- Jim Leyland picked up the BA Manager of the Year Award. He takes after his boss, Dave Dombrowski who picked up the BA Executive of the Year Award last week.
- Lee and Sam both got new looks going into the new year.
- In addition to the new look, Lee is cranking out the analysis as well. He’s got a piece up examining the batted ball type data he found in the The Hardball Times Baseball Annual 2007 (Hardball Times Baseball Annual)
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- Eno rails against the idea of Joel Zumaya being anything but a set-up man.
- This isn’t explicitly about the Tigers, but the Philadelphia Inquirer interviewed Bill James and asked about the Phillies propensity for striking out. Sound like another team we know? Hat Tip Baseball Musings.
- Speaking of which, did you know that one walk undoes the damage of 3 strike outs? The Tigers problem wasn’t the K’s, it was the lack of walks.
- Joe Sheehan made a list of who’s been naughty and nice (premium). He lists the Tigers in the nice category saying the Bonderman deal was a risk worth taking, and really liking the addition of Sheffield:
I suspect that his impact on the team’s overall run scoring will be greater than we can model. Adding an OBP guy to a high-SLG, low-OBP lineup should have a larger effect than adding it to a more balanced lineup.
- I did an interview with Mike from the Daily Fungo Podcast. It doesn’t look like it’s up yet, but I’ll drop the permalink in here when he posts it. It’s nice talking baseball again.