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Tigers GM presiding over disaster

Even in the worst days of Jim Campbell, the front office bungling going on in with the Detroit Tigers was not this bad.

Al Avila, the man who helped the Boston Red Sox land J.D. Martinez for its success this past season, is currently the general manager of the Tigers.

I use the term general manager lightly, because all Avila has done is create a disaster down in Motown since he took over the job a few seasons ago.

And if the Tigers ownership had any clue on what was going on, they would remove him immediately.

Now, I know the late Mike Illitch is no longer with us. And that his son has little or no interest in baseball.

But for a team that just a few years ago was one of the finest in the game, this is ridiculous.

The Tigers barely qualified as a major league team last season, finishing with the worst record in all of baseball.

Avila, who has traded away most of the roster — and got remarkably little in return — has a blueprint for the future.

It started just recently with the signing of pitcher Matt Moore, who posted an earned run average of 6.79 last season.

Moore was once a top prospect in Tampa Bay but that was a long time ago.

The Detroit GM recently released a list of shortstops to replace Julio Iglesias, who many baseball fans believe was a perfectly capable infielder.

The list, for what Avila termed a “a one-year fix,” includes castoffs Tim Beckham and Alcides Escobar.

And he’s even shopping around Nick Castellanos, who I believe was the only Tiger player who could have made the starting lineup of World Series entrants Red Sox and Los Angeles Dodgers.

What Avila does not seem to get is that hitters like Castellanos (.289 average, 23 homers and 89 RBIs) do not grow on trees.

Avila is hoping to land more prospects in return, making the roster, minus oft-injured Miguel Cabrera, a team of prospects.

Do they not already have a team like that down in Toledo?

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