Jose Valverde

After looking at this past week’s success and failures, I think you will find that using an early pick on a “stud” closer could have been a waste. The “other” closers seem to be the ones picking up the slack this year. It is still early in the season, but if you look at the top saves guys I think you would be surprised.

The Tiger faithful love their team, and stand by their players through good and bad.

That is, after said players have won them over.

Johnny Damon and Jose Valverde didn't exactly hit the ground running in their first few games donning the Olde English D. It took Damon until mid April to get above the Mendoza line, and Valverde blew his very first save opportunity of the year (as many as Fernando Rodney blew all of last year).

The moves were highly-questioned to begin with, within the Tigers fan base and outside it

So a couple nights ago I'm dinking around on the computer, trying to figure out what my fantasy baseball team's pitching rotation is going to look like this year, when my buddy Paul texts me out of the blue to see if I want to go to the Tigers' home opener at Comerica Park.

"Oh, hells yes," I answer. I've never been to a Tigers game in my life before, and what better place to start than the '10 home opener?

To a respectable, married, man, the Detroit Tigers are like a provocatively dressed woman.

You don’t want to look, it’s almost painful in a way, because when you do, you get reprimanded and regret it. But that opportunity to see something amazing is just so great that you can’t help but watch.

And besides, if there were no consequences to face, what would the point of looking be?

Just a few weeks or so ago, Jose Valverde rejected the Houston Astros' offer of salary arbitration and decided to become a free agent. The prospect of re-signing with Houston for one year and around $10 million just didn't appeal to Hay-Val.

And as we've seen, that move seems to have backfired.

By now, I figured he'd wind up in another uniform. Perhaps the Milwaukee Brewers, Los Angeles Dodgers, Boston Red Sox or even something as crazy as the Yomiuri Giants or Chunichi Dragons.

We're all over the Jose Valverde situation today as Nick Piecoro adds in this note about the Diamondbacks and Valverde:

On Monday, I pondered if Jose Valverde was going to be this year's Orlando Hudson. Just three days later, the number of teams who could potentially be interested in Valverde continues to wane. Two teams I thought could have interest in Valverde seem to have moved in different directions.

  Am I alone in thinking that Jose Valverde, considered to be one of the best closers on the open market, might wind up signing a contract for less than what Brandon Lyon recieved? We'll see. But for now, Ken Rosenthal outlines the problems facing Valverde's free agency:

News today from Fox Sports' Ken Rosenthal states that Jose Valverde is leaning towards accepting arbitration from the Astros.

This news follows on the heels of reports that Rafael Soriano is also likely to accept arbitration from the Atlanta Braves. 

I had a bad dream last night, and it involved the Houston Astros letting go closer Jose Valverde without a fight.

In the dream, the Astros offered salary arbitration to Valverde. Just as I thought Houston would sign Valverde and preserve their closer role in the bullpen, all kinds of other evil large-market teams arose: Boston, Atlanta, Los Angeles, Chicago and others.