Jeff Riger: The Controversy Has Already Started

Thursday afternoon at Comerica Park was the Tigers first stop on the annual Winter Caravan tour where players, coaches and the skipper make their way around metro Detroit to hob knob with the local folks. Now usually, nothing comes out of events like this. For the most part it's guys talking about how excited they are for the upcoming season and what they have been up to in the off season as well. Well Thursday was a bit different as we had not only news but a little controversy as well.

The big story of the day, heck the last week is that of Victor Martinez and how he blew out his ACL and is done for the season. Jim Leyland shared his thoughts with the media about the injury and how hard V-MART is going to be to replace. And I will get to that; however it was something more polarizing that grabbed the attention of all as Brandon Inge got a little bit controversial.

After Leyland talked the media spread out to interview various players hanging out. I decided to go to Inge to find out how he feels about the potential platoon situation that he and Don Kelly will be dealing with at 3rd base. As I walked up, the veteran 3rd sacker was telling a reporter that he is no longer the same nice guy that he has been all these years. Inge said "I have a slightly different mindset this year you know, I'm not quite as nice as I have been about things in the past. I'm going to go out there and probably play a little different this year, not quite as nice as I have been in the past." I then followed up with #15, asking for him to clarify what it means for him to be less nice? Inge replied, well you can watch for yourself in the video below.

But that is not where the controversy stems from...

I proceeded to ask Inge about maybe having to platoon this season with Kelly, I wanted to know how he would deal with it? Inge replied "I'm not really playing for a platoon spot, I love Kelly, I do but I'm not playing for a platoon spot, I want to play every day." Inge continued saying "it's the bad seasons (2011) that lead to good seasons because if you want to get motivated, have a bad season and you will be motivated. I can't wait; I can't wait for this year."

So Inge had his say! But how would the skipper react? I decided to find out. I went back to Leyland after already interviewing him once and told him about Inge's remarks. Leyland replied saying "to be honest with you I want Brandon Inge to play 3rd base everyday because if he's playing third base everyday that means he's hitting good and driving in some runs too, I hope that he wins that job." But then Leyland also issued a warning to all willing to listen saying "if he wants to play 3rd base every day, he's going to have to produce some runs." Leyland then felt the need to have one last word on the issue saying "I'm being a little tough here but I want to be fair because I want people to understand; some peoples idea of success and other people's ideas of success can be two different things."

So what does that mean? Leyland was asked and said "I'm not getting into any controversy here, I'm just being honest, I don't want somebody coming out and say; well Inge thinks he's doing great and Leyland doesn't, that's not what I'm saying. Is the player making the contribution that the management teams think are good enough that he should be the guy playing?"

What I took out of the above back and forth is that Leyland is skeptical that Inge can play 3rd everyday and produce offensively what he thinks major league 3rd basemen should.

How do you read it?

I almost forgot about Martinez.

V-MART, until the Inge dealings was the topic of Thursday. The media, like the fans are wondering who would replace Martinez and how effective can that player be? Leyland said "I think we'll have somebody either internally or externally by opening day. The only blessing in this whole thing is that we got ten weeks to rectify the problem." With that being said Leyland also paid his respects to Martinez saying "we're not going to find a Victor Martinez, I can assure you of that. He's not out there!"

Leyland mentioned that he has a list of ten people both in and out of the organization that could be Victor's replacement. The 6th year manager would not tell the media who he has on the list but by the tone and reaction to some of the questions, Prince Fielder is NOT one of those players.

Watch the Leyland interview below for his entire thoughts about Victor Martinez and the Inge video about the vet wanting to win back his position.