Monthly Archives: November 2006

2007 Season, Minors, Offense, Pitching

Lloyd McClendon to be hitting coach

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Jim Leyland has decided to move Lloyd McClendon in to the hitting coach vacancy that was created when Don Slaught resigned. McClendon of course served as bullpen coach last year and spent 4 years as the Pirates hitting coach.

Jeff Jones will be promoted from Toledo to assume the role of bullpen coach. Jones had considerable success working with Wil Ledezma and Zach Miner last year. This will be his 5th stint as Tigers bullpen coach.

Britt Burns will be promoted from A Lakeland to take Jones spot in Toledo and former Tiger Joe Coleman will assume pitching coach duties in Lakeland.

Statistics

Offseason Goodness

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There are very few good things about the end of the baseball season. One of those things is The Bill James Handbook (aff link). This is my third year getting the book, and this appears to be the best of the group.

If you’ve picked up the book in the past, you’ll find many of the same elements including:

  • Player stats
  • Manger record – Jim Leyland used 120 different lineups and pitched out 9 times.
  • Baserunning stats – did you know that Pudge was on first base 6 times when a double was hit, and he scored all 6 times? (Curtis Granderson was 6 for 7)
  • Park effects –

The new stuff for this year includes the Fielding Bible Awards and the +/- leaders from the methodology used in last year’s Fielding Bible. There is also a section on Manufactured Runs (the Tigers were dead last).

The new sections I’ve only skimmed because the first thing I do when I tear open the book is head to the leader boards where you find stuff that doesn’t show up in the Sunday paper. Here are just a couple of Tiger tidbits:

  • The Tigers had 4 of the top 10 pitchers in the AL in left handers batting average against – and Jamie Walker wasn’t one of them. Nate Robertson and Joel Zumaya ranked 1-2 while Kenny Rogers was 8th and Fernando Rodney was 10th
  • Carlos Guillen was 2nd among shortstops on the pivot and Placido Polanco was 5th amongst second basemen. Given that it shouldn’t be a surprise that Nate Robertson and Kenny Rogers ranked 4th and 5th in the AL in GIDPs induced.
  • Joel Zumaya led the AL with 233 pitches clocked over 100mph. Kyle Farnsworth was 2nd…with 26. What’s even more impressive is that he threw 884 pitches faster than 95mph which is 4th behind starters Josh Beckett, Justin Verlander, and Felix Hernandez.
  • Craig Monroe and Magglio Ordonez ranked 5th and 6th in terms of highest percentage of first pitches swung at (just under 39%).

There’s a ton more statistical goodness which will be blog fodder for the rest of the offseason. But really, if you want something to get your baseball juices flowing I can’t recommend this book enough.

Front Office, Minors

Tigers announce minor league staffs

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Here we are only a week and a half into the offseason, and already the team has generated 3 news items – and we haven’t even gotten to trade season or tendering contracts yet. Today, the Tigers announced their minor league staff assignments and things are all shook up.

Toledo

So things at Toledo are pretty stable. Larry Parrish is back at the helm. Jeff Jones is pitching coach, and Leon Durham remains as hitting coach. With the departure of Don Slaught, Toledo could still lose a member of their staff.

Erie

Erie’s entire staff from last year was let go. Matt Walbeck was promoted from West Michigan to lead the Seawolves. He brings along pitching coach A.J. Sager who filled the same role with the Whitecaps last year. Hitting coach Glenn Adams spent the last 6 years as the Mariners minor league hitting coordinator before being let go in August.

Lakeland

Larry Herndon returns as hitting coach, and Britt Burns is pack as pitching coach. But Mike Rojas, the manager for the last 2 years, is now the organizational catching coordinator. Kevin Bradshaw, who was the GCL Tiger manager last year, assumes the same role for the L-Tigers.

West Michigan

Another former Tiger earns a promotion as Tom Brookens jumps from Oneonta to the Whitecaps. Ray Burris was a first year pitching coach for Oneonta last year, and will move with Brookens. Benny Distefano was promoted for the GCL Tigers to become the hitting coach.

The Tigers also announced new staffs at Oneonta (Man-Andy Barkett, Pit-Mark Johnson), the GCL Tigers (Man-Benny Castillo, Pit-Greg Sabat, Hit-Basilio Cabrera) and the VSL (Man-Josman Robles, Pit-JorgeCordova,Hit-Jesus Laya) and DSL (Man-Andres Thomas, Pit-Marcos Aquasvivas, Hit-Francisco Cabrera) teams.

Given some of the desire to change the Tigers approach at the plate, it was little surprise that on the top 5 teams, only 2 hitting coaches returned (Durham and Herndon). Toby Harrah will return as hitting coordinator, and he certainly had a track record of patience as a player. (for more on Harrah’s philosophies check out this article)

And a scout

The Tigers also announced that they hired Murray Cook as East Coast Crosschecker. Cook is a former colleague of David Chadd and spent the last 5 years with the Red Sox scouting department. Prior to that he was a colleague of Dave Dombrowski spending 10 years with the Marlins scouting department.

