The Tiger's Wish List for this off-season is pretty straight forward: Relief Pitching and a good defensive shortstop. And believe it or not, Joe Torre could ultimately factor into the Tiger's off-season as much as Dave Dombrowski.
Recently Mariano Rivera has said that Torre's release will factor in his decision to either return to the Yankees or become a Free Agent this upcoming winter. Despite these threats, it still seems imminent that Torre will be manging another team come spring 2008 (my money is on the Card's), and this could lead to the greatest closer of all time becoming one of the top Free Agent's in this years class.
Other players such as Jorge Posada, Alex Rodriguez, Andy Pettite and Roger Clemens could also be directly affected by his departure. If these players leave, 3 of them (Rivera, Rodriguez and Pettite) soar to the top of the Tiger's Wish List.
Rivera would be an incredibly welcome upgrade of Todd "Let's Make This Interesting" Jones in the closer role and would allow for the use of Joel Zumaya, Fernando Rodney and Jones in a 6-7-8 kind of role. A-Rod is A-Rod and while it looks like this offense could not get any better, adding him would make it one of the best possibly ever. On the defensive side, A-Rod was once a Gold Glove shortstop with the Mariners and would surely welcome a move from the hot corner, pushing Carlos Guillen to First Base, and allowing for Sean Casey to be a DH/1B type of utility man. Pettite would also be a welcome upgrade over Nate Robertson and his very disappointing season. At the very worst he is a tremendous long relief pitcher.
Price is a major factor, but Ilitch has never been one to shy away from offering major contracts (see the $140 Million Juan Gonzalez offer). If Ilitch is willing to pony up the cash hopefully A-Rod and Rivera will be willing to trade in pinstripes for the olde english D.
No comments:
Post a Comment