Once thought to be the Detroit Tigers' "closer-in-waiting," it became clear that the franchise became tired of waiting for former first-round pick Ryan Perry.

The Tigers shipped the enigmatic reliever — picked 21st overall in the 2008 draft — to the Nationals on Friday, getting right-handed reliever Collin Balester in return. A former fourth-round pick of the Expos in 2004, Balester has only been a reliever for two seasons, after starting 22 games over his first two years in Washington.

"We felt Ryan Perry could benefit from a change of scenery," Tigers GM Dave Dombrowski told MLB.com's Jason Beck on Friday. "Ryan did not have a guaranteed spot on the club at this time. But he also didn't really fit this three-inning type of role."

Perry finished the 2011 season with a 5.35 ERA, a WHIP of 1.622, and almost as many walks (21) as strikeouts (24) in 37 innings. The 24-year-old was sent to Toledo three times in 2011, once for rehab after an eye injury put him on the disabled list in May, and twice more to work on mechanical issues, trying to get his delivery more repeatable.

"He's at the point where he needs to step it up for us. I mean, he's got a lot of ability," Dombrowski said at the start of the offseason, before reiterating his 'value' to the team at the Winter Meetings. "His arm speaks for itself. He's an upper 90s guy and his slider's pretty good at times. When he goes down to the minors, his change-up is very good too. He very seldom throws it here. But we haven't been able to get him over the hump at the big league level, and we need to do that. He needs to do that. Kind of a combination. He's in one of those areas right now where you send him down to Triple-A and he dominates. And then you bring him back and he has a hard time getting over that. We think he can do that, but he does need to prove it."

In Balester, the Tigers get a right-handed reliever who throws nearly as hard as Perry, but posted better strikeout numbers (62 in 56.2 innings of relief over the last two seasons). The Tigers will use him in a long relief role, with the seventh- (recent signee Octavio Dotel and Phil Coke), eighth- (Joaquin Benoit) and ninth-inning (Jose Valverde) roles already taken.

“Acquiring Collin Balester from the Nationals today adds another good arm to our organization,” Dombrowski said in a press release Friday. “He has shown the ability to pitch multiple innings out of the bullpen in the past, a role we are looking for him to fill for our club in 2012.”

Of note for fans, Balester has a Twitter account (@ballystar40), as well as a web site (CollinBalester.com).

With a save in Saturday's 4-3 win over the Kansas City Royals, Tigers closer Jose Valverde matched the franchise Willie (Guillermo) Hernandez with his 32nd consecutive successful save. Hernandez, of course, was a perfect 32-for-32 in the World Championship season of 1984.

So am I writing this to say that Valverde should be a Cy Young/MVP candidate.

No. Hardly.

When you look at the rest of Valverde's numbers in comparison to Hernandez, they pale.

Valverde's ERA is a full run higher (2.92 to 1.92). Hernandez finished 68 games — Valverde is on a pace for 73 — but pitched 140.1 innings. If Valverde does indeed get to 73 games finished, he'll probably bury the single-season team record for saves (42, Todd Jones, 2000) with close to 50, but he'll only have 75 or so innings pitched.

And he won't come close to Hernandez's WHIP (walks plus hits per inning pitched) of 0.941 — Valverde's is currently 1.297 — or his strikeout-to-walk ratio of 3.11 — Valverde's is 1.73.

But don't take this to mean that I think Papa Grande isn't valuable to the Tigers.

Again — hardly.

He's blown a total of three saves in 61 chances. Yes, he's been a roller-coaster in non-save situations, but he's been money when the save is on the line.

And that brings us to the other issue: Money.

Aside from the first-round pick it cost them to sign him, Valverde has cost the Tigers $6.9 million last year, and $7 million this year. He's got a club option for $9 million for next season, something the Tigers would be wise to pick up. Or if that's too much to invest in a guy who will be 34 on Opening Day, they might want to start renegotiations.

Either way, there's no one in the Tigers' system currently who's ready to be the closer of the future. Joel Zumaya is unsigned for next year, and hasn't pitched in more than a year, anyway. One former first-round pick, Ryan Perry, has been up-and-down — both literally and figuratively — and is currently in Toledo trying to work through his control issues. Another first-round pick, Chance Ruffin, could be the player-to-be-named-later in the trade-deadline deal with Seattle, and has only 15 innings pitched above the Double-A level to date, anyway.

Until someone else steps up to be an internal solution, the Tigers need to keep Valverde around — especially since it's not like they're going to get anyone on the open market for much less than the $9 million price tag they already have Valverde for in 2012 — if they want him.

And, the way he's going now, why wouldn't they?

The Tigers made a move after Wednesday’s series finale in Los Angeles, recalling former No. 1 pick Ryan Perry from Triple-A Toledo, where he’d been working out some kinks.

Perry was 1-0 with a 2.20 ERA in 16.1 innings pitched in Toledo, after being shipped down after his big-league ERA went whizzing into triple digits (12.19).

To make room for Perry on the active roster, the Tigers sent Adam Wilk down to Toledo, in part clearing up a bit of the logjam of lefty relievers that had manager Jim Leyland shaking his head over the past few weeks.

Leyland had said repeatedly that carrying four left-handers in the bullpen was too many, and this move leaves only David Purcey, Charlie Furbush and Daniel Schlereth to divvy up the lefty innings for now.

One of those guys may be the odd man out when — or if — the Tigers decide to recall left-handed Brad Thomas (elbow inflammation) from his injury rehab stint with the Mud Hens.

The team will also have to decide who will be sent out to make room for third baseman Brandon Inge, who’s due to finish up his rehab stint in Toledo, and rejoin the parent club when it returns from the West Coast to open a 10-game homestand.

Inge and Perry both appeared in Wednesday night’s Mud Hens game against Columbus. Perry went one-third of an inning, giving up a run on two hits, earning a blown save. Inge was 1-for-3 with a run scored and two walks, raising his average to .250 on the rehab stint.

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.

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.