MLB Big Names Moving

The past couple weeks in the major leagues has been crazy.  Between big name free agents making surprise choices, small market teams going big, and bids on impending international free agents, the hot stove has definitely been burning.  

Striking first in the big free agent market were the newly named Miami Marlins.  The Marlins stated early in he offseason that Jose Reyes would be their top target once free agency began.  They didn’t hesitate.  At 12:01 AM, on the opening of free agency, the Marlins met with Reyes and offered him a 6-year deal.  Details on the offer weren’t known until the deal was signed and Reyes was happy to get his 6-year, $106 million deal.  

The Marlins didn’t stop with Reyes.  Soon after visiting Reyes, they also courted Albert Pujols, Mark Buehrle and C.J. Wilson.  Although the Fish didn’t stay in the running for Pujols very long, they did make an offer.  Just hours after signing and announcing the deal with Jose Reyes, the Marlins came to an agreement with Mark Buehrle.  Buerhle’s deal is 4 years and worth $58 million.

Along with Reyes and Beuhrle, the Marlins also locked up closer Heath Bell to a three year deal to replace the closer formerly known as Leo Nunez.

After making two huge free agent signing and undoubtedly shaking off the “small market” label, the Marlins are showing that along with a new stadium, they’re ready to do what it takes to compete and win in the tightly contested NL East.

Another team who always seemed to fly under the radar until this offseason, the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim, joined the Marlins in going big.  Easily the biggest offseason in my opinion, the Angels picked up both Pujols and Wilson.  L.A. is the best fit for Pujols.  As good as he is in the field, he is already 32 and was demanding a 10-year contract.  Very few players can stay in the field into their 40s, even if you’re a first basemen.  By going to an AL team, Pujols will probably continue his high production later on in the contract by having the availability to DH when needed.  

C.J. Wilson joins an already great pitching staff in L.A.  While the Angels are paying him ace-like money, he’s still only the 3rd best pitcher on the staff, and probably has second to worst stuff.  Both Dan Haren and Jered Weaver have proven to be better pitchers.  Ervin Santana has some of the best stuff in he league, and if he could get his control figured out, and be more consistent, he would be a force to be reckoned with.  

With these additions, the Angels and Rangers are definitely going to have to battle it out down the stretch to take home the AL West title.

With the Rangers losing C.J. Wilson, rather than looking to replace him with another top starter, it appears they’re attempting to catch lightning in a bottle twice.  With the first hand experience of converting a late inning reliever into a starter with Wilson, the Rangers appear to be set up to move Neftali Feliz to a starter role with their signing of Joe Nathan.  Although with pitching coach Mike Maddux leaving Texas for Chicago, this task might be tougher than with Wilson.

The Marlins weren’t the only NL team to make some big moves this offseason.  The Brewers have also made some big signings in Alex Gonzalez and Aramis Ramirez.  Ramirez was the biggest available 3B free agent.

The last big name free agent still available is Prince Fielder.  Though the Cardinals lost their slugger in Pujols, they have stated they will not bid on Fielder.  While there only seems to be a few teams who can afford the 1B, my prediction is that the Cubs will be the team paying Fielder for the next few years.  

While the Tigers have been relatively quiet so far this offseason, expect things to start to heat up.  While the bidding for the Japanese star, Yu Darvish has come to and end, and the Tigs haven’t been named as one of the teams to make a serious bid, it seems as though the Blue Jays and Rangers have made the highest bids and winner should be known soon. 

The final big international posting to come is Yoenis Cespedes.  The Tigers have been mentioned as possible suitors for the Cuban star and we’ll find out soon how serious they are when he is posted as a free agent.  

Some moves the Tigers did make were to bring back Ramon Santiago and former Tigers Gerald Laird.  Detroit also added Octavio Dotel to the back end of the bullpen, all but eliminating the likelihood of Zumaya returning to the motor city.

Be sure to comment with any opinions or suggestions!

Red Hot Wings

What else can you say? The Wings are on an absolute roll.  They’re 8-2-0 in their last ten games, and after last night, trail the division leading Blackhawks by only one point with one game in hand.  

Franzen and Filpulla have stayed hot since the Wings came off their early season slide, but over the last 14 games, Datsyuk has been on fire.  After his goal last night, the Russian magician now has 21 points in his last 14 games.  Jimmy Howard also had a great night with 25 saves and only allowing one goal, on a superb shot by Evgeni Malkin.  

