Rollins to Tigers? They don’t have the money

As with seemingly every big-name free agent nowadays, a mystery team (per ESPN's Jayson Stark's tweet) has emerged in the bidding for Jimmy Rollins services. Is this one legit, like it was with Cliff Lee last winter and Albert Pujols this winter? Or is it a hoax, designed by agent Dan Lozano to give off the perception of leverage?

On "Phillies Hot Stove" Tuesday, Jim Salisbury recounted a story from the Winter Meetings involving he, Larry Bowa and Tigers manager Jim Leyland. Bowa asked Leyland, What are you doing? Leyland replied, We dont have any money.

The Tigers have so many young, cheap, team-controlled players on their roster that it may seem strange that they dont have financial flexibility. But Detroit cut back its spending in 2011 from 134 million to 107 million.

As it stands today, Detroit has just over 90 million committed to a dozen players. After the arbitration cases of Max Scherzer, Delmon Young, Rick Porcello, Phil Coke and Don Kelly, that number will rise to almost exactly 107 million, per Matt Swartz arbitration projection system.

So the Tigers will already be matching last years payroll and that doesnt take into account other tinkering that must be done to finalize the 25-man roster. Signing Rollins would put the Tigers well over last years mark and all but ensure that they do nothing else this off-season.

Realistically, the Tigers are the only team that could use a shortstop and might spend. So it made sense that dots were connected once a mystery team was mentioned.

But the more you look at it, the more it appears that this is just an example of a desperate agent trying one last time to win back leverage in a market that has completely disappeared.