• White Sox at Tigers, 12:55 p.m. PT — At 0-4, Detroit is the only team without a win so far this season. Baseball is a strange game. Dontrelle Willis makes his Tigers debut. For a guy who should be in his physical prime, Willis sure has fallen fast. Where’s Steve Avery when you need him?
• Dodgers at Padres, 12:55 p.m. PT — This is by far the best matchup of the day: Brad Penny goes up against Cy Young Award winner Jake Peavy. Penny is 0-2 with a 6.67 ERA over his last five starts against San Diego.
• Diamondbacks at Rockies, 5:05 p.m. PT — Last year’s NL West playoff participants square off this evening. Two good young pitchers — Brandon Webb and Jeff Francis — hook up in this one. It’s also a good excuse to watch Justin Upton play, which is always a treat.

Play ball!

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• Royals at Tigers, 10:05 a.m. PT — First off, Kansas City has taken the first two games of this series, which I’m sure nobody expect. Second, two talented yet enigmatic pitchers square off in this one. Zack Greinke appeared to get his career back on track in 2007 and looks to continue progressing this year, while Jeremy Bonderman tries to solve his first-inning woes and become the front-line pitcher folks have been anticipating.
• Blue Jays at Yankees, 4:05 p.m. PT — Two more young arms — Dustin McGowan and Philip Hughes — hook up in New York this evening.
• Pirates at Braves, 4:10 p.m. PT — Mike Hampton’s last big-league appearance came on August 19, 2005. He gets the start in this one. Working on 958 days of rest, he may be a tad rusty.

Play ball!

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At THT, I’ve gone with the popular pick except for AL West (I chose Mariners over Angels), AL Wild Card (Indians over Yankees), and NL Cy Young (Jake Peavy over Johan Santana — there’s my Padres bias kicking in because, hey, someone’s got to have a Padres bias).

I also have the Diamondbacks beating the Tigers in the World Series. We’ll see what happens…

How about you? Any predictions you’d care to share?

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Ordinarily in this space I would tell you which games are most worth watching, but on Opening Day, they’re all worth watching. The first games (Blue Jays at Yankees, Royals at Tigers) start at 10:05 a.m. PT, while the last (Astros at Padres; of course, I’ll be there!) gets going at 7:05 p.m. PT.

I can’t begin to tell you how glad I am that baseball is back. Enjoy the games!

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Today’s entrant comes from the modern era. Right-hander John Kiely pitched for the Detroit Tigers from 1991 to 1993. Although his career consisted of just 54 big-league appearances, Kiely managed to accomplish something pretty impressive: He posted a career ERA+ of 96 despite walking more than twice as many batters as he struck out.

Kiely’s lone full season came in ‘92, when he went 4-2 with a 2.13 ERA in 39 games. Consistent with the rest of his career, he walked 28 and fanned 18 over 55 innings.

Kiely was born on October 4, 1964. Other notable baseball figures born on October 4 include Tony LaRussa, John Wathan (woo, go Toreros!), Charlie Leibrandt, Billy Hatcher, Chris James (brother of ex-NFL running back Craig James), Jered Weaver, and Tony Gwynn Jr.

Well, now you know. Until next time…

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This is going to take a while, so you may want to pull up a chair. Heck, go ahead and order a pizza.

Headed to Detroit

Cabrera is a stud. There’s no other way to put it. In any given year, he’s a legitimate MVP candidate. Better players in baseball? You can count the number on one hand, possibly two. Yeah, Cabrera’s a little heavy but he’s also a hitting machine who turns 25 in April. He’s a guy around which a team can build. Even that’s an understatement.

The Tigers now feature a sick, sick offense. Cabrera, Magglio Ordonez, Curtis Granderson, Gary Sheffield, Carlos Guillen? Sure, Ordonez will come back to earth somewhat, but who cares. This team will score 900 runs in 2008.

On the pitching front, Willis is coming off a poor season (5.17 ERA). He turns 26 in January, so this may have been a fluke. Then again, he’s been ridden pretty hard at a young age, like a certain Steve Avery I know, so maybe not.

Anyway, with a rotation headed by Justin Verlander and Jeremy Bonderman, and with that offense, it’s not like the Tigers need an ace. They just need a guy who can soak up innings, and Willis fits the bill. He could win 15 games without even getting out of bed next year.

Headed to Florida

Maybin and Miller are the prizes in this deal. Maybin is a stud in the making. Only by the grace of Granderson was he deemed expendable. As a 20-year-old in the pitching-friendly Florida State League, Maybin hit .304/.393/.486 before making late cameos in Double-A and the big leagues. Baseball America rated Maybin as the Tigers top prospect coming into 2007, comparing him to Mike Cameron and Torii Hunter.

Miller is a flamethrowing (love that phrase; how wicked would it be if a guy could actually do it?) left-hander who saw action at four levels (including 13 starts with the big club) in 2007. His command is spotty, but that should improve with experience. There is also some concern that his delivery could lead to injury down the line, but that’s always a risk with pitchers. If Miller stays healthy and develops as expected, he should be a front-line starter.

