Alert! Jose Valverde joins the Tigers, will close

Remember when Jim Leyland was gonna go bullpen-by-committee, mixing and matching based on match-ups?

Yeah, that was hysterical. Good one, Tigers.

Jose Valverde has returned to Detroit, and Leyland has handed him the keys to the ninth. Here's the news, straight from the team's Twitter feed:

So there you go. Valverde has pitched 3.0 scoreless frames for Single-A Lakeland this year (1 H, 2 BB, 4 Ks), and apparently the Tigers liked what they saw. The Joaquin Benoit Era has ended. It lasted nearly as long as the Phil Coke Era.

This is where I'd normally tell you to go grab Valverde, and I'd mention his Yahoo! ownership percentage. But in this particular case, I didn't even check the free agent pool in any of my leagues prior to blogging, so I won't pretend that I'm jumping all over Valverde. I was on this carnival ride last season. This year, we're on a break.

Still, it's nice to have Papa Grande back in the game (on another dude's roster). Do what you need to do.