Dude!

Holy cow.

So the Tigers want to win big, and win now. I love it.

I saw rumors about the deal this afternoon. When ESPN ran the story from Gammons that it was all but done, I nearly broke off my workout to go home and write about it. (Then I remembered that I'm 25 pounds overweight and really don't need to be ditching cardio work.)

Left field isn't set yet, at least the PAs that Sheffield won't use when he's not DH/1B with Guillen, but aside from that, Detroit now has

1B Guillen (123 OPS+ in 2006)
2B Polanco (122 OPS+ - yep, that's right)
3B Cabrera (150 OPS+)
SS Renteria (125)
LF Jones (87)
CF Granderson (136)
RF Ordonez (167)
DH Sheffield (120)
C Rodriguez (85)

(Yeah, I forgot the acquisition of Jacque Jones. My bad.)

Pudge may remain below-average, LF might be another below-average bat, and a couple others may drop as well, but right now, that's one solid lineup. I may head over to WIS to see if I can test it against some other current teams ....

SP Verlander (ERA+ 125, WHIP 1.23)
SP Willis (ERA+ 83, WHIP 1.60)
SP Bonderman (ERA+ 91, WHIP 1.38)
SP Rogers (ERA+ 103, WHIP 1.43)
SP Robertson (ERA+ 96, WHIP 1.48)

More questions in the rotation, of course: can Willis regain his form, is Bonderman going to be healthy, is Rogers going to be healthy/clean/not cheating ... anyway, the rotation should be stable, at least, which it hasn't been in a long time.

RP Rodney (ERA+ 107, WHIP 1.32)
RP Jones (ERA+ 107, WHIP 1.42)
???

The bullpen has some work to do, with Zumaya likely out for the year. Byrdak and Seay posted some good numbers, and the new guy might help as well, but the Tigers will need consistency from the pen. Not much more, though. If the lineup lives up to its billing, the pitching will be fine.