FanHouse ToddJones

The story of the Detroit Tigers has been pretty much the same over the last two seasons. In 2007, their bullpen cost them a chance to reach the playoffs and get back to the World Series, and in 2008 it was the bullpen bringing down a team that many thought would be the best in the American League after a winter trade for Miguel Cabrera and Dontrelle Willis. So obviously general manager Dave Dombrowski's to-do list this offseason consists of fixing the Tiger bullpen if he wants his team to have a chance in 2009.

It's too bad that the Tigers missed out on all the best closer candidates this winter, though. Francisco Rodriguez became a Met. Brian Fuentes became an Angel, and Kerry Wood signed with the Indians. So with the big names gone, who should the Tigers bring in to compete with/provide insurance for Joel Zumaya and Fernando Rodney? Well, if you ask the Detroit Free Press' Jon Paul Morosi, he'll tell you Jason Isringhausen.

Footprints in the Snow is FanHouse's look at the paths to be forged by MLB teams this winter as they look ahead to 2009.

The Tigers were the most disappointing team in the majors last year. A preseason pick for the World Series by many, they finished dead last in the AL Central, thanks mostly to a pitching staff that ranked 27th out of 30 teams and a defense that committed the second most errors in the league.

Only the Yankees and Mets spent more money last year, and the Tigers don't have nearly the revenue stream of their Big Apple counterparts. As such, GM Dave Dombrowski is expected to slash and burn the payroll this winter. Can he bring the Tigers back into contention without draining owner Mike Ilitch's pockets? He's facing an uphill battle, for sure, especially considering duds like Dontrelle Willis, Gary Sheffield and Nate Robertson will cost the team $33 million alone.

The Detroit Tigers don't have much left to play for this season other now that they've fallen to fourth place in the AL Central, so really, the only goal they have is to finish the season without embarrassing themselves. Well, that and try to catch the red hot Cleveland Indians (see, CC Sabathia and Paul Byrd were only holding them back) and reclaim third place.

They won't have Todd Jones around to help them, though, as he has thrown his last pitch this season, and probably in his career.

Todd Jones fought back the tears and forced himself to smile as he walked around the clubhouse Wednesday, hugging each of his Tigers teammates and shaking their hands.

Minutes earlier, in a brief, closed-door meeting, Jones had given them the news: After 16 seasons and 319 saves -- a team-record 235 of them in two tours of duty with the Tigers -- the 40-year-old reliever has probably pitched his last game, at least for the Tigers.

"I'm going home, try to rehab and get better, and see if I can come back," Jones said.

Unfortunately for Todd, the odds of him coming back aren't very good. Even if he can recover from his shoulder injury this offseason in time to pitch next season, there generally aren't many teams in the market for 40-year old relievers with shoulder problems.

The Tigers went for broke this year, bumping their payroll from $95 million last season to $138 million this year in hopes of buying a spot in the postseason. In hindsight, it wasn't meant to be: the Tigers sit 8 1/2 games out of the division lead, and considering they've won just three of their past 12, the deficit seems to grow larger every day.

At least there's always next year, right? Yeah, about that ... After footing the bill for baseball's third-highest payroll, owner Mike Ilitch is allegedly putting pressure on the front office to slash costs next year, according to the Detroit News' Lynn Henning.

Ivan Rodriguez was already dealt in a cost-cutting trade, and expensive veterans like Edgar Renteria, Todd Jones and Kenny Rogers almost certainly won't be re-signed or have their options picked up this winter. It'll be hard to unload Gary Sheffield without picking up a substantial portion of the $14 million he's owed next year, but by putting him on waivers this year, the Tigers are at least trying.

Getting rid of the guys mentioned above makes as much baseball sense as it does financially, but will the team go so far as to unload their most productive players? Henning thinks Magglio Ordonez could be sent to bigger market in exchange for cheap prospects. If that happens, it'll be a hard sell to fans, who have filled Comerica Park to 99.3% capacity this summer, to keep turning out in 2009. If the Tigers can't post a winning record with Maggs, why should fans think the team can contend without him? This team has made huge strides the last several years -- it'll be a shame if Ilitch gives up now.

While the Tigers learned something new about Gary Sheffield on Tuesday - that he hits really well when he's angry about being placed on waivers - they also saw something they've known about for a while. Their bullpen sucks. After Sheffield's two home runs helped get a lead for the Tigers, the Detroit bullpen came in and blew the game like they normally do.

Tuesday's goat was Joel Zumaya, who walked three Blue Jays and gave up the game-winning runs without recording an out, all to the chorus of boos from the hometown crowd. As a result, Jim Leyland doesn't plan on using Zumaya again anytime soon, but it's not because of his performance. No, The Black Lung fears that there's something wrong with Joel and that he's not telling anybody.

"I can assure you, I'm not going to have Zumaya for a while, even if everything checks out all right," Leyland said. "All I know is there is a problem. Joel is not himself. I can see it in his face. I can see it in his demeanor."

