By Ashley Dunkak
@AshleyDunkak

CBS DETROIT - Detroit Tigers starting pitcher David Price sat down Friday morning with Stoney, Bill and Sara of 97.1 The Ticket to take questions on a number of topics, including the strengths and shenanigans of his new teammates, his video game habits and his thoughts on "Deflategate."

Price, for whom the Tigers traded at the deadline last season, had spent his entire career with the Tampa Bay Rays, but he did see one familiar face when he arrived in Detroit.

"I'm pretty good friends with Justin [Verlander]," Price said. "He's been very good to me ever since I've been here and whenever I met him quite a few years ago, I guess in 2011, before the offseason of 2012, doing the commercial when he met Kate [Upton]. That's when I met [him].

"Yes, you could feel the love," Price added, laughing as he acknowledged Verlander's relationship with the supermodel. "Me and Justin are good friends. I'm getting to know everybody, and I'll hang out with all of them."

Joe Maddon, the manager of the Rays when Price was in Tampa Bay, has developed a reputation for stoking a unique clubhouse atmosphere by implementing themed road trips and bringing in animal visitors, a python and a penguin among them. Tigers manager Brad Ausmus has not done anything quite so unorthodox, at least not that has been reported, but Price said the way in which the two managers work is not so different.

"I feel like Joe and Brad are very similar in the way that they handle the team," Price said. "They don't strap a lot of rules on us. They expect us to come in, get our work done and play hard. If you do that, they're not going to say anything.  I think the players, you're going to get the most out of your players when you do that, when you let the players police the clubhouse and you just allow them to be grown-ups."

Of course, locker room behavior does not always fall into the grown-up category. Price said reliever Joba Chamberlain was the most avid prankster on last year's team, but with his departure, Price singled out first baseman Miguel Cabrera as the one to watch.

"He likes using the baby powder trick whenever people go into the bathroom, where they're sitting there doing their thing and he just takes baby powder and just douses them, and they get out and they are just covered in baby powder whenever they're done," Price said. "It's pretty funny."

Baby powder aside, Price was impressed upon arriving in Detroit when he saw how Cabrera approached the game on a daily basis.

"What you guys see from him on the field and in interviews or wherever you see little tidbits of Miggy, that's the way he is every day, and that was the probably to me the coolest thing to come over to Detroit last year and to see the way that he interacted with all his teammates, just his outlook on everything," Price said. "He's a very positive guy, he enjoys doing whatever it is he's doing, he's always got a smile on his face. With the injuries he played through last year, his spirits were never down, and to see that from our leader, that was very impressive."

Cabrera is a two-time MVP and Triple Crown winner, and even hampered by bone spurs in his ankle and a stress fracture in his foot, he still played well last season. Designated hitter Victor Martinez performed even better, though, and Price names Martinez, not Cabrera, as the most difficult batter he has had to face.

"I think his career average is just a little south of .600 off of me, and he was the first player to hit two home runs in a game off of me, did it at the Trop," Price said. "He's just an extremely tough out. He's just always staring the pitcher down. He's intimidating out there. He does his job extremely well."

Price takes pride in doing his job well, too, which is part of the reason he does not like the idea of Major League Baseball implementing a pitch clock in the hope of speeding up the game.

"If they can find ways to shave time off the game that affects everybody and not just the pitcher, I'm all for that, but you can't just be like, 'All right pitchers, you guys have to speed it up,'" Price said. "I don't know, I don't like that. To be out there and have to - you want to be able to take your time because you want to do it right.

"You want to be able to put that care into it," Price continued. "You don't want to rush through what you're doing. I want to do it right. As long as it's not just being predicated on the pitcher, I'm okay with it."

Price also tackled a few non-sports topics. As far as music, he likes hip-hop and R&B. As far as film, he likes comedies but refuses to watch scary movies. Video games might be the entertainment medium he enjoys most, however.

"I'll probably log in about three to four hours a day," Price said. "I could definitely sit there and play for eight or nine. If I've got friends on – I'm not going to  do it by myself. If I have buddies on, I'll get on there and play some Call of Duty or some Destiny. FIFA is probably my favorite game ... I think it's just the best sports game, graphics, game play, everything."

Price also weighed in on the latest NFL controversy, that during the AFC championship game the New England Patriots deflated footballs beneath the pounds-per-square-inch minimum allowed by the league. When asked if people were making too big a deal of it, Price was uncertain.

"Kind of - I think everybody's doing something that they're not supposed to be doing," Price said. "I think everybody has something, whether it's sunscreen and rosin, everybody has something."

With the departure of Max Scherzer in free agency, Price is expected to be the ace of the rotation this season. After 2015, Price will become a free agent, so his first full season in Detroit may also be his last.