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Mike Illitch Talks

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An interview with Mike Illitch was circulating on AP today (oddly enough though not in Detroit papers). In the interview Illitch concedes he screwed up in his GM hirings when he bought the team after Bill Lajoie said no. He also concedes that he’s not happy with his tenure.

“I’m running out of time with the Tigers – we’re in our 13th year,” Ilitch said Tuesday in an interview with The Associated Press. “If we hit the 15-year mark, I’ll be very concerned.”

Illitch has taken a lot of criticism for his ownership of the Tigers. Quite frankly given the team’s record it is deserved. When he clamped down the payroll after the 2000 season he rightly took a lot of flack. The team seemed to be changing direction each year. However, the criticism that he doesn’t care about the Tigers isn’t fair. Given his spending the last 3 offseason it is clear he was embarrased by the disaster that was 2003.

The article concludes with Illitch wanting to spend more money – if the team is competitive:

“If we can make a significant improvement this year, then I can treat it like I treated the Red Wings, and that would be, `OK, you’ve shown me something now, we are legitimate contenders, so whatever you need you’re going to get.’ But you’ve got to work yourself up to that,” he said. “We’ve got a lot of tradition and we’ve got a lot of baseball fans out there just waiting for something good for the city and baseball.”

Bases Contributed Percentage
New Tiger blog Tiger Town is playing with a new stat called bases contributed percentage. The stat combines baserunning with other offensive metrics to provide a more complete picture. Amongst Tigers Chris Shelton still fairs best followed by Carlos Pena and Curtis Granderson. My only quibble with the stat is that Ron removes HBP. Considering it is an offensive event, that some players are more adept at I think it should probably be included.

In any case, it is great to see so much fresh Tiger writing.

15 thoughts on “Mike Illitch Talks”

  1. It’s a nice idea, but it’s got a few problems. First, a caught stealing is more damaging than a stolen base, but they are weighted equally so a player that steals 50 bases, but also gets caught 50 times, for example, doesn’t get penalized at all. Second, a single and a stolen base have the same impact as a double, but a double actually has more offensive value because of its better ability to advance other base runners. Stolen bases don’t advance other base runners at all, but they are treated as if they do in this formula.

  2. It’s a nice idea, but it’s got a few problems. First, a caught stealing is more damaging than a stolen base, but they are weighted equally so a player that steals 50 bases, but also gets caught 50 times, for example, doesn’t get penalized at all. Second, a single and a stolen base have the same impact as a double, but a double actually has more offensive value because of its better ability to advance other base runners. Stolen bases don’t advance other base runners at all, but they are treated as if they do in this formula.

  3. No this has nothing to do with advancing other runners, merely how often you advance yourself. OBP and SLG don’t measure anything more than that. I’m working on something to measure how advancing runners are moved.

  4. To what end? What is the stat going to tell us then? Maybe I’m not clear on what base percentage is trying to tell us? Your blog says you want a more perfect merging of SLG, OBP and Speed, but what does that mean exactly? As it is, while it provides more information than OPS, the information it provides isn’t actually better, and by combining everything it becomes impossible to even figure out what each players relative strengths and weakness’ are. What does a BCP of .443 tell us about a player?

    The reason people use OBP and SLG is that they explain run scoring very well. The value of a high SLG isn’t just that a player with a higher SLG advances himself better, it’s that he also advances other runners more. Just as the value of a high OBP isn’t only that the player advances himself, it’s that the player creates fewer outs, thus giving the rest of his team more opportunities.

  5. We can’t look at SLG and assume that he is advancing other runners. A player could hit a ton of solo shots, have a high SLG and not advance others. My thought is that a player who advances himself well puts himself in scoring position more often. I’m still thinking of finding good ways to rework this, I just don’t think OPS tells us anything at all while this (with work) would have a chance too. A player with a .443 BCP advances 443 bases for every 1000 trips up. If someone has a rate of 1.000 that would mean they average one base for everytime up. If someone has an OPS of 1.000 it doesn’t tell us anything at all. Do you have any suggestions to better the formula to make it more meaningful? Cuz I know after talking about it that it needs work. That’s why I throw it out here.

  6. But any formula that assumes a single and a stolen base is the equivalent of a double is obviously incorrect. We don’t know if someone is advancing runners or not. Sure he might be hitting more solo shots, though this would most often occur on a team with a really bad offense, and it’s been demonstrated that those things are random within the context of the team a player plays for (teams that have players that get on base alot hit a fewer percentage of solo HR’s obviously). We don’t know for sure that a double advances a runner, but we do know for sure that a stolen base doesn’t.

    You are correct, OPS only has value as a relative measurement comparing players, it doesn’t give an measurement of anything describable, like BA/OBP/SLG. The things that do give absolute measurements of things (VORP, RC, EQR) are difficult to caculate.

    As far as suggestions go, if you want it to measure base advancement then take out DP and throw in HBP (and catchers interference if you want to get really anal retentive). You should also include reaching base on errors, since that is a base advancement, and the denominator should be outs rather than (AB+BB) because a baseball game is measured in outs not plate appearances. The end result will be interesting at least, though I don’t think it will be a good measure for comparing the production of two players.

    If you want to better measure a players contribution to his team scoring runs, you need to increase the penalty for getting caught stealing and either decrease the value of a stolen base an a walk or increase the value of all types of hits.

  8. Hey, apparently the New York Post is reporting that we’ve traded Craig Monroe for Carl Pavano.

  13. The problem with Ilitch has been holding on to the wrong people for too long. He has shown too much loyalty to faulty strategy.

    His inability to pinpoint baseball minds is his downfall. Dombrowski is good but is he really that good? He has had 1 year of big success with the Marlins. I think he is much better than Randy Smith and I think that with time he will be successful. But Ilitch needs to be constantly evaluating these things.

  14. i’m thinking it may be time to to let go of Brandon Inge. He was good for the organization for awhile, but the recent stats do not warrant keeping him around. Let’s go ahead and pick A-Rod. This will upset some of the local fans in the short run, but in the long run the fans will forget about Inge. Trust me.

  15. Most long-run fans that I know love Inge

    He has been on the team the longest

    I consider myself a lifer-fan if thats a word and if they let go of Inge (which they won’t IMO) I wouldn’t forget.

    Just like when I didn’t like when they gave up Kaplar and Ausmus.

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