With the Tigers having an off day yesterday, I thought I’d take the chance to peruse the Tiger farm system. The following are just some brief capsules on various Tiger prospect’s performance.

Curtis Granderson Granderson has been solid in his first month at AA Erie. He’s hitting .274/.390/.420 with 13 RBI’s and 2 HR’s. The OBP looks real good, but the slugging is a tad low. He also hasn’t made an error through 24 games.

David Espinosa Espinosa was a first round pick of the Reds at one time. He was drafted as a shortstop, but has since moved to the outfield. His performance in the past has been forgettable. However, he’s had a strong spring hitting .341/.432/.610 with 5 dingers. He’s also stolen 5 bases. While he’d pretty much lost his prospect status, he could regain it if he continues to perform well. He’s only 22 and performing well at AA.

Donald Kelly Whle not really considered a prospect, Kelly’s ability to get on base at a .400 clip in Lakeland last year earned him a promotion to AA, and a spot on the Tigers 40 man roster. While he’s accumlated 13 walks and a .353 OBP, he’s only hitting .215 with no power. He’s also committed 7 errors at shortstop.

Brent Clevlen The .306 average and .370 OBA are promising in Clevlen’s first season at high A. However, Clevlen hasn’t been hitting for power, he’s only slugging .361. Also, he’s striking out about once every 3 at-bats.

Mike Rabelo Believe it or not the Tigers have a catcher in the minors who is doing well. True he’s 24 and only in A ball, but at least he’s succeeding. He’s hitting .325 with a .388 OBA.

Scott Moore Moore is posting a whopping .418 OBA mostly on the strength of 18 walks. He’s only hitting .240, but he has hit 3 homers. The bad part is he only has 5 extra base hits total.

Tony Giarratano Tony is picking up right where he left off at Oneonta last season. He’s hitting a .303 clip and he has 5 stolen bases. He has however committed 6 errors at shortstop already.

Kody Kirkland Unfortunately, Kirkland wasn’t able to pick up where he left off at Oneonta last year. He’s struggling mightily at West Michigan where he’s hitting .160/.209/.247. His K/BB rate is 26/3 and things just aren’t looking good.

I remember hearing Jack Morris talking about saying this back in the 80’s to his teammates. Given the recent performance of the Tigers pitching staff, the starters might have to ask for 15 runs. The starters have been inconsistent, the bullpen has been rocked, and there’s really nothing nice to say about anyone right now. The starters aren’t working deep into games. The long relievers Yan and Knotts are getting hit hard. The set up guys Patterson and Levine are getting hammered. And the lefty arms have struggled as well.

So what can the Tigers do? Well Nate Cornejo has had a sore shoulder and knee for a month and didn’t tell anybody. Now he’s out of the rotation and on the DL. That leaves the team with 4 starters. Because of off days, they can get by with a 4 man rotation for the next week and a half. Then what happens? I have this feeling that Cornejo will need significant time to strengthen the arm so I’m treating him as unavailable. That leaves the Tigers with essentially 3 options.

1. Call up a long arm/starter from the minors. Pat Ahearne would be the most likely candidate. He’s pitched fairly well at Toledo with a 2.64 ERA and a 33/5 K/BB ratio. Other options include Shane Loux, or reaching down to Erie and pulling up one of last year’s rule 5’ers (Ledezma and Roney).

2. Trade for a starter. The problem is who? Teams aren’t looking to dump pitchers of quality at this point in the season, and the price would probably be prospects. Prospects are in limited supply in the Tigers organization making a trade difficult to complete.

Kris Benson has been mentioned often on message boards as a guy that could be acquired. He’s making a boatload of money this year (6.1 million) that the Pirates would love to dump. The problem with Kris Benson is that he’s not that good. Actually, I’ll restate that, “He hasn’t been that good since 2000.” In limited duty the last two years he’s been essentially a replacement level player. His EqERA the last two years was 5.60 and 5.58. A replacement level player can be had for about $5.7 million less then what you’d have to pay Benson.

3. Use a 4 man rotation. The Tigers are having a tough time trying to find 4 quality starters. Why would they want to try to find a 5th? My only concern with this would be the increased overall workload on Bonderman. Johnson and Maroth are old enough that I’d be less concerned with their arms. If you get into situations with double headers or you want to space out Bonderman, then there enough long relief guys to spot start someone.

