Jason Tyner Traded...Sort Of.

http://www.freep.com/article/20090422/SPORTS02/90422107/1050/rss15#

In that article, Detroit Free Press writer Jon Paul Morosi writes that today, the Milwaukee Brewers traded Jason Tyner to the Tigers.  Well, that's not really what he wrote;

"TOLEDO – The Tigers have acquired minor league outfielder Jason Tyner from the Milwaukee Brewers, team officials said today....It didn’t appear that any cash or other players were involved in the transaction." (emphasis ours)

that's what he wrote.  So either the Brewers basically just called up Detroit and said something like hey there, want a Jason Tyner?, or the Tigers brass got together and decided they really needed someone to replace Ryan Raburn's AAA roster spot...and only Jason Tyner will do. Which we can totally understand - who DOESN'T want a 32-year old former speedster with a career .275/.314/.323 line and burnt out wheels?  

There is, surprisingly, something notable about Tyner, though: according to Wikipedia, the dude can't jack a tater tot to save his life.  To wit: "Prior to 2004, Tyner had a severe home run drought that dated back to Little League. Throughout 2,631 high school, college, minor, and major league at-bats, Tyner went without a home run until he hit one in a minor league game in Richmond in 2004."  He did hit one in the majors, though, so he could argue that his life is infinitely more complete than ours will ever be.  To which we would to say: at least we didn't get traded for nothing.  Yeah, we're both kinda dicks in our imagination.  We don't know why.

ANYWAY, let's do some investigative journalism emailing and Googling to get to the bottom of this!  We've sent an email to Toledo GM Joe Napoli; we are less than hopeful to get a response, but it can't hurt to try.  We would email Nashville Sounds GM George King, but they don't list an address for him on their website.  We would then try Tigers GM Dave Dombrowski and Brewers GM Doug Melvin, but, well, we have no illusions about our status - specifically, the lack thereof - in the baseball world, and our concurrent inability to get a quote.  As we wait for some official word which may or may not be coming, let's make our own theory:

He's a huge dick that made such a bad impression that they just couldn't wait any longer to get rid of him.  Or maybe he killed a hooker.  Or both.

We guess it could also just be that they just decided they needed to trim some salary, knew the Tigers had an outfield spot to fill, and put the square peg in its square hole.  Depends on how freaky you wanna get with your logic.  Though we do have to ask: wasn't Detroit - the team, not the city, though we guess both work for this - supposed to be in major financial trouble at the beginning of the year?  Weren't sportswriters playing the guessing game as to which of their big contracts they were going to shed?  And now they just open up the wallet and let the dolla dolla bills fly out for The Jason Tyner?  Wild.

Anyway, if you hadn't noticed - and, judging by the Google Analytics, you haven't - we picked the Tigers to win their division.  And let us tell you, this is exactly the kind of acquisition that can push a team over the top.  The official KCSD projection is that Tyner, slighted in the way that only professional athletes can be slighted, takes major offense to this, ropes the ball all over the field all year and ends up clinching the division for them at the end of the year with a dramatic walkoff bomb job.  All we ask for this amazing demonstration of prognostication is that when you start writing the script for this, just make sure you give us credit.