Lynn Henning

Possible hang-up on Johnny Damon?

I think if it were only an issue of a one-year contract, the Tigers and Johnny Damon by now might have a deal.

But the belief, strong belief, is that agent Scott Boras wants a second year. And that's likely a deal-breaker for the Tigers as they ponder whether to add a nice top-of-the-order bat to their undernourished lineup.

The Tigers don't want to tie up that much cash on multiple contract years. They've been through the mill there and they're not going to risk another contract they regret, even if it's for one season, and even if Damon represents -- today, anyway -- little risk.

If they can do a one-year arrangement, even for $7 million or a bit more, they could well go for it.

But it looks as if Boras is going for bigger game. In fact, Boras being Boras, you know he is.

The Tigers and Thome ...

Like most people, I thought Jim Thome could help -- really help -- the Tigers in 2010.

And, like the Tigers, I couldn't figure out where to play him.

It's obvious: They have too many designated hitters already. Ideally, Carlos Guillen or Magglio Ordonez will work as the DH tandem, with Guillen -- in my opinion -- being the more regular choice and with Ryan Raburn playing a more regular left field.

But as long as there are immovable contracts, the Tigers are chock full of DHs.

The surprise is that this didn't seem to bother the Minnesota Twins. They signed Thome Tuesday to a one-year deal. And I have no idea where he's supposed to play, with Justin Morneau and Jason Kubel around. Michael Cuddyer and Delmon Young are taking up spots, as well, in the Twins lineup.

So, unless the Twins are planning on trading someone (Young has been on their eviction list for a long time), Thome figures to have no more of a slot than he would have had with the Tigers, or with the White Sox, who also decided against signing him because they had no great options on playing him every day.

Again, tough contracts are rough on rosters. They're restrictive. A year from now, the Tigers might be able to go after a guy like Thome. But for now, no way. No room, no payroll.

Do the Tigers still need a bat? Are you kidding? They can't go into the 2010 season, in this view, without adding a big bat. It is why I continue to believe there will be a big trade at the end of spring training, involving pitchers and maybe a guy like Raburn, that will bring a potent, corner outfielder to the Tigers.

And if that doesn't happen, the Twins, who figure out how to use everybody, will figure out how to make the Tigers pay for not signing Thome.

Tigers were wise not to chase Juan Pierre ...

Juan Pierre sounded like just the guy the Tigers need.

But he wasn't. Not for the price the White Sox had to fork over (two pitching prospects)to the Dodgers, and not for the price of Pierre's absurd contract the White Sox yet have to eat ($8 million of the $18.5 million Pierre is owed through 2011).

Pierre is a decent left-hand batter with some defensive prowess, which made him, on paper at least, enticing to the Tigers. But he is over-priced. He is basically a fourth outfielder with singles-hitting ability and zero power. Pierre doesn't help an offense as much as people think. And again, there is the reality he is horribly over-priced, even if another club is eating a good portion of his salary.

That's why the Dodgers agreed to push him aside even if it meant swallowing $10.5 million. Pierre doesn't greatly help your team, not over the long haul. He doesn't walk anymore than he hits for power. He does not steal bases. He can play some defense, which is appealing given the state of the Tigers' corner outfield spots.

But that's not the kind of package worth trading two pitchers and forking over $8 million.

The Tigers have ceased paying money that would be better off remaining in the bank, at least when the investment is as shaky as the White Sox trade for Pierre.

Of course, he'll end up beating the Tigers a time or two in 2010 -- and then I'm going to promptly forget I ever wrote this blog.

A couple of books worth considering ...

Ten days before Christmas and a lot of shopping remains for those of us who simply like to shop later rather than earlier.

Or, maybe we can't figure out what to get someone.

A couple of books published during the past year might help, especially if you're buying for sports fans.

One of them is a baseball book: "Those 1940 Detroit Tigers," by John C. Fountain, who has put together a breezy, revealing chronicle of the '40 Tigers who made it to that year's World Series against Cincinnati.

What I like about the book, beyond its revival of the great announcer, Ty Tyson, and his colorful broadcast style, is that it brings to light the great players on that 1940 team: Charlie Gehringer, Rudy York, Schoolboy Rowe, Hank Greenberg, as well as the rest of the cast: Pinky Higgins, Tommy Bridges, Birdie Tebbetts, etc.

