Waiting for the other shoes to drop
Update: Tigs Town's Mark Anderson reports on Twitter Freddy Dolsi and Dusty Ryan were designated for assignment.
Assuming all the physicals are passed and all the i's dotted and t's crosed, the Tigers are not currently in position to make the three-way trade with Arizona and New York, you might have heard.
They have two too many players on the 40-man roster. Edwin Jackson and Curtis Granderson will be exiting, but room must be made for Austin Jackson, Max Scherzer, Phil Coke and Daniel Schlereth.
Of course, the easiest way to do that would be just to remove two players from the 40-man roster and hope to pass them through waivers. But the more productive option would be finding a way to deal them for minor leaguers who do not require addition to the roster.
So, yes. It's possible even more players who were members of the 2009 team will be gone by opening day in 2010. Actually, it's probably. I would expect more than a third, maybe even 40 percent, of the Aug. 31 active (25-man) roster will not be playing in Detroit next season. I guess that's what happens when you fail to make the playoffs at the back end of a contention window.
Now it's time for a new generation of players to take their shots.
Anyway, I am in agreement with some of the other thoughts on this I have seen, from Bill at DTW and Tony Paul at the News. The Tigers will probably bid goodbye to lefty specialist Bobby Seay.
He always showed potential to be more than a specialist, but now that so many southpaws are set to be in the Tigers' bullpen, there is room to move him, and likely interest enough to find a trading partner.
The other possibility, as has been noted in the past, is admitting the Dontrelle Willis situation will not likely turn around in 2010. However, it's possible the Tigers receive some insurance money for Willis. From that aspect, they pay him less to be on the 40-man roster than they pay him not to be, so it would make some sense to keep him until his contract ends.
From a positional player standpoint, the Tigers never really seemed to give catcher Dusty Ryan much of a chance. With the emergence of Alex Avila, and with the signing of Robinson Diaz, it's quite possible they remove Ryan from the roster and see what happens.
Other names to come up are infielder Jeff Larish -- I think this would be an unwise move, though the right trade could change my mind on that -- and complete utilityman Don Kelly. I like Larish too much to see them just give up on him. He really hasn't been given a great shot either, with just 74 games across two seasons. Kelly's best usage is insurance in case third baseman Brandon Inge has any health problems in 2010 following his knee surgeries this offseason. There really isn't anyone left in the organization who you could trust to play third regularly.
In any case, moves will be announced soon, because Detroit cannot complete the trade without them. So keep an eye on that.