If it were up to me (and there are approximately 487 reasons why it’s a good thing I don’t have any authority), this is the option I would go with. Then again if it were entirely up to me I would call up Wil Ledezma as my long man/spot starter. He can take Gary Knotts place. I also would have called up Franklyn German instead of Chris Dingman. Dingman has given up 4 homers in 10 innings of work.

With all that being said, the Tigers pitching will get better. They will not continue to give up 10 runs a game like they have for the last week. However, changes need to be made and made quickly.

Writing a month in review column was something I started doing last year. Needless to say, this is the first month I’ve been able to do this when the Tigers have posted a winning record.
Comings, Goings, and Doctor Appointments
Prior to the season, the Tigers dealt Cody Ross to the Dodgers for Steve Colyer to bolster their bullpen. Mike DiFelice was also released, and then resigned to a minor league contract. The last semi significant transaction was that Andres Torres was DFA’d. He cleared waivers, but chose to sign a minor league deal with the White Sox instead of returning to Toledo.

The Tigers had their share of ailments, big and small. The biggest blow came in their 10th inning of the season when Dmitri Young broke his leg in Toronto. He’ll be on the shelf for at least another 2-3 weeks. The Tigers also lost Fernando Rodney for the year when he underwent Tommy John surgery. Aside from that the Tigers lost Alex Sanchez for a week due to a groin injury and the flu. They also lost Higginson for a couple days to the flu and a turned ankle.

By the Numbers

The Tiger offense was a dominant force, showing an ability to score piles of runs consistently. They scored 5 or more runs in 15 of their 23 April games. They finished just a shade behind Minnesota in runs scored per game for the month. The Tiger offense also ranked in the top half in on base average and batting average. The main reason for their success was their performance with runners in scoring position. With RISP the batting average jumped to .321 and the Tigers .907 OPS led the league. Remarkably, the Tigers have maintained this offensive output without Dmitri Young.

The pitching staff didn’t fare nearly as well. They rank in the bottom third in most categories. The starters and bullpen have been inconsistent. An interesting stat twist is that the Tigers pitchers have the highest ground ball to fly ball ratio, but have allowed the most home runs. The home run number is especially troubling given Comerica’s dimensions.

The good news for the pitching staff is that they ranked dead last in strike outs last year. This year they rank 5th. Also, there have been several strong bullpen performances that included 2 four inning saves.

Who’s hot
Newcomers Rondell White, Ivan Rodriguez, and Carlos Guillen have all exceeded expectations. The three are hitting a combined .324/.396/.490 and Rondell White led the AL in RBI’s.

But if you want to talk about really exceeding expectations look at Brandon Inge managed to do. His month included a 10 game hit streak from the 9 spot in the order. He hit .333/.410/.574 with 3 home runs (two of them Grand Slams). In addition to the offensive surge, he managed to play competently at centerfield, catcher, and third base.

Despite getting shelled in his last start, Nate Robertson was pretty darn good as the 5th starter. Mike Maroth went from losing 5 games in April last year to posting a 3-1 record on a 3.58 ERA while leading the staff in innings.

Who’s Not
I know Greg Norton hit a home run today, but he was miserable during April going 3 for 29 with 9 strike outs. Alex Sanchez hit .324 for the month, but he’s listed here because despite being a leadoff hitter, he failed to take a walk in 72 plate apperances.

The majority of the pitching staff falls under this category. They haven’t all been bad the whole month, and there have been some great performances by most of the staff. However, there have been a number of really poor performances as well. I think the overall staff numbers/rankings bear that out. Particularly bad was Gary Knotts. In 11 1/3 innings he surrendered 15 hits, 11 walks, and 3 home runs. Nate Cornejo also was knocked around consistently and posted an 8.44 ERA.

Lowlight of the Month
I think this would have to be Dmitri Young’s injury in game 2. Despite the fact the Tigers offense has continued to hum along, it has forced Trammell to play Rondell White and Pudge Rodriguez more than he’d probably like to.

Highlight of the Month
It’s nice to have some options for this topic for a change. I could choose White’s walk-off homer, the 11 run 6th inning against Cleveland, or the inspiring home opener win. However, I’m going with the opening day shut out of Toronto. Despite the fact that Toronto hasn’t played well this season, the Tigers went in an shut down what should be a good hitting club. What’s more is that they piled runs on a traditional nemesis in Roy Halladay. The way they won that game seemed to propel them off to this great start in April.

Looking Ahead
In May the Tigers play 20 games against AL West opponents and they make two trips to the west coast. They finish the month with 4 games against Baltimore and 4 games against struggling division rival Kansas City.