You don't need to have been around for this team (even I was more than a decade away) to have recognized how important these names are to Detroit's baseball history.

It's a solid book whose proceeds go to a worthy group: The Detroit Sports Broadcasters Association. The book is not available online or at local stores. But you can buy it by donating $25 to the DSBA Grant Fund, which provides scholarship assistance and earns you an automatic copy of the book.

For details, call 586-558-9103.

If the Tigers trade Granderson, here's a thought on center field ...

Scott Podsednik.

He's a free agent. He's fast. He's a left-hand hitter. He would be an affordable, one-year option as a guy who could be trusted with the day-to-day job, or as a platoon player with young Casper Wells, whom I believe has a heavy shot at making the club out of spring camp.

Podsednik doesn't have power. He isn't a gifted center-fielder, even with his speed. But he helps you win baseball games because he gets his bat on the ball, he can take a walk (.353 on-base percentage in 2008), and he can run.

He can really run.

He's also a free agent. The Tigers would be smart to consider him if they suddenly need insurance in center.

Curtis Granderson isn't gone yet. But if he ends up elsewhere once the trade fires have cooled, the Tigers would do worse than to make a bid for Podsednik.

Voters blow it on Marvin Miller

Baseball needs to grow up.

Marvin Miller should have been in the Hall of Fame long ago, all because one man saw that the people who fans paid to see perform got a representative slice of the pie.

He put teeth into the Major League Players Association. And while that's not going to win any populist appreciation, it would have been a measure of justice for a man who made life for a baseball player the same as it was for any other participant in the honorable American economic system of free enterprise.

Thanks to Miller's work in the 1970s, players got paid what the free market said they were worth.

That seems to be considered a virtue except when it pertains to professional athletes. Then, the tune changes. Athletes are supposed to play "for the love of the game" and at the behest of whatever owners want to pay them.

And that's why Miller didn't make it when Monday's Hall of Fame vote was announced by the 12-man Veterans Committee that votes for the Hall's Executives and Pioneers category.

Miller got seven of 12 votes and needed nine. John Fetzer, the late Tigers owner, led the cast with eight votes. He, too, missed, which wasn't as surprising as Miller's denial.

Miller was a pioneer, indeed. He opened up the American economy to professional baseball players who for generations had been owned, and disposed of, by a single club, at the club's discretion.

Miller changed all of that. He altered the game in profoundly dramatic fashion. He helped make players free.

And he should be in Cooperstown. Sadly, because dollars were, and have been, involved on a grand scale, too many members of the committee can't quite forgive Miller.

The Hall of Fame suffers from its occasional brushes with pettiness. In the case of Miller, that has been a long and lamentable tradition.

Is the 2010 season a throwaway?

Lots of people have suggested to me that 2010 looks like a baseball season in Detroit they can pretty much write off.

I don't blame them for their fears. But I'd first wait and see how the roster looks.

There will be significant moves made, almost certainly, in the days and weeks ahead. When players are traded, other players arrive. It would be wise to take a look at the incoming personnel before deciding that the 2003 season, when the Tigers went 43-119, might be eclipsed by the 2010 gang.

It will be a transition year, no doubt. The Tigers spent the bullet trying to win in 2008 and ended up with a disaster: a last-place finish, no playoff spot in 2009, and a lot of bad contracts.

They're trying to get out from beneath those contracts now, at the same time they're re-seeding the team for the next decade. It's the way I'd go if I were a general manager. It was why a couple of months ago I saw few options but to trade a guy like Curtis Granderson,

But, again, wait to see how the roster looks when everything has shaken out before forming any ideas, one way or the other, about 2010. I have a hunch it will be intriguing, although I guess you could use that same word, in an ironic way, about the 2003 team.

Trade percentages as the Tigers get busy

One man's opinion on how likely it is that three Tigers might have new homes in 2010:

Curtis Granderson: 80 percent.

Edwin Jackson: 60 percent.

Miguel Cabrera: 20 percent.

Granderson has drawn the most interest from the most teams. Jackson's market is currently soft but could heat up by the time the Winter Meetings get going in two weeks.

Cabrera has one realistic destination, at least in November of 2009: Boston. But the more the Red Sox chase Roy Halladay with an offer involving Clay Buchholz, the less chance they'll be adding a bat on the level of Cabrera's.

The market changes by the day. It's anybody's guess how the landscape will look a week from Monday, when the Winter Meetings get rocking in Indianapolis.

