Tiger's fan here...
As much as I'd like to have Halladay on our team, I think we keep Cabrera in this scenario for a couple of reasons.
1) The primary one is that Cabrera, despite his recent transgressions is pretty much all of the offense our club has, and we have a pretty good nucleus when it comes to pitching, and we have a few arms in the pipeline as well. We'll have above average pitching with or without Doc (and let me emphasize I'D LOVE TO GET THIS GUY), without Cabrera we get shutout 40 times I bet.
2) All we have to wait is though the end of the '10 season...then Bonderman 12.5M, Willis 12.5M, Nate Robertson 10M, and quite possibly Brandon Inge 6.8M all could come off the books to the tune of 42M-ish.
We've already got Cabrera, Granderson, Porcello under control for a while, and we probably have just enough wiggle room to lock down Verlander and Edwin Jackson this offseason.
Other than that, we have a LOT of questions to answer this offseason.
Management claims we have MANY MLB ready bullpen guys in the minors, need to see how that pans out.
Management claims Scott Sizemore can spell Polanco, need to see how that pans out.
Is Avila going to be the long term answer at catcher...
who can play shortstop if anyone...
is Ryan Raburn an everyday .290 hitting outfielder or not...
Is Guillen going to be around to actually PLAY in the 2011 season, or will Guillen's 2010 season be like his last 2 years with the club thus forcing us to give Guillen the Sheffield treatment come Spring 2011 just before the season starts.
All of these questions I guess will be answered in the upcoming season....while we are waiting out that 42M of bad contracts.
Good news for us is, that after the '10 season, we won't have ANY significant players in a contract situation which means we could very well have 42M of payroll to completely re-allocate in the free agent market.
Who are some names you ask that could be in the free agent market come the end of the 2010 season...
Roy Halladay and Joe Mauer to name a few.
We trimmed payroll 15M before the 2009 season started and could lock down Verlander and Jackson, get a modest closer and still trim another 5-10M for the 2010 season.
Our own is willing to spend when he believes the time is right....took payroll to the upper 130'sM.
After we answer some of the aforementioned questions I posed, so that we know EXACTLY ON WHAT POSITIONS we have to spend our money on, we could be looking at a new blend of youth, complimented by upwards of 70M per season on free agent acquisitions for an owner who is up there in age and very desirous of winning a world championship.
I suspect if we were to take a run at Doc, it would be as a free agent.
I could be wrong, but that is how I see things....
...all that being said, thanks for thinking you'd be willing to rid us of Dontrelle.