Asked how long Zumaya might be out, Leyland said, "Right now, I don't feel comfortable pitching Joel. I'm not talking about because of results. I'm talking about because something is not right.

"It's going to be next year until he gets back to 100%."

With the Tigers recently removing him from his role as closer in favor of Fernando Rodney, and then adding Kyle Farnsworth to the bullpen, it's been a pretty craptastic week to be Todd Jones. The next thing you know, the Tigers will issue a mandate banning players from having facial hair, and Todd will have to remove his handlebar mustache.

So it's understandable that Todd is upset, but I didn't think he'd be so upset he'd have to go on the disabled list. Though I'm sure it's for a broken heart, the team is saying it's inflammation in his right shoulder.

Detroit reliever Todd Jones was placed on the 15-day disabled list on Thursday as the Tigers waited for Kyle Farnsworth to join them.

Jones, who recently lost his closer's job, has inflammation in his right shoulder. He has been bothered by pain in the shoulder for six weeks.

The Tigers have called up Clay Rapada to replace Jones in the bullpen, and it'll be Clay's second stint with the team this season, as he went 2-0 with a 3.46 ERA in 14 appearances earlier in the year. As for Jones, if Rodney or Farnsworth struggle, his old closer's job may be his again once his shoulder gets better but I'm assuming he'll return as a middle reliever.

If you're a Tigers fan, you know that Todd Jones is an emotional guy. When his first stint in Detroit ended with a trade to the Twins, he cried in front of reporters. And when the Tigers clinched a playoff spot in 2006, he cried in front of reporters.

So really, when reporters gathered around his locker to ask about his being yanked from the closer role, they had to expect a little water works, right? As Bob Wojnowski of the Detroit News relays, Jonesy didn't disappoint.

"I've been to the depths of everything emotionally, but this is just one of those things you have to go through, too," Jones said, his eyes reddening. "You know, you're born into the big leagues and then you're born a closer and then one day you're no longer trusted with the brunt of the load in the ninth inning. My day came -- what is it, July 27? -- so there's no spilled milk here."

Jones stopped and referenced [Jim] Leyland, who always stood behind him but couldn't do it now.

"I mean, I love that guy," Jones said, his lip quivering, his voice cracking. Finally, he turned away.

I go to a lot of baseball games, and one of my favorite places to sit is out by the visitor's bullpen because it gives me direct access to opposing team's players. Since I'm so close, the guys in the bullpen generally have no choice but to listen to me. You can generally hear me saying things like "Hey Todd Jones! I would tell you how bad you suck right now, but you've been watching yourself pitch for 30 years now. You already know you suck. You big bag of suck. God, you suck. Oh, and your column sucks too!"

As you can see, I'm a bit of a human thesaurus.

Not everybody out in the bleachers is out to get the other team though, as some fans prefer to sit by their own teams bullpen and chat it up with their favorite players. Or, if you live in Boston, you give them naked pictures of your ex-wife.

According to RotoWorld.com, a gang of Sox fans decided to give the Red Sox bullpen a thrill during a recent game at Fenway. So one of them threw a naked picture of his ex-wife over the fence, which was fielded by closer Jonathan Papelbon. Well, the bullpen bunch was so thrilled with the pic they threw back a baseball, signed by all the pitchers, inscribed with the words, "Thanks for the bullpen pics."

This is an excellent move that I would like to utilize myself with opposing bullpens, but there's the slight problem of not having an ex-wife that gets in my way. Though I suppose I could just give Joe Nathan a naked photo of myself. Nobody would be able to concentrate on throwing strikes after seeing that, I'm just too sexy.

The upside of doing a Magglio Ordonez impersonation is that it's relatively easy; you just need long, curly black hair and a Detroit Tigers uniform to pull it off and anyone that watches much baseball is going to know what you're doing.

The downside is, who has time these days to stand around in a Tigers uniform and make semi-mock Mags? That would be our good friend Todd Jones, who took advantage of the recent rain delay at Comerica to do his best 2006 ALCS-winning home run impersonation of Ordonez.



Okay, okay. For all my dislike of Jones (for fantasy reasons), I probably need to rethink the way I feel. Because that impression alone should be worth a lifetime of a 3.00 WHIP. Oh, and is there anything hotter than rain delay entertainment right now? Anything remotely close?

H/T: LBS

The Detroit Tigers may be playing their best baseball of the season right now, winning eleven of their last fourteen games to move withing six games of the White Sox, but closer Todd Jones and his teammates have something else on their minds right now: San Francisco Chronicle Giants beat reporter Henry Schulman.

While the Tigers were in San Francisco last week, Schulman wrote a column in which he referred to Ryan Raburn as a "scrub" after Raburn hit a home run off of Jonathan Sanchez. Well, Jones writes a column for the Detroit Free Press, and in his latest effort he explains why he and his teammates do not appreciate such remarks.

When we read that, we lost our collective minds.

Henry Schulman just called one of our teammates a scrub.

Isn't that a little harsh? I can't think of anybody who has ever played in the major leagues as a scrub -- not even Bob Uecker.