Over the last month, the Wings have taken down some of the top teams in the league, including Pittsburgh, Dallas, and Boston.  Nay-sayers will note that the Penguins didn’t have Letang or Crosby in the lineup due to concussions.  They’ll also point out that Boston played Tuukka Rask, not Tim Thomas.  If you look at the stats, they’re just about even, although Rask has played fewer games, when he’s been called on, he’s only lost 4 times in regulation with a 1.83 GAA.

Letang was definitely missed, especially with how hot the Wings’ offense has been of late.  However, you can’t say simply because this person or that person was out of the lineup that the outcome of the game would have been significantly different.  After 15+ years of playing hockey, I understand that one player can make a huge difference just by being in the lineup, but at elite levels, it’s always going to come down to the team rather than one individual.

The most telling stat in my opinion for the Wings is their goal differential, which currently stands at +30.  The Wings are only second in this statistic to the Northeast leading Boston Bruins.  This stat clearly shows how much the Wings have turned around their defensive woes from last year.  It also shows how much the offense has picked up over the last month.  Over the past 30 days, the Wings have only failed to score four or more goals four times.  

The rest of the month holds some pretty big challenges for Detroit.  A four game, western Canada road trip over christmas starts the 19th in Edmonton and ends on the 26th in Nashville, with Vancouver and Calgary in between.  Finally, on the 30th the Wings head to Chicago to take on the hated Blackhawks for the first time this season.

Please comment and share whatever feelings you have a about he Red Wings or anything else going on in the sports world!

Real-alingment?

With the Board of Governors meeting come and gone, and their decision to ratify the realignment plan for the 2012-2013 season, I wonder if this plan will create more problems than solutions.

Although I agree that a realignment was definitely necessary, I just don’t think essentially separating the league into 4 conferences by position on a map is the best way to go about it.  Obviously geography plays a big role when it comes to conferences, and it’s the reason realignment is necessary to begin with.  However, just because Nashville and Winnipeg fall between the allotted longitudinal lines doesn’t mean they should be in the same conference and be forced to make that flight three or four times a year.  

One of the Eastern conferences is just confusing.  Although Florida and Tampa Bay may not be in the top 10 for average attendance, how does it make sense to group them with five teams from the northeast?  Boston, Buffalo, Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto all make sense to put in a conference, but the addition of the Florida teams is just rediculous. In the other eastern conference, it’s the exact opposite.  All the teams in the conference have connected states with the exception of the Hurricanes.  

Beyond the conferences themselves, this addition of divisional playoffs just doesn’t make sense to me.  I understand the idea of creating rivalries and really drawing fans to that hatred when it’s all on the line.  But every conference is going to suffer from this, because the new conference system basically pits the same two teams against each other every year.  

In the “west/northwest” division, San Jose and Vancouver, with the possibility of the Kings, will more than likely play each other every year for the next 4-5 years.  Great for that “rivalry” but what about the other 6 teams in the league? In the “midwest” conference, same story, Detroit and Chicago are obvious choices, although Minnesota has really shown the entire league something this year with their recent hot streak.  In the East division with Boston, they are the obvious pick to win that division for the next five years.  In the final Eastern conference, Pittsburgh and Washington will likely battle throughout the regular season and again in the new playoff system.  

Again, I understand the idea of “divisional playoffs”, that by doing so you create and fuel rivalries by teams geographically close together.  However, I think by doing this you take away from that playoff atmosphere you can get from teams across the country.  Anaheim and Detroit played almost every year in the first round in the early 2000s. It seem like every year they played 10 games worth of periods every series in which they met.  Not saying I like the idea of the Wings going to the west coast every three days during a series, but those games will always stand out in my mind, and they stand out because Anaheim was a team you didn’t see very often during the regular season.

I’m not saying my proposal for realignment was perfect.  It was far from it.  I similarly screwed the teams from Florida as far as travel went, but with my idea there was only so much you could do with them.  I think geographic clusters of teams seems like a better idea than seemingly drawing arbitrary vertical lines on a map and saying “you fit here, you fit there”.  

My biggest complaint comes with the new playoff system.  In my proposal I would’ve liked to have seen the top two teams from each conference automatically be the top eight seeds broken up into two brackets.  The remaining eight teams would be made up from the next best eight records.  No restrictions to conferences.  Simply put, the best 16 teams get in, unlike the current system which involves four teams from the eastern conference which wouldn’t even be in the top 10 in the west.

Feel free to let me know what you think about the NHL’s realignment, mine, or what you would do different.

Where To Begin?

It has been brought to my attention that it has been almost a month since my last post.  For those who were hoping for one before now, I apologize.  Due to the long absence, there will be a new blog every day this week.

