Kuzul

A month ago, most people outside of Detroit didn't know who Jeff Kobernus was.But this season, Kobernus will be on everyone's radar, and will make a surprise impact for the Detroit Tigers.Kobernus, a natural second baseman from San Leandro, Calif., was the Washington Nationals' second-round pick in the 2009 MLB June Amateur Draft out of University of California Berkley.The 24-year-old spent most of last season with the Nationals' Double-A affiliate, Harrisburg, where he batted .282 with a .325 on-base percentage, one home run and 19 RBI in 82 games.While those numbers aren't anything to bat an eyelash at, Kobernus caught the attention of major league scouts after stealing 42 bases in 53 attempts last season.His 42 stolen bases—in 82 games, mind you—was twice as many as the Tigers' leading base-stealer last season, Quintin Berry.Kobernus was a Rule 5 pickup for the Tigers last December, and although he has played second base ...

The Detroit Tigers need to make a strong effort in attempting to sign closer Brian Wilson who is coming off Tommy John surgery but yet expected to be healthy by Opening Day according to Tim Brown at Yahoo! Sports.  Source: Brian Wilson has been told by surgeon James Andrews that he will be cleared for spring training and ready by opening day.— Tim Brown (@TBrownYahoo) December 6, 2012  Scott Miller at CBS Sports mentioned last night on Twitter that Wilson is receiving lots of interest around baseball but didn't specify which five teams he's narrowed his list down to.  Lots of interest in Brian Wilson, source says. He's still not close to signing but has narrowed list from 9 or 10 teams to 5 or so— Scott Miller (@ScottMCBS) December 28, 2012  Hopefully the Tigers are on that list.Wilson, who according to Henry Shulman from the SF Chronicle was upset at being released from the ...

They each took their turns, none lasting more than three years, sometimes less than a full season. Each had, in his own mind, a fantasy that he could be the man who would bring relevance back to baseball in Detroit. George “Sparky” Anderson left the Tigers after the 1995 season, the organization a shambles and the talent as thin as onion skin. Sparky wasn’t getting any help from the scouting guys as he steered the Tigers through the first half of the 1990s before retiring. The decision makers kept rolling the dice on draft day and those dice kept coming up snake eyes. By ’95, the Tigers’ farm system was bereft of Grade A, big league talent. So it was for the 10 years after Sparky left that the Tigers shuffled managers in and out of town. There was a revolving door at Metro Airport for the baseball skippers. Sparky ...

Jim Leyland is heading back to the World Series. Already sporting an elusive World Series ring, could it be possible he will soon have one for each hand? No other current manager has more than one. With Tony LaRussa stepping down last year (he has three) and Joe Torre's retirement after the 2010 season (he has four), Leyland can become the only active manager with more than one. But does that make him an elite manager? To be a member of the club you not only need lots of wins, but you absolutely must have at least one ring. Still there are some managers who own a ring but do not have a great number of wins. So what about two championships? Is that enough for elite status? Rating managers can certainly be subjective. Wins and championships make it easy, but other factors like game strategy, likeability, evaluating player talent, ...

Russell Martin, a good baseball player having a bad year, almost poisoned the Tigers earlier this week. Martin, the New York Yankees catcher, is hitting below .200 for the season—well below his career mark (going into this year) of .272. But despite his failure to get a hit rate of over 80 percent, Martin shot the hearts of Tigers fans into their throats on Tuesday night. It was the ninth inning, the Tigers clinging to a 6-4 lead, and closer Jose Valverde was having one of those ninth innings that all closers sometimes have—the kind where he leads the fans, like a demented pied piper, to the gates of Hell and back again. Valverde was as wobbly as a punch-drunk prize fighter. And even the weak-hitting Martin wasn’t an antidote. With runners on first and second and two outs, a run already in, Martin laced a Valverde fastball deep into ...

The Detroit Tigers continue to underachieve in 2012 and it's time for manager Jim Leyland to mix things up in the clubhouse like Joe Maddon of the Tampa Bay Rays. While it's true that the Tigers have looked better against the Minnesota Twins recently, the team is not out of the woods yet. After all, they've only won back-to-back games once since mid-April. Still floating around .500 heading into June, the team needs to change their routine in order to have some fun heading into the summer months. Baseball is a very superstitious game as clubs stick with what they know even when things are going bad. Tigers' fans know Leyland is adamant about how he runs the ship in Detroit. He typically gets short with the media, can't stand whiny fans and is loyal to his lineup. Leyland himself knows his lineup with either play themselves into contention or play him out ...

The Tigers are 17-18, so it's time for the armchair-general managers to come out of the floorboards and call for the heads of Jim Leyland, Lloyd McClendon, David Dombrowski–-you name it. It's true the Tigers were the prohibitive favorite to win their division leading into Opening Day, but it never ceases to amaze how a fanbase can so quickly and magnanimously provide "solutions" for a ballclub hovering at a .500 win percentage. As if, suddenly, they have figured out that Jim Leyland and his coaching staff do not know what they are doing. Rarely does a fanbase ask itself, "Are we jumping the gun? Is there something Jim Leyland knows that we don't?" If skeptics asked themselves these questions honestly and sincerely, they'd come to know that the answer to the last question is a resounding “yes.” Jim Leyland does know something that we don't. He knows enough to be ...

When the Detroit Tigers wisely decided not to bring back Brad Penny following an offense-aided 10-10 record in 2012, the competition for the fifth starter in their rotation was underway. Justin Verlander, Doug Fister, Max Scherzer and Rick Porcello represent a strong—but incomplete—rotation. Not only are they a man short, but they're all right-handed pitchers and lack the the lefty to complement them and keep opposing teams off-balance. The lack of a left-hander could come back to haunt the Tigers as the team presumed to be their biggest competition for the AL Central crown, the Cleveland Indians, feature a predominately left handed lineup. The Tigers are less than two weeks away from their first game, and there is no clear-cut candidate for that final rotation spot. Because of off-days in their early schedule they technically don't need a fifth starter until April 15 at the earliest, so Jim Leyland and Dave Dombrowski have a little, but not ...

Something tells me that Detroit Tigers manager Jim Leyland isn't too enamored with Ryan Raburn.Not that I can totally blame him. Raburn has never exactly hopped on any opportunity to show that he can be an every day player. Raburn's early season struggles and mental lapses in defense have made him a player that is polarizing to fans.Luckily—or perhaps unluckily—Brandon Inge is still on the Tigers' roster. It's lucky for Raburn because without him, Raburn would surely be the biggest target of public scorn that the Tigers have. It's unlucky for him because Leyland's infatuation with the Mendoza line straddling Inge likely means less at-bats for Raburn.In 2011, Raburn's story of his career came through once again in full fruition. After the first three months of the season, Raburn was hitting a mere .205 leading to a lot of DNP's in his game log.While it seems .205 would be a career year ...

In the past couple of weeks, every ounce of excitement directed toward the Detroit Tigers has been matched with equal amounts of criticism.The Tigers made arguably the biggest splash of the offseason, catching the baseball world by surprise and inking star first baseman Prince Fielder to a contract lasting nearly a decade. The nine-year, $214 million deal signed by Prince will provide Detroit with endless options in the lineup and the field.Some of those options however, aren't exactly considered to be favorable choices. Fielder's arrival will push Tigers' current superstar slugger, Miguel Cabrera, back to his original position at third base.Perhaps the fear of facing Miggy and Prince in succession is what has critics suddenly zeroing in on just how the infield transformation could destroy Detroit's title hopes. But I sense the move has some Tigers' fans concerned as well.Maybe the fact that Fielder and Cabrera finished dead last together ...