Tigers: Werth rumors were “paper talk”

The Tigers were rumored among the most serious suitors for Jayson Werth,
who just signed a seven-year, $126 million deal with the Nationals. But
team president/general manager Dave Dombrowski said their interest
didn’t go very far.

“The majority, and just short of all of that,
was strictly paper talk,” Dombrowski said. “We never had any serious
conversations on Jayson Werth. Not one. And the reality of it is, when
we prioritized our players, we had Victor Martinez up there, that we
pursued. And just preliminary conversations, very preliminary, where
they talk in generalities, the dollar numbers and years were just not
appealing to us.

“That’s why sometimes you move quickly in other
directions to do things. For us, it just made more sense to move in the
direction that we did.”

Agent Scott Boras, who represents Werth, said Sunday he talked quite a bit with the Tigers last week. But Boras obviously represents many more players, including fellow free-agent outfielder Magglio Ordonez, on whom the Tigers have been talking, and fellow ex-Tiger Zach Miner.

There was no sense from the Tigers that any deal with Magglio was close, nor was there a sense that it was a foregone conclusion.