For today, we’ll do a short overview of what’s been going on over the last month, and later in the week we’ll go more in depth on some of the topics from today, and further in depth on more original topics.  

First: Detroit sports

The Red Wings have been on an absolute tear over the last month.  Winning 9 of 13 including a season long seven game win streak.  It looks as though Babcock’s line shake up is exactly what the team needed.  The offense, defense, and Jimmy Howard are clicking on all cylinders. 

Currently the Wings sit three points back of the Blackhawks in the Central Division with two games in hand, and six points back of the conference leading Wild.  With the way the Winged Wheel is rolling in Detroit, it looks like we can put those early season woes behind us and begin looking forward to the all-star break.  This means the up and ups can really take a look at what, if any, areas need to be improved upon prior to the trade deadline.  

The Tigers seem to be involved in more rumors than anything else this time of year, although they did make a few moves during the winter meetings last week.  

The Tigers signed veteran righty Octavio Dotel to a one years deal, with a team option for 2013.  Dotel will make $3 million next year and joins Benoit, Albuquerque, and Valverde at the back end of the bullpen.  The Tigers also traded their 21st overall pick from 2008, Ryan Perry, for Colin Balester from the Washington Nationals.  Though Perry had promising years and stuff in 2009 and 2010, 2011 was a struggle from start to finish which was marred by constant call ups and send downs.  

The Tigers also non-tendered Will Rhymes today.  Since Rhymes is not arbitration eligible and still under team control, unless a contract is figured out by spring training, Rhymes will earn the same contract he had this year.  

Detroit’s ball club has also been mentioned as possible landing spots for recently posted free agents, Yu Darvish, and soon to be posted, Yoenis Cespedes.  More on this particular topic to come later.

The Lions are 2-2 over the last month and now stand at 8-5 for the season.  Thanks to Chicago’s blunders, the Lions are clinging to the last spot in the current playoff picture.   

League news:

MLB

Lots of big moves took place last week during the winter meetings.  The Miami Marlins made the first splash by reeling in the top shortstop free agent in the past few years, Jose Reyes.

The biggest day any team had was last Thursday when the Angels signed both Albert Pujols and C.J. Wilson.  With the Angels’ newest move, it will be interesting to see how the Rangers react in their attempt to win another AL West title.  

NHL

During the Board of Governors meeting last week, the NHL approved a new 4 conference realignment for the 2012-2013 season.  Although I did create my own proposal for realignment, the NHL did not take my advice and came up with their own.  There will be a post dedicated solely to this issue later this week.

Last little things:

Sidney Crosby returned from his concussion during my blog hiatus and came back with guns blazing.  However, after being hit hard in open ice last week, he has missed the Penguins’ last 2 games and has not practiced due to concussion like symptoms.  

The Suh stomping incident was handled correctly in my opinion and I fully support the league’s decision for the two game suspension.

Tiger Woods ended his two year winless drought with a victory at his tournament, The Chevron World Challenge.  Tiger seems to have once again been able to rework his swing and now seems comfortable with it and able to control it for an entire weekend.  

Both Manchester United and Manchester City were knocked out of the Champions League in the round of 32.

And yes, Tim Tebow has continued to shock and baffle sports fans everywhere by going 7-1 in his eight starts.  

Be sure to log on tomorrow and feel free to comment and share this with your friends, family and fellow sports lovers.

Some Things I Like, Some Things I don’t.

The Wings have found a way to right the ship.  After a torrid 5-0 start, which was followed by a dreadful 0-5-1 stretch, Mike Babcock has found the right buttons to push and the team has won their last four.  Although this is great stretch, there are still some slightly concerning things happening in Motown.  

First of all, the Wings have outscored opponents 18-4 over the last four games.  Great news considering they scored only six in their winless streak.  However, you love to see a team have production from the blue line, but the Wings seem to be relying on their defensive pairings too much for offense.  Three of the five goals scored against Dallas in the last game were scored by defensemen.  That’s a great number, but the Wings know they’re not going to get that production every night.  

Franzen has nine goals in the team’s nine wins.  Simply put, if the mule scores, the Wings win.  But what happens if he reverts back to his streaky ways and goes on a goal-less streak for a week?  The team simply can’t afford to lose every time he doesn’t light the lamp.  

