December 08, 2006
Reasonable Deal
The Tigers sign Brandon Inge to a four-year, $24 million contract.
"It's awesome to get this done because Detroit is the only place I wanted to play," Inge told The Associated Press on Friday. "This organization stuck by me through tough times and for them to still believe in me when times are good, it's really gratifying.
"The deal is basically done because the only thing that would hold it up would be a problem with the physical that I took today, but I can't see that there would be any problem with that."
Inge was eligible for arbitration and would have been eligible for free agency after next season.
Brandon developed a decent home run stroke in 2006. However, he is an out machine, which is why he's not getting elephant bucks. He's a good third baseman, however. During the playoffs someone said that Inge made so many errors because he got to a lot of balls. Given that his range was good, that indeed may be the case. So the Tigers own a solid defensive third baseman with some pop for $6 million a year. Not bad in today's market, and I bet Brandon would do a lot better if he opted for free agency next season.