Rabelo is a 27-year-old catcher with a career .263/.327/.346 minor-league line. BA cited his defensive skills in ranking Rabelo as the Tigers’ 18th best prospect before last season.

De La Cruz is a right-hander who turns 24 in March. He made 11 starts in Double-A last season with decent results and then moved to the bullpen at Triple-A, where he was less successful. BA ranked De La Cruz #6 among Tigers prospects prior to the ‘07 season.

Trahern is a 22-year-old right-hander who spent most of 2007 at Double-A Erie. His career 3.38 ERA looks nice, but the 4.86 K/9 makes it unlikely he’ll have much of a career. Apparently he serves up a lot of groundballs. BA ranked Trahern at #8 last year, although he looks more like the second coming of Nate Cornejo to me.

Badenhop is, would you believe, another right-hander. BA had him at #22 in the Detroit system headed into 2007. He posted decent numbers (3.13 ERA) in the FSL but was old (24) for the league and struck out just 5.19 batters per 9 innings. I don’t see a lot of upside here.

Bottom Line

The Marlins get two tremendous prospects, plus a bunch of marginal guys. The Tigers get one of the best players in all of baseball, plus a solid option for the back end of their rotation. Theoretically this could help both clubs a la the Josh Beckett for Hanley Ramirez deal, but all of the risk is on Florida’s side.

The Tigers have upgraded an already potent offense and added starting pitching depth without losing anything that they’re likely to miss. This is a tremendous deal for them, and one that makes the Tigers, if not favorites to win the AL pennant in 2008, a truly elite team in baseball.

Other Voices

• Detroit Tiger Weblog
• Mack Avenue Tigers
• Tiger Tales
• Fish Stripes

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1. Tigers – They enjoyed a solid season and stayed in the wild card race for a long time, but no repeat in Detroit. Despite some tremendous individual offensive performances, there just wasn’t enough pitching to carry them back to the playoffs.
2. White Sox – Geez, I picked them to win the wild card? They might not finish ahead of Kansas City.
3. Twins – Hey, look, I got one right. Minnesota should get extra credit for remaining somewhat competitive despite the continued presence of Nick Punto in their lineup.
4. Indians – I’m surprised that I picked Cleveland to finish this far down in the standings; in my mind they were one of my sleepers for ‘07, but maybe I’m just in denial that I could have been so wrong about the White Sox.
5. Royals – I take back everything I said about the Gil Meche signing. Clearly he has pushed the Royals to the brink of fourth place. My bad.

I need to figure out why the White Sox fooled me so badly. Does it help to admit that I expected their pitching to be better? No, not really…

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Pena, in case you missed it, ranks second in the American League with 33 homers through September 1. This is a guy who hit 23 home runs all last year at Triple-A (plus one with the Red Sox). Hot prospect? Well, yeah, like in 2000 and 2001. Pena had his shot with the Tigers, did okay before fading away, and now has come back with the Tampa Bay Devil Rays.

Somewhere along the line, Pena turned into an unstoppable power source. That’s not supposed to happen at age 29. Not without at least some indication that it’s coming, anyway…

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Some great games on Monday’s schedule, including four big playoff contender showdowns:

American League

• Yankees at Tigers, 4:05 p.m. PT — Mike Mussina and Justin Verlander hook up at Comerica Park. Mussina has given up seven runs in each of his last two starts and now sports a 5.22 ERA on the season. It might not be time to stick a fork in him just yet, but maybe someone should poke around a little. Yikes, and now I see that Verlander’s ERA over his past seven starts is 5.95. The Tigers have lost 20 of their last 30? Ugh, that’s not good.
• Angels at Mariners, 7:05 p.m. PT — John Lackey goes against Miguel Batista. Looks like a mismatch, until you realize that Seattle leads the wild card despite 61 starts from the likes of Batista, Jeff Weaver, and Horacio Ramirez. I have to admit, as much as I want the Padres to win it all this year, there’s a part of me that wouldn’t mind seeing a Seattle/Arizona World Series because, seriously, what’s up with that?

National League

• Mets at Phillies, 4:05 p.m. PT — Terrible pitching matchup in a bandbox park. Citizens Bank Park isn’t the most conducive to scoring runs, but no other park in baseball is as generous when it comes to giving up the long ball. San Diego’s Terrmel Sledge hit a pop up to left on Saturday night that just kept carrying and somehow left the yard. Brett Myers may have acted like an idiot, but he also made a good point, which is that his home park is a little ridiculous.
• Diamondbacks at Padres, 7:05 p.m. PT — Jake Peavy needs one strikeout to pass Andy Benes as San Diego’s all-time strikeouts leader. Only once in his career — June 22, 2003, against Seattle — has Peavy failed to punch out at least one batter. I’m liking his chances. And, of course, three games separate these two teams atop the NL West.

Happy watching!

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