The recent lineup shuffle seems to have picked up the play of Filpulla and Franzen, who are now on the flanks of Zetterberg.  Datsyuk, who was between Holmstrom and Bertuzzi until Bert’s latest spat with a sinus infection, has gone on a career long scoring drought, now at 9 games without a goal.  Although he hasn’t been scoring goals, he still has 8 assists this year.  Zetterberg is the more concerning of the two, with only two goals and three assists on the year.  Both still need to pick up their game.  Through 15 games last year, the Euro Twins combined for 33 points.  Through 15 games this year, 16 points.  

With Bert on the mend, I think Clearly would be a good replacement on the line with Datsyuk and Homer.  The 3rd and 4th lines have been on a roll lately.  Even if they’re not scoring, the combination of Abdelkader, Helm, and Hudler has been giving opposing teams fits in their defensive ends.  Emmerton, Eaves and Miller had great games the past week as well.  

The fact that Jimmy Howard isn’t on the All-Star ballot is a joke.  Although he said in a recent interview that it doesn’t bother him, as a fan, it bothers me.  Tied for 3rd in wins, tied for 5th in save percentage, 3rd in GAA, and tied for 1st in shutouts.  If he continues on this pace, he could be a Vezina trophy winner, and not an all-star... I can’t remember a time that’s happened recently.

I love that the Wings have turned it around this past week, and against true tests in Edmonton and Dallas.  Couldn’t be happier with the production from the blue line, but some key offensive players need to step up their game.  Howard has been amazing since his time off for the birth of his son.  I’m excited to see what they team can do on this upcoming west coast trip.  

For the record, Ian White suffered a broken cheek bone with his goal saving sprawl across the crease in the Dallas game.  He will be replaced in the lineup by Brendan Smith who will serve the final game of his five game suspension against St. Louis on Tuesday.  Smith was suspended for his hit on Ben Smith during the pre-season game against the Blackhawks.  Although White broke a bone in his face, I think he could be back in about 2-3 weeks with a full shield.  

Something Has To Be Done

After a tantalizing start to the year, the Wings have been on an unheard of 5 game losing streak.  For any other team in the league, maybe 5 in a row isn’t unheard of, but for a franchise like the Wings, it’s just simply unacceptable.  

The most surprising occurrence in this current skid, is the complete lack of offense.  Over the last 5 losses, the Wings have produced 5 goals.  Overlooking the fact that they’ve also given up 18, you just can’t win by scoring an average of one goal a game.  

So what can be done?

The obvious answer is try to shake things up with the current team.  After tearing up the first handful of games, Franzen and Filpulla don’t seem to be clicking right now.  Val has just looked a step too slow in his moves and a second too slow on his decision making.  Franzen didn’t even have a shot last night against Minnesota while playing 15 minutes.  There’s no doubt in my mind that Babcock has blown up on the team more than once during intermissions and after a few of these games, but maybe a line-up switch could be the solution.  Zetterberg and Datsyuk also haven’t been producing.  Maybe moving Z onto a line with Filpulla and Hudler, and Franzen up with Datsyuk and Homer could be the difference.  

Another option could be in the line-up moves that Ken Holland has already shown he’s willing to do.  The call up of Nyquist and sending down of Brunstrom is a good move in my opinion.  For the 11 minutes Nyquist was on the ice last night, he certainly didn’t look like he was making his NHL debut.  Another move that could be seen in the very near future, especially if this offensive drought continues, is the call up of Tomas Tatar who had 24 goals and 33 assists in 70 games last year with the Griffins.  

Finally, a third option could be to make a trade slightly earlier than anticipated.  With over $5 million in available cap space, pretty much everyone expected the Wings to make a move at some point this year.  However, with the inability to bury the puck, Holland may have to make a move sooner than expected.  Although in a previous post I said I would love to see them make a move for Shea Weber, that may have to wait until the offseason, based on the then available cap space. Clearly the biggest need is scoring, and it might not take a blockbuster trade to bring in a high powered scorer.  Even a trade for a 3rd line guy who can come in and light a fire under the team’s ass can get all the big names going.  In 10 games so far this year, Franzen is leading the team with four goals, that wouldn’t be a terrible total, if all the other top scores like Zetterberg, Datsyuk, Cleary, Filpulla, and Hudler didn’t have two or fewer.  

If any singular or a combination of the above options is a key to unlock the early struggles for the Wings, I don’t know for sure.  But this one thing is clear, something has to be done in Motown.  

Hell of a season. What’s next?

