Things have been lighter for the last week on the blog. Part of that is a lack of terribly interesting news coming out of Lakeland – which is a good thing. This offseason I’ve been trying to compensate for these lulls by cranking through some analysis. That’s kind of what I’ve been doing, I just have nothing to show for it yet. I hope the benefit will come once the season starts. All of this of course is irrelevant to you, but I still wanted to write it anyways. Mostly because I’ve been spending an inordinate amount of time on the blog, but with very little actual content to show for it yet.
Also I want to apologize for some of the comments that came through this weekend. Late Saturday night and into Sunday a bunch of spam comments advertising the sorts of things you don’t expect to see on a Tiger website got through the spam filter. I took them down as quickly as I could, but I apologize if anyone was offended.
Moving on to all the stuff I haven’t been writing about…
The other LOOGY
Edward Campusano seemed to be gaining more and more of a lock on the job with each appearance. That is until he left with elbow tenderness. Never a good sign. While it seems that elbows are more fixable than shoulders, those fixes often require surgery after rest fails to clear up the problem. There’s been no further word so it’s hard to comment on the extent of it, but anecdotally speaking these things just never seem to go away on their own.
With that I was prepared to write how Bobby Seay probably had the best shot at that last bullpen spot. Seay has been quite good this spring allowing 1 run in 8 2/3 innings with a 7:2 strikeout to walk ratio.
But then Jason Beck writes that Leyland sounds likes he is comfortable going just with Ledezma – recognizing that Joel Zumaya, Fernando Rodney, and Todd Jones will be the guys called on to get the critical outs.
If Leyland truly is okay with one lefty, the best bet is probably an option-less Chad Durbin over Zach Miner who still has 2 options left.
The draft
From the same Beck blog post, he mentions a chat he had with scouting director David Chadd:
He likes the draft this year, calls it deeper in high school talent than collegians, and said there’s a good group of high school catchers and left-handed pitchers. That said, he’s not going to draft by need, even though the Tigers could use some catching in the system. They don’t pick until the 27th selection this year, but they gain a sandwich pick around the 60th overall selection. Because signability is such a factor with some teams, Chadd said, they have to scout as much top talent as they can and not assume somebody’s out of reach.
I’ve been pretty happy with Chadd’s results so far and am anxious to see what he does picking lower in the draft.
Of course if you’re a draft-nik, which I’m not (just too hard for me to keep up with), Talking Tigers has been doing quite a bit of research already. His latest piece tries to measure the Cape Cod League against he NY-Penn League. And if you want to study up on some of the best college players in the midwest, there is Brian Decaussin’s Big Ten Hardball.
Other stuff
- It’s not looking good for the Tiger Stadium redevelopment or a final fan walk through.
- Maybin has an MLB tattoo on his bicep.
- The Hardball Times predicts the division races and sees the Twins winning the Central, with a 3 way tie for second.
In Billfer we trust. Your track record speaks for itself.
Oh, I thought those were sponsors. I bought several of each.
j/k
Minor is a better bet than Durbin simply because he gets more batter out. I could care less about remaining options.
Bill, I thought it was pretty obvious that you worked hard on number crunching this winter. I know that producing all that pitch count data was a lot of work. I can also emphasize with you because I also do a lot of analysis which never shows up on the internet simply because it’s not that interesting or conclusive. It’s the nature of research. It’s a lot of work but it’s fun.
I also empathize 🙂 Wow, I really butchered that one.
I love the HS class this year. There are some good position prospects that I really hope the Tigers take a long look at. Especially at SS/3B. There are a few power prospects as well.
There are a decent amount of catchers in the draft as well. Mitch Canham from Oregon State is one C prospect I really like. I am starting to get interested in a pair of draft eligible sophomores in Brad Suttle (3B) and Kyle Russell (OF) from University of Texas. They are tearing the cover off of the ball in the early going. There are a lot of good 3B in this prep class. I would love to see them nab a high school 3B or perhaps Suttle in the first round/supplemental first round. I know Inge has a 4 year deal in his pocket but you don’t worry about MLB needs.
They need to take advantage of being lower in the draft by spreading the money out through the draft. Taking a HS player that slips to the 5th or later because of concerns about signing them. Then offer them a big enough contract. Things like that.
Really this will be an interesting test to see if things have really improved in their ability to draft or not. The last two first rounders were no brainers. But lets wait to see what they do this year.
BTW I saw the comments posted but knew that it was simply spam filtering through.