Can’t you just imagine being Pudge Rodriguez right now?

You’re sitting, relaxing in some absurdly luxurious hotel suite on an armchair that you’ve fashioned for yourself out of one hundred dollar bills and taking some time to study the scouting reports for the new aces you’ve agreed to catch next season.

As you flip the page from “Jeremy Bonderman — 19 losses” to “Mike Maroth — 21 losses,” you unintentionally catch a glimpse of the ring on your finger, and for a second you panic.

You run to your over-night bag and take out your NLCS MVP trophy. Clutching it to your chest as with such fury that you forget it’s not Ugie Urbina, you try to think a happy thought — try to convince yourself that you have made the right decision, that life is still good.

I mean, sure, the Florida Marlins would have gladly coughed up enough money for you and yours to live like nobility for ten generations. But noblemen are so common in sports now. You see the way some of your ex-teammates live: A-Rod, Juan-Gon, Chan Ho. They live better than the average millionaire; they live like kings. You wanted to live like that.

Of course, none of them really win. And, yeah, all of them would gladly cut off seven of their fingers for a ring on the eighth. A-Rod even called you about a month ago and tried to warn you not to do something as stupid as he did. But he always sounds so non-committal; it’s hard to take him seriously.

It might have been smart to stick with a team that won a bit — okay, a world champion — but the Tigers have made some good moves during the off-season. They picked up Fernando Vina and Rondell White. Those guys were both .300 hitters … in 2001. There are still free agents out there, too. Maybe you could convince Ugie to come to Detroit.

And the Tigers have got an All-Star in Dmitri Young. He was pretty decent last year. Granted, he didn’t have the year that Derrek Lee, Mike Lowell, Juan Pierre, Luis Castillo, Juan Encarnacion or even Miguel Cabrera had around you in Florida. But he was pretty decent — certainly a lot better than the jokers around him.

Okay, there’s not much talent. It’s hard to deny.

But people said the same thing when you went to the Marlins. No one thought your team would make the playoffs, much less go all the way. You got there and you beat the Phils for the wildcard, beat the Giants, beat the Cubs and beat the Yankees. You made everyone around you better, and turned the Marlins around. Why can’t you do the same thing for the Tigers?

Certainly they can’t be as bad as they were last year, right?

Assuming that your presence is enough to double Detroit’s wins from last year… well, no … 86 wins would still leave the Tigers about 10 games out of the playoffs. Still, this is the first step in the right direction; it may take a while, but the Tigers will be back.

Playing for good teams was getting tiring, anyway. The last two years you didn’t even get an All-Star bonus because the other players on your team weren’t bad enough to warrant a mandatory placement. And no one noticed you throwing out base runners because the other team wasn’t putting enough out there. At least you don’t have to worry about that garbage any more.

Then you look out the window. When you signed with the Tigers, you realized, of course, that you were essentially giving up your soul, but you didn’t quite realize that it would land you in hell. Or could that really be Detroit out there? It sure ain’t South Beach.

But, “Hey!” you tell yourself. “This is the good life. I’ve really made it now.”

And you think about how great the money is and keep studying your new battery-mates: Bonderman, Maroth, Cornejo. You concentrate so hard on turning around the most worthless franchise on earth that you barely even notice the teardrops falling on your World Series ring.