I know it’s been almost a week since the Tigers were ousted from this years playoffs, but you’ve gotta give it up for them.  Finishing the regular season 95-67 and only 2 games back from the best record in the AL is successful in any book.  Aside from the game 6 drubbing in the ALCS, the Tigers put up a great fight in this year’s playoffs.  Taking down the Yanks in the first round in 5 games is no easy task, especially taking on Sabathia and Nova twice, who both had great seasons.  Looking more closely at game 6 against the Rangers, aside from the dreadful 3rd inning, the Tigers would’ve only lost that game 6-5, and God knows a 9 run inning will kill any team’s spirit.  So, taking that inning out of play, who knows where that game or even the series could have gone.  

However, in the interest of reality, all you can do is look back, learn, and move forward.  Which brings us to the point, where do the Tigers go from here?  The offense ranked in the top 4 in Runs, Batting Average, OBP and Slugging in the 2011 regular season.  Clearly, the offense is there, it’s just a matter of finding it when it counts (i.e. playoffs).  The Tigs have about $23 million coming off the books with just 2 contracts expiring in that of the oft-injured Carlos Guillen and fan favorite Magglio Ordonez.  The other free agents-to-be include Brad Penny, Ramon Santiago, Wilson Betamit and Joel Zumaya.  All those contracts added up total around $36 million.  However, assuming the tiger pick up the $9 million option on Jose Valverde’s contract ($2 million increase from 2011), combined with Verlander’s contract increase to $20.1 million ($7.2 million increase from 2011), and arbitration increases with Phil Coke, Max Scherzer, and Delmon Young, the savings from this year to next can estimate around $6 million.  With the 2012 commitments at around $100, look for the Tigers to jump towards their 2008 and 2010 payrolls, $137 million and $133 million respectively, if they want to sign a big name free agent.

So what does the team need?  In my opinion, the biggest needs are a starter to fill out the rotation, a middle infeidler and some middle relief.  The 1 and 2 spots in the rotation are clearly locked up with JV and Doug Fister.  With Porcello and Scherzer shaky at times this year, they could fit anywhere in the 3, 4, or 5 spots depending on who, if anyone we pick up.  If the plan is to bring up Jacob Turner, then he would fill the 5 spot and the rotation would assumably be set.  

Beyond the starting rotation, I think the Tigs need to employ an every day middle infielder.  Whether it be a big name like Jose Reyes at SS or maybe even trying to swing a deal for a 2B from another team, the Tigers simply can’t continue with a platoon in the middle of the infield for an entire year.  True, we already have Jhonny Peralta at SS, but maybe moving him to 2B for a year until Inge’s contract is up may not be the worst option... after all, how many times does a Jose Reyes hit the open market when you have money to burn?

If possible, they’d love for that middle infielder to be able to hit lead off.  Nothing against Jackson, but simply put, he’s not a lead off hitter.  He may have the speed, but he doesn’t have the plate discipline or the base running ability to hit in that crucial spot in the line up.  Lord knows I love his defense and what he brings to that vast plain in the outfield that is Comerica Park, but at the plate, he doesn’t have what you need in a leadoff hitter.  As I was always taught, you want a leadoff hitter that is going to be able to let the rest of the lineup see close to, if not everything, that day’s starting pitcher is featuring.  Swinging at the first 3 pitches is not gonna get that done.

Finally, the team needs to sure of the middle of the bullpen.  Clearly the back end is as clutch as any in the league with Benoit, Albuquerque, and Valverde.  I know Albuquerque struggled a bit in the post season, but in the words of Herb Brooks, “did you ever see him when his game was on”?  However, questions were definitely raised in the postseason, deservedly so, about the middle relief.  With Ryan Perry, Phil Coke, and Dan Schlereth having less than stellar years, something needs to be done.  Either from within or on the market.  

Other than those 3 key needs, the Tigers seem to be pretty set in my eyes.  As of right now the defensive lineup and starting rotations stand as this:

Defensive Lineup

C: Alex Avila

1B: Miguel Cabrera 

2B: ____________

3B: Brandon Inge

SS: Jhonny Peralta 

LF: Delmon Young

CF: Austin Jackson

RF: Brennan Boesch 

DH: Victor Martinez

Starting Rotation

Justin Verlander

Dough Fister

Max Scherzer

Rick Porcello 

____________

Can’t take anything away from the boys this year.  They gave the city of Detroit and the state of Michigan 7 moths of excitement and joy.  So I leave you with this quote by Rogers Honesby, “People ask me what I do in winter when there's no baseball.  I'll tell you what I do.  I stare out the window and wait for spring”. 

For us Michiganders, we move to our winter tradition of following THE dynasty, the Detroit Red Wings.  Speaking of which, the Wings return from their week long lay off tomorrow night against the Columbus Blue Jackets at Joe Louis Arena.