Detroit Tigers Clips Thursday, December 17, 2015 Detroit Free Press Avila: Tigers unlikely to add any more big contracts (Fenech) McCann talks Dominican trip, Tigers' off-season moves (Fenech) The Detroit News MLB analyst praises Tigers' offseason moves (Staff) MLive.com Mark Lowe, Justin Wilson look forward to playing key roles in revamped Detroit Tigers bullpen (Iott) MLB.com Trip to D.R. gives Tigers chance to give back (Beck) Gazette Times Matt Boyd realizes one dream, excited about the future (Gress) Daily Transactions 1 Avila: Tigers unlikely to add any more big contracts December 17, 2015 By Anthony Fenech/ Detroit Free Press At this point, the Tigers have made all of their big off-season moves. At this point, general manager Al Avila said Wednesday afternoon, signing right-handed starter Jordan Zimmermann is the biggest of those moves. And at this point, Avila reiterated, it’s unlikely the team will add another big contract. “We’ve got a lot of big contracts already within our own team, and we feel good about the team moving forward,” Avila told Free Press columnist Drew Sharp and Matt Dery in a lengthy interview on WMGC-FM (105.1). “So, I’d say at this point, we’re pretty satisfied with the makeup of the team and the outlook so far.” Avila was answering specifically to the inquisition of their future interest in outfielders Yoenis Cespedes and Alex Gordon, should their markets stay stalled and owner Mike Ilitch get the itch to put the team over the top with another long-term, lucrative signing. “I can’t speak for the owner,” Avila said. “But I know where we’re at right now, and our payroll, I can tell you, is probably one of the top five in all of baseball, which is a pretty good payroll with some of the top names in the game. So, I don’t know how much more you can expect from that, but that, I think, is a lot.” As it stands, the leftfield situation will consist of either Anthony Gose or Cameron Maybin and Tyler Collins. Cespedes, 30, played 102 games with the Tigers before they shuttled him away at the trade deadline. He hit .291 with 35 home runs and 105 RBIs between the Tigers and Mets this past season. He had a desire to return to the Latin-laden clubhouse in Detroit as recently as last summer, according to Fox Sports’ Ken Rosenthal, and his free agency so far hasn’t created the kind of buzz indicative of his five-tool abilities, leaving in question the chance the Tigers would consider a reunion later this off-season. But, Avila said, another big contract would make the team’s payroll situation “pretty ugly.” He said it’s unlikely the team will trot out the highest payroll in baseball next season. “That’s nothing I’m recommending,” he said. “Believe me.” 2 McCann talks Dominican trip, Tigers' off-season moves December 17, 2015 By Anthony Fenech/ Detroit Free Press James McCann wasn’t tuned in to the Detroit Tigers’ off-season moves. He was in the Dominican Republic during last week’s winter meetings with teammates Anthony Gose and Kyle Lobstein, visiting the team’s Dominican academy and spending time with children from a nearby orphanage. So the news of the Tigers’ moves reached him late. “It was almost like every morning, it was a recap of what happened the night before,” McCann said recently on MLB Network. “Because that was the first thing all of us were doing when we got back to the room, was checking what moves were made and, obviously, a lot of things went down during that time. “So it was fun to sit there and say, ‘Oh, we signed (Mike) Pelfrey today.’ ‘We got Mark Lowe and Justin Wilson.’ It was a lot of fun to try and track what was going on with the Tigers as well as the rest of the baseball.’” The trio of Tigers spent five days in the Dominican Republic, touring the team’s facilities, meeting with the academy’s leadership and donating baseball equipment to the Nuestros Pequenos Hermanos orphanage to support their youth baseball program. “It was a lot of fun,” McCann said. “That’s their big time passion down there. That’s what a lot of people only care about down there is baseball.” McCann played winter ball in the Dominican Republic in 2013. After assuming the everyday catching role early this past season, McCann will enter this upcoming season as the Tigers’ starting catcher, and has touched base with free agent additions Jordan Zimmermann and Mike Pelfrey so far this winter, he said, and plans on reaching out to Lowe, Wilson