12.04.2007

Your Move, Shapiro.

I think the Detroit Tigers have a personal vendetta out against the Cleveland Indians for taking them out of the playoff picture last season. Even if they don't, they are definitely making it known that they aren't going to be sitting on their hands this off-season.

The Tigers dealt Cameron Maybin and Andrew Miller, their two top prospects, and a four other players to the Florida Marlins for Miguel Cabrera and Dontrelle Willis this evening, which now arguably makes their lineup one of - if not the most - feared lineup in baseball. Willis doesn't scare me, however. He's always been at-best only dominant during the first half of the season. Trust me, I've had him in fantasy baseball way too many times to know this. But here's what Detroit's lineup could look like:

1. Curtis Granderson
2. Placido Polanco
3. Miguel Cabrera
4. Magglio Ordonez
5. Gary Sheffield
6. Carlos Guillen
7. Edgar Renteria
8. Ivan Rodriguez
9. Jacque Jones/Marcus Thames

Yikes.

The only silver lining we can take away from this as Tribe fans is that maybe this will inspire Mark Shapiro to pull off some sort of big trade this off-season. There have been a ton of rumors floating around about dealing for Jason Bay from Pirates, which would be great, except for the fact that they want Kelly Shoppach in the deal, which I don't like in the long run because I like his cannon behind the plate when Victor plays first base. Putting Cliff Lee in the deal I don't mind so much because, well, he's Cliff Lee. But I definitely think Shoppach is worth more to this club than some people realize. But in the end, you won't see me complaining too much if it happens. Jason Bay is a good player and if he can put up good numbers in a lineup like Pittsburgh's than he can probably do something similar in Cleveland. Another .300/30/100 guy in our lineup would be great. It would have been nice if we dealt Lee for Carl Crawford when we had the chance, eh?

The best part is, this deal probably isn't even going to be the biggest one in the division this off-season. Who knows what the Twins are going to get for Johan Santana if they so choose to trade him during the off-season.

The AL Central just got a little bit more interesting folks.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Nice site, Chet!

rick@halftimeadjustments said...

I don't know what kind of move Shapiro can make this offseason, but it would be nice to add a little offense somewhere. Third base or left field seems to be the most likely option there.

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