Tigers Interested in Pierre?

No, Tiger Woods is not interested in some porn star named Ms. Pierre (enough with the Tiger Woods media swarm!). Actually, Tot Holmes of Fox Sports is reporting that the Tigers are interested in acquiring Dodger outfielder Juan Pierre.

Juan Pierre has been one of my favorite Dodgers for a long time, but this move would make sense for a number of reasons. First of all, Juan Pierre does not start for the Dodgers. While it is true that his presence on the team serves as a security blanket should Kemp, Ethier, or Ramirez go down with injury (or say…get suspended for using a female fertility drug), I think the benefits of a trade would outweigh the costs. Let’s be honest here: The Dodgers are basically using Juan Pierre as a glorified pinch runner, who may start some games to rest Manny Ramirez’s legs. Juan Pierre is a guy who many teams recognize as a potential 45+ stolen base player. There is still a decent demand for him.

The rumor is that the Tigers will be offering one or more quality starting pitchers in exchange for Mr. Pierre. The Dodgers will clearly be interested seeing as how lack of starting pitching depth proved to be a key ingedient in the Dodgers’ eventual demise, a season ago. There’s just one main problem and that is that the Tigers don’t have very good pitchers. They just traded former Dodger, Edwin Jackson, in a three-way trade to the Diamondbacks, and they aren’t willing to part with their ace, Justin Verlander.

In fact, the Tigers have offered Jeremy Bonderman, Nate Robertson, and/or Dontrelle Willis. Bonderman only started one game last season. In that lone start, he allowed three long balls. He only had 7 other appearances and did not do much better in those. Nate Robertson did the best out of these three pitchers last season and his WHIP was a whopping 1.75. Batters hit nearly .300 against him last season. Why would the Dodgers want Nate Robertson? They wouldn’t. He had one decent year and that was back in 2006.

What about Dontrelle Willis? Since 2007, Dontrelle Willis has had seasonal ERAs of 5.17, 9.38, and 7.49, and you can’t blame it on the league, because Dontrelle was already looking pretty miserable in his final season with the Marlins (the 5.17 ERA year). Willis will likely never be the dominant lefty he once was.

With that said, a dealing away of Juan Pierre would still make a lot of sense. If the Tigers can get the Dodgers a good starting pitcher (maybe even two), that would be even better. This is how Fox Sports sees it going down: The Tigers will pull the strings on another three-way trade. They can do so by sending Carlos Guillen to a third party in exchange for at least one pitcher that the Dodgers would be interested in.

Again, I completely understand the contributions that Juan Pierre made to the team’s success last season. He filled in wonderfully for the suspended Manny Ramirez. I can’t say enough about the job Pierre did. It’s just that the Dodgers would be wasting a known commodity in Juan Pierre if they elected to merely use him as a pinch runner. Why not trade the guy when there’s some demand for him? This especially makes sense if the Dodgers can get a quality pitcher out of such a deal.

What do you think, blue men and women, girls, and boys?

Tags: 3-way trade, Carlos Guillen, Dontrelle Willis, Edwin Jackson, Ethier, Jeremy Bonderman, Juan Pierre, Kemp, Manny, Nate Robertson, Tigers, Woods