Monthly Archives: March 2007

2007 Season, Fan Experience, Pitching, Previews

Tiger news round-up

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I’ll be a day late on announcing the DVD Giveaway winners. I promise it will be announced tomorrow night. In the meantime, some stuff worth reading:

PECOTA and the Central

The straight run of Baseball Prospectus’s PECOTA projections for the AL Central put the Tigers in 3rd place with 85 wins. Nate Silver makes some tweaks and post-adjustment he’s looking at the Tigers winning 88 games. With his other adjustments that puts them in a tie for 2nd place, one game out. So essentially it’s a 3 team toss-up in Silver’s eyes. Kind of hard to argue with that, unless you’re a White Sox fan who doesn’t like the 77 win projection.

Power ranking season

Fox Sports latest power rankings place the Tigers 6th, down two spots from last week. Meanwhile the Twins surged up 3 spots. Not sure why. But half of the top 6 teams are from the AL Central.

ESPN the Magazine picks Tigers

I don’t think it’s on newstands yet, and you need to be an Insider I think to flip through, but they’re picking the Tigers to win the AL Central.

New displays coming to Comerica Park

You know those fancy, colorful, shiny displays that you see on the facing of the upper bowl of many newer arenas? Comerica Park is getting those. They are also replacing the out of town scoreboard in right-center with an LED display. Similar ones I’ve seen in Pittsburgh and Cleveland seem to display a ton of information, so I think it could be a good thing. It will also make for dynamic ad space so hopefully it will be additional revenue for the club to sink into a Carlos Guillen extension.

I’m not sure I’ll like the strip on the upper bowl though. I’m trying to visualize it, and I think it might take a little away from the retro look of the park.

The Freep also had a story and video looking at stadium preparation for the Opener.

Four Tops get anthem duty

The Four Tops have been tapped to sing the National Anthem for the Opener. No announcement yet on first pitch, but I’d imagine it will be Kwame and Granholm. Gates will open at 10:30am with a ceremony (not the ring ceremony which is on April 4th). Me, I’m hoping for a fly-over.

Things are looking good weather-wise calling for 54 and sunny.

Now if only those tickets would arrive.

Other stuff

Site News

DTW is blushing

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Once again it is all about me. First, Kurt points out that a few Tiger blogs are mentioned in this week’s Sports Illustrated. Actually, there are blogs listed for all teams where you can vote online for your favorites. SI is really reaching out to team bloggers by featuring their sites and headlines on the team pages (scroll to the bottom of the Tigers page for an example). The tactic worked as I ran out and bought a copy today at lunch. Still I’m “tickled” (to quote Jim Leyland) to see the site mentioned in SI.

Then, I see that Gas Lamp Ball has compiled a listing of the top 10 baseball blogs. There are some pretty prominent baseball bloggers on that list including David Pinto, Matthew Cerrone, and Blez. DTW didn’t make the top 10, but it just missed. Considering the magnitude of the blogs on that list, I’m thrilled to even have the site in the conversation.

Of course none of this would happen without you, the readers who come here and the fellow bloggers who link here. Thanks so much for your support.

UPDATE: Just saw this press release (hat tip Baseball Musings) which talks a little more about the list and how it was assembled:

There are three criteria that Sports Media Challenge use to rank blogs for the top 10 – Influence, Fan Engagement and Quality. These criteria combine quantitative aspects, including the number of incoming links that connect to the blog, number of fan comments as well as qualitative measurement by Sports Media Challenge analysts.

So those of you who link and comment, and read here truly are the reason that DTW was in the mix. Thanks again.

2007 Season, Roster Management

Tigers announce 2007 roster

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While not a formal announcement because there are still 28 players in camp, the Tigers trimmed 11 and cleared up who would be traveling North. The battle for the last bench spot went to Neifi Perez over Ramon Santiago and Chris Shelton. The last spot in the bullpen went to Chad Durbin.

As for everyone else, Zach Miner, Shelton, and Santiago have been optioned to Toledo. Presont Larrison, Tim Byrdak, Bobby Seay, Steve Torrealba, Timo Perez, Dane Sardinha, and Ryan Raburn were assigned to Toledo.

Felix Heredia was unconditionally released.

The other 3 souls who haven’t been cut yet are Edward Campusano, Tony Giarratano, and Roman Colon are all injured and will presumably be placed on the DL (Giarratano the minor league DL).

My thoughts, it’s about what I expected. I’m fine with Durbin getting a shot. After Campusano’s injury, it came down to Durbin/Miner/Seay. None of the options really differentiate themselves, and so making the decision based on roster status if fine by me.

With Perez, he had a good spring but I don’t know how much that counted. A bad spring may have sealed his fate, and some poor play in the regular season may do the same. I would have preferred Santiago over Perez. Neither one can hit, but Santiago is the superior defender. As for Shelton, it is probably best that he get regular at-bats in Toledo to be prepared for the impending Sean Casey DL stint.

And now, your 2007 Detroit Tigers…

Starting Position Players: Sean Casey, Placido Polanco, Carlos Guillen, Brandon Inge, Pudge Rodriguez, Craig Monroe, Curtis Granderson, Magglio Ordonez, Gary Sheffield.