More on why the Tigers are pondering some big trades

If the Tigers were fundamentally looking to lop payroll this autumn they would be concentrating, in order, on dumping the following players:

Miguel Cabrera, Magglio Ordonez, Carlos Guillen, Dontrelle Willis, Nate Robertson, Jeremy Bonderman.

They're the big-money players on the Tigers' roster. And while Cabrera's market value is still high despite his season-end drinking incidents, he won't be dealt. And the rest of the cast can't be given away.

So, to expand on a column written Friday, scratch dollars as being the primary reason for Curtis Granderson and Edwin Jackson being available for trade.

It's more about putting a new wave of talented, same-aged players on the field beginning in 2011, when new blood arrives from the minors to mesh with prospects the Tigers figure to get from any deals involving Granderson and Jackson, or others.

It's about having Justin Verlander and Rick Porcello as the cornerstones for a starting rotation that will by then have Casey Crosby and others on hand.

Payroll is a factor in the current discussions to this extent: Jackson will be expensive in two years when he hits free agency. Better to trade him now when the Tigers can get top value for him as opposed to waiting and losing, either when he signs elsewhere or when his trade stock will have depreciated.

Payroll is a factor, as well, in this sense: After the current phalanx of horrifically expensive talent has departed following 2010 and 2011 (Ordonez, Guillen, Robertson, Willis, and perhaps Bonderman), the Tigers payroll will be down to fighting weight.

There will be flexibility to add the seasoned veteran who can make a difference.

It will be a better-managed team and payroll with sensibly priced talent that can contend.

But you probably don't get there as completely, or as rapidly, in the next couple of years if you don't trade Granderson and Jackson now.

And that's the main reason why two talented players are on the block.

Thoughts on Guillen, Raburn ...

Carlos Guillen wants to play left field regularly for the Tigers in 2010. The Tigers want to upgrade their outfield defense in 2010.

And you thought divorce court was where people had irreconcilable differences.

Someone (as in me) thought the Tigers had correctly decided Guillen would be more of a fulltime designated hitter in 2010 and that the more fleet, if occasionally awkward, Ryan Raburn would be the more likely choice for regular shifts in left field.

Jim Leyland, the Tigers manager, has instead soothed Guillen by nominating him for daily duty as the team's left-fielder in 2010.

And I'll believe it when I see it.

What the manager is doing is strategic and respectful to a 34-year-old core player who has been kicked from pillar to outfield post during the past two years. He was a shortstop, then a first baseman, then a third baseman, and now he's supposedly the team's regular left-fielder.

Guillen is right on one issue: If his knees were so bad that the Tigers had to move him out of his natural shortstop role after the 2007 season, it doesn't make a lot of sense to say those same knees aren't an issue on the third largest tract of land in the state of Michigan, apart from the Upper and Lower Peninsulas: Comerica Park's outfield.

So, the Tigers are being diplomatic. They are saying to Guillen, who will make $13 million in 2010 and another $13 million in 2011: Show us your stuff, cowboy. Play left field as if it's your soul mate. Love it. Relish it. Flourish at it.

And make doggone sure you field it properly while you're hitting somewhere closer to the .300 mark and not the .242 you swatted in 2009.

I'm not sure that can happen. It's not Guillen's fault -- it's nature at work -- but he lacks the speed and range to get to fly balls hit along the left-field line and in foul territory. Unless third baseman Brandon Inge, in his inimitable way, somehow tracks them down, they tend to fall safely to the earth, foul, or they drop for hits.

And that can suddenly turn an inning into a four-out frame. The Tigers can't afford those, not in 2010, when they could be just as starved for runs as they were in 2009.

I suspect what will happen is this: Guillen will begin the 2010 season as Leyland's left-fielder. He will probably be there on Opening Day. But keeping Raburn properly engaged as a fourth outfielder will be difficult, and likely not wise. Raburn can hit and will get better in 2010.

The Tigers will need him in the lineup -- particularly as they see Guillen having ongoing difficulties tracking down catchable fly balls.

Raburn wasn't on many Gold Glove lists during a 2009 season when he proved beyond doubt that he was still learning a new position. But he will be better in 2010, much better. In fact, he was better, defensively, during the 2008 campaign, his first real season playing the outfield.

He simply needs to calm down and play more regularly, with left field being the greater area of need for Leyland's team.