Tiger is a tool. We will tune in to more golf this year as long as he is not playing. Not because he is a tool, and not because we don’t enjoy watching him play. But because we enjoy watching other golfers play, too. It’s amazing, that the final round of the whatzit classic can be on, and Cheetah Tiger is 15 strokes back, and yet, all of the coverage is of him struggling to save par on 17. We couldn’t care less about what he does behind closed doors. He is a tool, but a great golfer.
The Tigers traded Curtis Granderson, and the state of Michigan treats it as if Steve Yzerman was traded to the Avalanche in 1996. He is a good, not great player. He does very, very good things around this community. But he is highly overrated, strikes out 120 times a year, and cannot — let me repeat — CANNOT hit left handed pitching. While he is a great defensive center fielder, great defense pales in comparison to offensive capabilities. Edwin Jackson had a fantastic start to 2009, and was a big reason the Tigers came out of the gate leading the division in May. But his ERA over the last half of the year was north of 5.00. It was a career year for him, one not likely to be repeated, and like Granderson, was overrated by the rest of the league. In short, you have two players who have some value, but their apparent value to the rest of the league was far higher than their actual value, which makes it the perfect time to trade them. What the Tigers got in return is three pitchers and a younger, cheaper version of Granderson. Players with a much higher ceiling than Jackson and Granderson. After years of getting on Dave Dombrowski for trading away young talent for old non-talent, this is a tremendous move to make the Tigers better in 2010, looking forward to 2011 when $50M comes of bad money comes off the books.
The Lions are worse this year than last. But with better coaching. And a quarterback. That is all.
