Tigers Still in Play for Ubaldo Jimenez

According to a report late last night by Ken Rosenthal and Jon Paul Morosi of Fox Sports, the Detroit Tigers contacted the Colorado Rockies yesterday to discuss the parameters of a trade involving Rockies’ ace Ubaldo Jimenez.

The Rockies have been engaged in talks with several other clubs on Jimenez, but their asking price remains very high. According to the report, which was corroborated by Danny Knobler of CBS Sports, any conversation between the Tigers and Rockies would begin with either Jacob Turner or Rick Porcello. If the Tigers trade Porcello to bring in Jimenez, they would still be a man short in the rotation, so it looks like Turner would have to be included in the deal to land Ubaldo.

That’s an awfully high price to pay.

It appears as if the Tigers are thinking along those same lines, as they are working hard on a handful of fall-back options as well. With the uncertainty of getting Hiroki Kuroda to waive his no-trade clause to come to Motown, the Tigers have been in talks with Baltimore on right hander Jeremy Guthrie and with Washington on righty Jason Marquis.

Not surprisingly, the FoxSports report also says the Tigers have entered the relief market in their quest to find a middle reliever. Clearly the front-end of the Tigers’ bullpen (notably David Purcey) hasn’t gotten the job done, but the club is satisfied with the back-end production.

The trade deadline is now only about 55 hours away and the Tigers are still shutout of the pitching market. The desperation level has got to be increasing for Dave Dombrowski. As the hours slip by, it’s becoming more and more likely that the Tigers will either have to buckle under the pressure and be more willing to part with their top-tier prospects, or they might well wake up on August 1 with the same five starters they have today.

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