While the second base position for the Detroit Tigers — one of their expressed positions requiring offseason attention — is shaping up to be all the usual suspects, there’s one less name in the hopper now.

The franchise announced Monday that it was not tendering a contract to Will Rhymes, their 2011 Opening Day starter at the position, making the 28-year-old a free agent.

That leaves utilityman Ramon Santiago — who re-signed with the club for two years at the start of December — and Ryan Raburn as the probable platoon, unless the Tigers make another move.

It’s been a merry-go-round of a position since the Tigers chose not to retain Placido Polanco after the 2009 season. None of the last three players to start the season at second base — Polanco in ’09, Scott Sizemore in ’10 and Rhymes in ’11 — remain on the roster. Six different players have started at the position in two seasons.

The diminutive Rhymes, a career .291 hitter in 633 minor league games, hit .304 in 54 games as an injury replacement at the end of the 2009 season, earning himself a shot at making the big-league club in spring training last year.

He did one better, earning the start on Opening Day, but — thanks to a .206 batting average — lasted just 28 games before the hot-hitting Sizemore took his spot. Rhymes would play in just one more game at the big-league level — a pinch-running cameo in Baltimore in mid-August — before the September call-ups.

Rhymes, who hit .235 for the season with the Tigers, did not make the postseason roster, but he made waves during the playoffs, nonetheless. A late-night post to Twitter during the American League Championship Series, questioning on-the-field moves, may have hastened his departure from the organization, although GM Dave Dombrowski denied that on the record, according to MLive's Chris Iott.

Worth noting: There have been increased social media restrictions on MLB players worked into the new Collective Bargaining Agreement.

Matthew B. Mowery covers the Tigers for The Oakland Press. Email him at matt.mowery@oakpress.com and follow him on Twitter @matthewbmowery. To get updates on the team sent to your phone, text “Tigers” to 22700. *Msg & Data Rates May Apply. Text HELP for help. Text STOP to cancel.

Ryan Raburn earned himself a shot at a full-time job with his hitting down the stretch last year.

Coming out of spring training, he was the starting left fielder, but through his own struggles and the hot start by Brennan Boesch, he was slowly phased into a rotation.

Starting Saturday, he’ll be the new primary second baseman, after neither Will Rhymes nor Scott Sizemore could lock down the job.

“I think you can safely say he’ll be our second baseman,” Tigers manager Jim Leyland told reporters after Friday’s 6-3 loss to the Red Sox. “To me, Raburn’s season starts tomorrow. Forget everything that’s happened to this point.”

That may be hard to do, unless the position change revitalizes Raburn’s bat.

The one-time utility man left April with a .253 batting average, but he’s hit just .100 so far in May, with just one extra-base hit. At one point, he was neck-and-neck with teammate Austin Jackson for the MLB lead in strikeouts.

Still, the pop in his bat is an upgrade over what the Tigers had been putting out there for most of the season.

Between them, Rhymes — who was demoted to Triple-A Toledo at the start of the month — and Sizemore — who was traded Friday for pitching help, in the form of lefty reliever David Purcey — hit just .221 with two doubles and six RBI in 35 starts at second.

Raburn and the other player in the mix, Ramon Santiago, combined to hit .313 with two doubles, two homers and seven RBI in just 13 starts at second.

Friday’s trade wasn’t the only move the Tigers made, optioning struggling reliever Ryan Perry to Toledo to clear room on the active roster for Andy Oliver, who will make a spot start Saturday, in the injured Phil Coke’s turn in the rotation.

In his last nine appearances, Perry allowed 13 earned runs in just seven innings pitched, as his ERA ballooned from a reasonable 3.00 to 14.04.

Leyland said the move was as much as anything to allow Perry — the Tigers’ first-round draft pick in 2008 — to “get away from it up here,” and work on mechanics. Thursday, Leyland said his “heart aches” for Perry because of his profound troubles.

The team will need to make an additional move to clear room on the roster for Purcey, when he arrives Saturday.

The Tigers made their final three cuts Saturday morning to get down to the 25-man roster for the regular season.

To get there, the Tigers optioned reserve infielder Danny Worth to Toledo, and assigned two of this spring's biggest surprises, outfielder Andy Dirks and lefty pitcher Adam Wilk, to the minor league camp. All three had impressive springs, making Leyland's decision that much harder.

"You are breaking hearts. We've broken a couple and we'll break a couple more," said Leyland about having to make the final roster moves, which were the most scrutinized of the spring.

Barring any last-minute moves, the moves mean that Brennan Boesch and Casper Wells will both make the team as reserve outfielders, and Ramon Santiago will be the extra infielder. Utility man Don Kelly can play both infield and outfield, as well.

The final two bullpen slots went to 23-year-old Venezuelan right-hander Brayan Villareal, who ranked second-best in the Tigers' minor league system with 136 strikeouts between single and double-A a year ago, and veteran right-hander Enrique Gonzalez, a non-roster invitee who split time between Toledo and Detroit a year ago.

A little over two weeks ago, Leyland had praised his corps of young lefty relievers — including Wilk, last year's minor league pitcher of the year in the organization, rookie Charlie Furbush, veteran Fu-Te Ni and youngsters Daniel Schlereth and Duane Below — saying that it was conceivable that all of them could stick with the parent club. In the final evaluation, however, it will only be Schlereth who heads north with the Tigers. He and veteran Brad Thomas will be the bullpen's two southpaws to start the season.

The Tigers' minor league player of the year last season, Dirks hit .333 with four doubles, three triples and a homer this spring, further complicating what was already a logjam of outfielders competing for just one or two slots. But his spring couldn't match what Boesch and Wells had done in the regular season for the Tigers a year ago. The Tigers' second-best defensive outfielder, Wells can play all three outfield positions, while both he and Boesch can provide pinch-hit pop off the bench.

A career .251 hitter in the minors in the four seasons since the Tigers selected him in the second round of the 2007 draft, Worth's bat finally caught up to his glove this spring, as he too hit .333, with six doubles. Leyland has said that he's a major league-ready defender, but Santiago is a veteran of nine major league seasons, seven of them with the Tigers.