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A sometimes-irreverent look at Detroit's Boys of Summer, the Tigers, as they try to return to the top of the American League Central.

Sunday, January 23, 2011

Report: Diamondbacks interested in taking Armando Galarraga off Tigers' hands

While the Winter Caravan and TigerFest are all about pumping fans up about those players who'll be on the field for the Tigers come Opening Day, some of the news evolving near the end of TigerFest was about a player who it's increasingly likely won't be with the Tigers.

Nick Piecoro, the Diamondbacks beat writer for the Arizona Republic tweeted Saturday evening that the club he covers was interested in talking trade with the Tigers for Armando Galarraga. That came after Tigers GM and president Dave Dombrowski told reporters at TigerFest that a deal was "likely" to come this week.

If the D-backs do make a swap for the veteran right-hander, the irony will be that they were the organization willing to take Dontrelle Willis off Dombrowski's hands last summer. The Tigers picked up the vast majority of the $8.5 million they still owed the quirky lefty at the time, swapping him for Billy Buckner, an underwhelming right-hander, a guy they coveted so much that they released him a little over three weeks later.

Unless there's a similar financial element to the Galarraga deal, the Diamondbacks would be assuming the (non-guaranteed) $2.3 million deal the Tigers signed Galarraga to, just hours before designating him for assignment. The Tigers were seemingly trying to avoid the deadline to swap arbitration figures, signing Galarraga to a deal Tuesday morning, then removing him from the 40-man roster to make room for free-agent signee Brad Penny.

Piecoro's blog notes that the name of 20-year-old Kevin Eichhorn has come up. A third-round pick of the Diamondbacks out of high school in the 2008 draft, Eichhorn has never pitched above Class A. The Tigers already have two first-round picks from that draft in their bullpen — former University of Arizona teammates Ryan Perry and Daniel Schlereth, who went 21 and 26 overall to the Tigers and Arizona, respectively.

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