Injuries

There wasn’t a lot of disabled list activity since we last checked in on roster moves. Shawn Roof was placed on the disabled last Thursday, but he’s already come back. Audy Ciriaco re-emerged from the disabled list last week, but I covered that in some detail in my last post. One bit of injury news that caused some other roster moves was Max St. Pierre coming off the disabled list. He had been out since June 3rd with a broken finger. We’ll get the impact that had on others below. My final injury note is to point out that Kyle Peter has started a rehab assigment with the GCL Tigers. This is Peter’s first action since June of the 2009 season, when he went down with what the Tigers' media guide called a shoulder strain. If he's fully recovered, he's likely to bring Lakeland speed, on-base percentage and excellent center field defense.

Signings, Releases and Retirements

The Tigers signed their 10th round pick, Cole Nelson, and assigned him to the GCL. We’ll see if he actually stays there. He hasn’t actually pitched in a game yet. They were also able to sign their 28th round pick, Jack Duffey, who’s a high school pitcher and I assume will eventually go to the GCL Tigers as well.

Their final signing over the last week or so was Gilbert De La Vara, who had been pitching for the Yuma Scorpions of the Golden Baseball League. The Tigers have pulled quite a bit of talent from the GBL lately, as that’s where their former outfielder Ben Johnson, catcher Andy Bouchie and Erie Manager Phil Nevin all played or coached. De La Vara has played affiliated ball, though. He was a 15th round pick of the Royals back in 2004 and in 338.1 innings of minor league ball, he’s amassed 287 strikeouts, 124 walks and allowed just 20 homers. Most of that has come as a reliever, the role he’ll have with the Hens.

That’s the end of the guys receiving good news. The Tigers released pitcher, Frank Penalver, who you may remember making the fringes of the news by getting suspended for a positive drug test. Angel Flores never had such issues that I know of, but he had bounced around as a fill-in catcher since being signed back in 2004. When St. Pierre came back from the  disabled list, Flores was released.

Jon Weber also ended his time with the Tigers, although his time with the organization had been brief and was ended on his own terms. The 32-year-old outfielder decided to hang them up. He had thought he had a shot at a big league roster coming into 2010 and I’d imagine he must have decided that shot wasn’t likely to come at this point of his career.

Re-assignments

In our last look at roster moves, the Tigers had signed a few early picks and those players have now been placed. Bryan Holaday has been assigned to Lakeland and is off to a fantastic start (.524/.600/.810 in 23 PA) to his pro career. After a very brief stay in the GCL, the Tigers put their 6th round pick, Corey Jones, in West Michigan and where he is serving as the team’s starting second baseman (and is 8 for 14 with three doubles in his first three games). Yes, it is a little confusing to have 2010 draftees Corey and Clay Jones on the same team. Alex Burgos was placed in the GCL, but like Cole Nelson he hasn’t pitched yet. Burgos is a JUCO pitcher, though, so I’d assume his staying with the GCL Tigers is a little more likely than Nelson doing so.

Those moves were basically just 2010 draftees getting their proper assignements. The rest of these are re-assignments driven by other roster moves. For example, De La Vara’s signing spurred moving Josh Rainwater down to Erie and Jay Voss down to Lakeland. Rainwater is a good control, contact pitcher and that just hasn’t played too well in his time with the Hens. He gave up 67 hits in 51.2 innings and 24 of those went for extra bases. Voss’s season so far makes Rainwater’s look like a breakthrough. He’s walking too many, striking out too few and allowing too much hard contact. He was a ground ball pitcher in Marlins’ system, but that’s not held up in the move to Erie and it shows in his six homers allowed in 39.1 innings.

St. Pierre coming back from the disabled list caused not only the release of Flores, but the re-assignment of Jeff Kunkel back to Erie. Kunkel had something of a hot start with the Hens, but he has a fairly well established track record as a hitter so his returning to those levels of output (.239/.263/.307 in 95 PA in Toledo) wasn’t all that much of a surprise.

Other re-assignments were Ben Guez being moved from Lakeland to Toledo, Bryan Pounds going from Erie back to Lakeland, Chris Sedon moving from West Michigan to Connecticut and Alexander Moreno returning to the GCL after spending some time with Lakeland. Guez is no doubt filling in for the departed Weber. I would like to have seen Andy Dirks get that call, but they must prefer to see Dirks in a starting role in Erie rather than serve as a fourth outfielder in Toledo. Pounds seemed to just be filling in for Ciriaco when he was on the disabled list and then Jordan Lennerton when he was briefly on the inactive list. Sedon was moved to make room for Jones and Moreno could have been moved to make room for Peter’s eventual return from the disabled list. That’s speculation, though, since there’s no obvious corresponding move tied to Moreno going back to the GCL squad.

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