and Francisco Rodriguez in the near future. “That will be a fun thing to get to know the new guys and I’ve kind of started the process already,” he said. McCann also heard from catcher Jarrod Saltalamacchia, whom the team signed to compete for a backup role with Bryan Holaday in spring training. He got the text message from Saltalamacchia along with a slew of others one day while tapping into internet access during the trip to the Dominican Republic. “He was one of those guys that texted me and told me how excited he was to work with me,” McCann said. “And he’s a guy that’s been around, he’s been to the World Series so that’s just another guy that I’m excited I get to learn from. “The text message he sent was he was excited to work with me and I think his exact words were to grind through a season with me.” 3 MLB analyst praises Tigers' offseason moves December 17, 2015 By The Detroit News Staff/ The Detroit News The Red Sox, Cubs and Diamondbacks made the splashy moves this offseason, but Richard Justice of MLB.com writes the Tigers have had the best under-the-rader offseason. “Oh sure, Jordan Zimmermann was the kind of impact signing that gets everyone’s attention,” Justice wrote. “Less noticed has been a series of small moves by general manager Al Avila that may have transformed Detroit’s bullpen from a weakness into a strength.” Those moves include trades for closer Francisco Rodriguez and left-hander Justin Wilson, and the signing of Mark Lowe to bolster the back end of the bullpen. All of a sudden,” Justice wrote, “Tigers manager Brad Ausmus will have more late-inning options than he has had the past two seasons.” The Tigers’ offseason could get better. On “Hot Stove,” an MLB Network show, host Harold Reynolds and Ken Rosenthal of FoxSports.com were asked where they thought the top free-agent hitters were headed. When they got to outfielder Yoenis Cespedes, both said the Tigers. 4 Mark Lowe, Justin Wilson look forward to playing key roles in revamped Detroit Tigers bullpen December 17, 2015 By Chris Iott/ MLive.com The biggest issue for the Detroit Tigers in a disappointing 2015 season was the starting rotation. But the biggest issue for the past several years has been the bullpen. Newly acquired relief pitchers Mark Lowe and Justin Wilson are looking forward to trying to turn that trend around for the Tigers. The Tigers signed Lowe, a right-hander, for $11 million for two seasons as a free agent and traded for Wilson, a left-hander. Both are expected to hold down key roles in a revamped Tigers bullpen that also includes new closer Francisco Rodriguez. Both said during a conference call with media members Tuesday that it doesn't matter what role manager Brad Ausmus puts them in. "It doesn't really matter for me," Wilson said. "I've kind of been a jack-of-all-trades the last few years, so really it's whenever that phone rings." Lowe shared similar sentiments. "The seventh and eighth innings are both really big innings in any baseball game," Lowe said. "A lot of games are won and lost in those innings. It is nice to play some matchups here and there in the seventh and eighth inning and I'm sure that's what Brad intends to do a little bit. "For me, I like coming in, getting one or two outs, getting a couple of righties out and have Justin take care of some lefties. We both save bullets that way. We'll both be put in situations where nine-and-a-half out of 10 times we're going to succeed." That would be a major improvement for the Tigers, whose bullpen has ranked in the top 10 in ERA or WHIP just once in the past five years, which included four consecutive division titles. Tigers' bullpen ERA 2015: 4.38 (14th in AL) 2014: 4.29 (13th) 2013: 4.01 (12th) 2012: 3.79 (10th) 2011: 3.93 (11th) Tigers' bullpen WHIP 2015: 1.44 (15th in AL) 2014: 1.48 (14th) 2013: 1.34 (11th) 2012: 1.31 (12th) 2011: 1.39 (13th) Both Lowe and Wilson could see time as the setup man for the Tigers. The decision could come down to matchups, but it is worth noting that Wilson is a far cry from being a lefty-on-lefty specialist. Lowe worked through some mechanical issues and found more velocity on his fastball and threw an excellent slider during the 2015 season. He went 1-3 with a 1.96 ERA, a 1.055 WHIP and 61 strikeouts in 55 innings. Lowe had much more success against right-handed hitters (.196 BA, .523 OPS) than against left-handed hitters (.276, .724 OPS) in 2015.