH. For lefties, stick Martinez behind the plate and put either Magglio/Guillen at DH if they are around. This will keep Martinez fresher, and he's here to protect Cabrera in the order most importantly.

Checking his stats, he's very consistenly around .300, 20 HR's and 100 RBI's. Those kind of stats would put him among the all-time greats for catcher production by a Tiger. Most importantly, they'd be a huge improvement over the abomination we ran out at catcher/DH from last year. Plus, after 11 years of baseball at Comerica Park, we'd finally have a legitimate left handed bat to take advantage of Comerica Park's dimensions. So Dave, consider this an edorsement from this writer at Detroit4lyfe to spend some of Illitch's money. If you do, I promise to suffer through one of his Hot-N-Ready pizzas to celebrate like I always do when you spend a bunch of money on the Tigers.

Dyslexia may be on the rise in Detroit for the next couple years: Jhonny Peralta is back. Peralta signed a 2-year, $11.25 million contract with the Tigers with a team option for a 3rd year at $6 million. While Kurt is unhappy in chart-and-graphical form, I'm not too upset about the deal.

I'm hopeful that the team will be able to find a young, promising replacement for Peralta in the next two years. I think that Peralta will bounce back from his poor 24-for-99 showing as a Tiger late this year. But mostly, I'm happy I get to use this picture for 2 more years.

Good stuff Dave. Now go sign Cliff Lee.

[Jason Beck]

George "Sparky" Anderson was the manager of the Tigers when I first entered my Tigers fandom. Unlike the late, great Ernie Harwell, I never got to meet the old spark plug and was never old enough to be able to truly appreciate him during his tenure.  By all accounts, though, Sparky put the "great man" in great manager.

Detroit lost an icon (yet another one this year from the storied Detroit Tigers organization). D4L's thoughts and prayers are with Sparky's family and friends; and, although it may not be retired at Comerica Park, no blogger will ever wear the No. 11 here, Sparky.  Rest in peace, skip.