September / October 2010 Desktop Wallpaper

The final month of baseball is upon us.  Whether the playoffs are meant to be or not, this year has been very interesting in terms of building towards the future success of the team. Am I going to root for the team to make the playoffs?  Definitely!  Do I see the team making the playoffs?  Maybe.  That all depends on if the Minnesota Twinkies can do what the Tigers did last September.  Let's hope they do.

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Sweet sweep..

The Tigers swept the Indians in three games, and now the Royals come to town.

Let's hope the Tigers can repeat the sweep with Kansas City.

Six games

The next six games at home are critical for the Tigers if they hope to make up any ground in the division.  They start tonight by facing the 5th place Indians and then the 4th place Royals come to town.  If the White Sox and Twins can manage to drop a few during this stretch, the Tigers could close the gap somewhat.

Call me the eternal optimist, but if the Tigers get hot during this home streak, maybe they can ride that into the Toronto series and then the series in Minnesota.  I'd really like to see the Tigers make a final push to make the playoffs, but it all has to start with this six game home stretch.

Looking to next year - Catching

A lot has been said about all the money coming off the books for the Tigers at the end of this year due to free agency. And $60M is quite a bit of money.

So, what does this mean for the team?  Well, there are some critical areas that need to be addressed on the team, one of which is the catcher.  Here are some of the available catchers in 2011, who Dave Dombrowski might go after during the off-season.

Catchers available in 2011	Current salary	Yrs of service	2010 AVG	OPS	CS%
John Buck - Blue Jays	$2.0M	6	.280	.822	.271
Ramon Hernandez - Reds *	$3.0M	11	.289	.784	.341
Miguel Olivio - Rockies *	$2.0M	7	.307	.886	.411
Victor Martinez - Red Sox	$7.7M	7	.283	.809	.197
A.J. Pierzynski - White Sox	$6.25M	10	.240	.638	.303
David Ross - Braves	$1.6M	8	.269	.720	.412
Yorvit Torrealba - Padres *	$.75M	9	.310	.775	.349
Jason Varitek - Red Sox	$3.0M	13	.263	.871	.212
Gregg Zaun - Brewers *	$1.9M	15	.265	.743	.240

*have option for 2011

So looking at these available catchers, I find myself torn between two players:  John Buck and Miguel Olivio.  Both are younger, have reasonable contracts, and decent OPS.  I am leaning towards Miguel Olivio because of his higher Caught Stealing %, but that isn't a major concern of mine.  Ultimately, I see the Tigers offering a nice contract to one of these two players, which would be a huge improvement over G-Money, and would give Alex Avilia some more time to develop.