Verlander gets video-game honor
--RHP Justin Verlander's likeness will be on the cover of the Major League Baseball 2K12 video game. "Probably not supposed to release this info yet, but ... Got an early xmas present," Verlander wrote on Twitter, with a link to a picture of the cover. His name and number (35) are on the bottom of the box. Verlander is the first Tiger to grace the cover of the game.
--UT Don Kelly can't avoid the topic of baseball at family holiday get-togethers. Kelly's brother-in-law is Pittsburgh 2B Neil Walker, and Walker's dad, Tom, is a former major league pitcher who spent one season with Detroit. The current family arrangement is to spend Thanksgiving at Kelly's home and Christmas at Walker's.
"It's just a competitive family," he said. "It's fun, and we play all kinds of games, cards and pool and whatever else we can compete at. It's a lot of fun over the holidays when everybody gets home and we get together."
Kelly's wife, Carrie, played college basketball, and his sister Ashlee was a good player at Quinnipiac University. Don Kelly recently was designated a "Super-2" player who will get a fourth season of arbitration eligibility. Kelly made the cutoff point by only a few days.
--RHP Rick Porcello will get a fourth season of salary arbitration eligibility due to his designation this year as a so-called "Super-2" player. Porcello already operates on a major league deal signed when he was drafted, so the designation will not affect him this year. Super-2 players have at least two but less than three years of major league service. This year's cut-off date was two years, 146 days of service time.
--LHP Duane Below apparently will be one of the candidates for the fifth spot in Detroit's rotation in the spring. Below brings the advantage of major league experience to the competition. He made two starts for the Tigers and worked a dozen games out of the bullpen, going winless in two decisions but posting a 4.34 ERA over 29 innings. His effectiveness tailed off with infrequent use late in the season, but he showed good control and enough stuff to make him competitive as a starter.
--INF Danny Worth faces an uphill battle to make Detroit's Opening Day roster. Worth could get squeezed off by the return of C Gerald Laird to the Tigers' bench. Worth has shown a good glove at second, short and third but hasn't shown he can hit quality major league pitching to this point. Laird, UT Don Kelly and INF Ramon Santiago will claim three bench spots, with the latter two platooning for the most part. A fourth bench spot will go to OF/INF Ryan Raburn.
--OF Clete Thomas is reaching a critical point in his career with the Detroit organization. Thomas, a left-handed hitter, had a disappointing 2011 season for Class AAA Toledo, but he was coming off an injury-shortened 2010. OF Andy Dirks moved ahead of him on the organizational depth chart, spending a good share of last season with Detroit, but both could be hard-pressed to make the Tigers' Opening Day roster as it currently stands.
BY THE NUMBERS
2 -- Batting championships won by Detroit players in the past five seasons. RF Magglio Ordonez won in 2007 and 1B Miguel Cabrera last season. Prior to that, no Detroit player had been the AL batting champ since 1B Norm Cash in 1961.
QUOTE TO NOTE
"This is like the high workout time, so we're really going strong, talking about baseball when we work out. Neil and I, we do all of our baseball stuff together, throwing and hitting, groundballs and everything." -- UT Don Kelly, who works out in the offseason with brother-in-law and fellow Pittsburgh-area resident Neil Walker, the Pirates' second baseman.
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