Tiger Notes

Love is in the air, babies. Gifts are being bought, dinners being ate and relationships being rekindled. The same could be said of baseball lovers. We’re on the brink of rekindling our obsessions with our favorite teams. We can look forward to no less that 162 dates  - but hopefully more.

At the end of this courting, we hope to see a ring. What to wear, what to wear in November.

Here are my valentine gifts for the Detroit Tigers:

Justin Verlander: 20 wins and 300 strikeouts, young man.
Rick Porcello: You don’t have to do anyone elses laundry, anymore, sophomore.
Scott Sizemore: Hey, Scott, Rick is looking for you. He’s got something for you.
Austin Jackson: Forgive the Granderson fans, they’ll come around.
Max Sherzer: I’m buying you contacts, because, buddy, your eyes freak me out a little.
Brandon Inge: Healthy legs and no Home Run Contest this season.
Magglio Ordonez: Your long hair back. But not like this.
Gerald Laird: A batting tee.
Carlos Guillen: A book, “How to pass time on the bench, while DH’ing”.
Joel Zumaya: Guitar Hero 2. Sorry, couldn’t resist.

And finally:

Ernie Harwell: There is nothing I can give you that would ever do you justice sir. You are my childhood, in a little box with one speaker and a clothes hangar for an antenna. You are the voice of God, the voice of reason, the voice of baseball.

Last season was a tale of two very different seasons for Detroit Tiger outfielder Magglio Ordonez. He started the season with his customary long black locks, but gone was the power that was a signature of the Venezuelan born Ordonez.

Through the first 57 games (and 242 plate appearances) Ordonez had just two home runs and twenty-two RBI with a .273 batting average. Compare that to just one year before, Maggs was sitting on nine home runs and thirty-seven RBI with a .322 batting average in his first 57 games (239 plate appearances).

The plate appearances are key. If Ordonez made it to the plate 1,080 times over the course of 2008 and 2009 seasons his contract would automatically vest. He ended the season with 1,141 plate appearances, for a pay day of 18 million dollars.

Even the most ardent fan was irate over the vesting of the contract. But lets examine what Magglio did in that second half:

In 76 games he hit .337 while driving in twenty-nine RBI with seven home runs. Basically a return to what he was doing in the first half of the previous season. Or before everyone was complaining about the vesting of the contract.

Why am I bringing this up? I’m bored, mainly. I’m really at a point where I’m tired of the coffee table GM’s worrying about Mike Illitchs money. Seriously, if Illitch didn’t want that contract to vest he would have made it known. And had he made it known, and it had vested, Dave Dombrowski would be out of a job right now – well, at least out of Detroit.

So say Magglio (who is our second best hitter, behind Miguel Cabrera) gets off to a HUGE start, driving in runs, etc. Do you still worry about vesting? Do you still worry about Mike Illitchs money?

Would you rather lose, then spend 18 million dollars of someone Else’s money?