Tigers Find Answer to Offensive Woes

And it comes in the form of Alex Avila.

Wait, what? A Double-A catcher who has become the teams best prospect and is just about 13 months removed from being drafted is getting the call to the show? Apparently. Billfer, Ian, and Kurt all have their reactions (and I'm sure Lee and Matt will chime in soon, too) posted, and I encourage you to read them since I'm going to echo all of their sentiments.

Like Ian said, this smacks of 2007 and Cameron Maybin and Andrew Miller getting rushed to the show. Like Bill said, Avila's struggled in the last 28 days posting a .191/.280/.393 line. His Major League Equivalency, according to Minor League Splits, for the entire season is .204/.280/.333. Is that really an improvement over Dusty Ryan's .160/.276/.200 given that he's getting one plate appearance for every 11 that Gerald Laird gets.

I get that he's left-handed and we could use a left-handed bat. I get that apparently Dusty Ryan isn't a favorite of Jim Leyland's (shown by his playing time) and whether that's due to him being a right-handed hitter or not is anyone's guess (has he ever addressed it?), but this move doesn't make sense anyway you slice it. Not to me, and apparently, not to the rest of the Tigers blogosphere that have chimed in thus far.

Reasons why this is bad:

-He'll accrue service time that he otherwise wouldn't have. And that's precious, no matter how little it is until the rosters expand.

-He now must stay on the 40 man roster this winter when he didn't need to be on it in the first place. This gives us less flexibility in the offseason.

-Dusty Ryan gets jettisoned for no reason whatsoever, despite posting a total line of .261/.342/.391 -- a line remarkably similar to a catcher we traded for in the offseason. Oh, and he's just 24 years old, still.

It's not that Avila's an awful player -- he's got an above average bat for the position, has a great arm and quick release as his Double-A caught-stealing numbers are fantastic (last check, over 50% gunned down), and he's only getting better in his time behind the dish. But, he was a 3rd baseman deep into his career at the University of Alabama and, thus, is still raw behind the plate. If someone like Dusty Ryan who's come up through the minors as a catcher, posted an acceptable line for a catcher, and isn't even 25 until September 2nd can't stick in the back-up role, then why should Avila be any different?

This just brings immense flashbacks of a certain outfield prospect getting rushed to the bigs and then disappointing. I don't expect much of anything from Avila in the majors.

Since he's coming up, he better be getting 2 starts every 5 games to both spell Laird and get enough use to warrant starting his service time clock and putting him on the 40-man roster.