Uncategorized

Links a lot

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Cleaning out over a weeks worth of links and emails:

  • The Hardball Times gives us a taste of some of the batted balls data available in this years annual. The Tigers defense were 42 runs better than league average on ground balls.
  • Daisuke Matsuzaka will provide coniserable drama this year as he comes over to the States. He’s got a pretty good track record and he’s young. I just don’t see the Tigers finding value in coughing up $30 million for the right to talk to him. But if you want to keep track of the saga, Knuckle Curve provides some good sources of information
  • Kenny Rogers and Pudge Rodriguez were very deserving gold glove winners. But the Tigers probably should have had more.
  • I find it amusing when people talk about what the Tigers need to do to get over the hump next year. they got to the World Series and played poorly. It wasn’t because of the team construction that they failed in the World Series, it was that they were outplayed. Plus there’s that whole got to the World Series, I think that is the hump. But even with that preamble, I agree with Rob Neyer that the Tigers need to get better.

    The problem, if you’re Dombrowski, is that nobody was terrible this season. That was essentially the secret of the Tigers’ success. But just because nobody’s terrible doesn’t mean nobody’s replaceable.

    (thanks to Joey C for the tip)

  • There are a couple new Tiger bloggers on the block. The New Corner will look at the Tigers farm system and prospects. There is also Motor City Kitties. Check em out.
Offense

Slaught out as hitting coach

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Don Slaught today resigned as hitting coach citing family concerns. Judging hitting coaches seems to be particularly difficult. You can look at statistics, but it is hard to know how the coach actually impacts it.

In the Tigers case, the bulk of the players performed similar to their career marks. They added some home run power, with Brandon Inge, Craig Monroe, and Marcus Thames all hitting career highs in homers. At the same time, the Tigers showed an incredible propensity for striking out finishing 2nd in the American League.

Much was made about the team’s inability to take a walk, but their 2006 isolated patience numbers (OBP-BA) were in line with career norms for the bulk of the players. That deficiency seemed to be more a problem with the players than the coaching.

I had 2 main issues with Slaught. The first was the extended slumps that Tigers hitters seemed to experience. Magglio Ordonez went months without homers. Curtis Granderson slumped dramatically for 2 months. Placido Polanco never got on track. And of course Chris Shelton never recovered after an incrdible 2 weeks. He didn’t seem to have much luck in getting them to shake out of it.

The other issue was that too often very average pitchers looked awesome against Detroit. Since Slaught was in charge of preparing the hitters each night, part of that responsibility falls on him.

As for who the next pitching coach may be, I have no idea. I’d like to see Leon Durham promoted from AAA. He’s had quite a bit of success with Thames, Granderson, and Shelton in the past and he was even able to fix Carlos Pena for awhile. As for what I think will happen, I wouldn’t be surprised if Lloyd Mclendon was moved from his bullpen coach duties and given a shot.

In other news, Andy Van Slyke re-upped and will resume first base, outfield, and baserunning coach duties.

Players

What to do about: Sean Casey?

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The Tigers have a handful of players whose future is in doubt with the organization. I figured we’d tackle them one at a time.

Sean Casey is one of 3 Tigers to declare for free agency which very much makes his future in Detroit in doubt, but that is just one of a handful of issues.

First there is the fact that Casey, while he did have his share of timely hits, just wan’t that good as a Tiger save for the post season. As Lee points out, Sean’s numbers during his time with the Tigers were worse than Chris Shelton’s awful July (which prompted the trade in the first place). During his stint with the Tigers Casey managed only a 286 OBP and he did it with out power. The lack of power isn’t a surprise really. Casey’s only had one decent slugging year since 2001. What was surprsing was an OBP 80 points below his career average over roughly 200 plate appearances.

Sean Casey has also proven to be pretty injury prone as he’s aged. We saw his calf explode against the A’s and he missed 6 weeks earlier in the season with back problems. We also know he’s had a bad hip, hence the leg raise thing. The older he gets, the more likely he is slowed by additional injuries.

So why would the Tigers want to re-sign Casey? It’s possible that he could come pretty cheap given all the above issues. He also could serve as a one year stop-gap in the event the Tigers can’t come up with another first base option. And by all accounts The Mayor is as good a guy as you’ll find in the clubhouse. He also had a very good World Series, but I’d hope Tiger brass wouldn’t be too swayed by his performance over 5 games.

Surprisingly, Sean Casey is a type A free agent. This means that should the Tigers offer Casey arbitration and if Casey were to sign with another team, the Tigers would receive the first round pick from the signing club (or 2nd round pick if the signing club is picking early) plus a sandwich pick between the 1st and 2nd rounds.

If the Tigers do offer arbitration, they have until December 1st to do so. Now why wouldn’t the Tigers offer salary arbitration? Because Sean Casey may accept. If he accepts arbitration the Tigers automatically have him signed to at least a one year deal (I say at least because the club and player can continue to negotiate a longer term deal). So they may be stuck with Sean Casey, and without draft picks.

Despite Sean Casey’s performance in the World Series, and the fact that he’s an easy guy to root for, I don’t see how the Tigers can resign him. He appears to have not much left in the tank, and that tank seems to be springing leaks with regularity. If for some reason he is signed, I would imagine it would be for a sliver of the $8.5 million he made last year with the understanding he would be a back-up.