Bench: Vance Wilson, Omar Infante, Marcus Thames, Neifi Perez

Rotation: Jeremy Bonderman, Kenny Rogers, Justin Verlander, Nate Robertson, Mike Maroth

Bullpen: Todd Jones, Joel Zumaya, Fernando Rodney, Wil Ledezma, Jose Mesa, Jason Grilli, Chad Durbin

2007 Season, Roster Management

Does Shelton still have a shot?

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I’ve long been a Chris Shelton advocate, and if you’ve been reading the blog this winter you know that I stumped for Big Red to be the first baseman over Sean Casey. With Marcus Thames proving to be adequate at first base, it seemed Shelton was destined to be a Mud Hen. But according to Danny Knobler, there just may be room:

The surprise this morning was that the Tigers are now wavering on the final position player spot, and Chris Shelton is suddenly back in the picture. Shelton has hit well this spring (.391 through Saturday), but the biggest thing is that the Tigers are starting to wonder how often Sean Casey is going to need a day off at first base — and whether it makes sense to have no other true first baseman on the roster (with Marcus Thames and Carlos Guillen as the available backups).

The problem with Shelton making the roster, is that he makes Marcus Thames remarkably useless. That’s quite a feat given Thames is one of the better hitters on the roster. If Shelton is on the team, he presumably is the back-up first baseman. He is very good defensively at first base, and I have every confidence that his bat will return. If it becomes a platoon situation, Thames and Shelton both bat from the same side so there is nothing to be gained in that regard.
Continue reading Does Shelton still have a shot? →

Previews, Tiger History

Tiger scented potpurri

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A little bit of this and a little bit of that:

More Curtis

Curtis Granderson opened up his mailbag again. This time he talks about the high socks (love the high socks), his at-bat music, and bubble gum. Hard hitting stuff? Not at all. Interesting? I think so.

I always liked how the Negro League players looked wearing their high socks, and I wanted mine to look like theirs. The only problem is that I couldn’t get socks high enough when I was younger. Now that I’m in the Major Leagues, I can get them as long as I want, and I don’t plan on bringing them down anytime soon.

Ducksnorts

Cyberfriend Geoff Young, proprietor of Ducksnorts a blog about the Padres, recently wrote a book which is now available. The Ducksnorts 2007 Baseball Annual is of course for Padres fans, but I still found it interesting as a Tiger fan. First, Geoff has a great writing style and is great at mixing stats and stories. Second, Randy Smith’s name came up quite a bit, and in a favorable light no less. I didn’t know that it was Smith who traded Sheffield for Hoffman, and picked up several other key members of San Diego’s 1998 team. I also didn’t know that Smith ever got the better end of the repeated deals he made with Kevin Towers.

If you’re interested, the book is available either electronically or in paperback.

Cobb on strategy

Hat tip to The Book Blog for pointing me to this article about Ty Cobb and his daring ways on the basepaths. Cobb talks about taking the extra base and how he worked out a lot of plays ahead of time, trying to calculate the odds of success. Neat stuff.

Other stuff

  • John Heyman names his all under-appreciated team and Carlos Guillen is the infielder.
  • The Dugout notes that Curtis Granderson has just about as many friends on MySpace as presidential candidates Hillary Clinton, John McCain, Mitt Romney, Dennis Kucinich, and Joe Biden.
  • In need of masses: Tom Tango is compiling a community forecast for player performance. If you’re got some serious opinions on how the Tigers (or other teams) players will fare this year, submit you best guesstimates here.
Fan Experience, Site News

DVD give away reminder

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Just a quick reminder that your entries for the World Series memories portion of the Tigers World Series DVD giveaway need to be in by noon on Saturday.

As for the Final Cut portion, it sounds like we may have our winner announced on Monday. Jim Leyland anticipates whittling the roster down to 25 by Monday. There are still 39 players in camp. Unfortunately, or fortunately depending on your point of view, if all 14 cuts come on the same day that essentially means everybody who entered the contest is correct and it just turns into a random drawing. But them are the rules.

Managing & Strategy, Offense

Leyland sets lineup and leadoff platoon

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It appears that Jim Leyland has settled on a lineup that he might use some of the time depending on the handedness of pitchers. One thing he did settle on though is that for the time being Pudge Rodriguez will lead off against left handers and Curtis Granderson will lead off against right handers.

The knee jerk reaction from much of the sabermetric community will be to look at Pudge’s batting average heavy OBP (332 and 290 the last 2 seasons) and decry the move. But Detroit Tiger Tales earlier showed the splits that indicate this is a tactic worth at least trying. The Tigers with a right handed heavy roster have very little platoon flexibility and this is a way for Leyland to squeeze a little platoon advantage.

Plus, the few times that Rodriguez led off last year, it appeared he tried to show more patience at the plate. Whether or not that is sustainable (he has a lot of career at-bats working against him), and whether or not it leads to better results, are both huge questions. But if Leyland can help the team score more runs, and Rodriguez become a better hit, why not try it?

The lineup he’ll put out against right handers is: Granderson/Polanco/Sheffield/Guillen/Ordonez/Rodriguez/Casey/Monroe/Inge

And according to Danny Knobler, the players seem happy with the lineup, for whatever that’s worth.

As I’ve mentioned before, the order of the players in the lineup matters much less than which players are in it. This is because the Tigers lineup is quite balanced without real standout players, and without real black holes. Besides, Leyland will likely use over 100 different lineups this year. Last year the most common lineup used took the field all of 6 times.

2007 Season, AL Central, Previews

Previews and Predictions

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As we’re entering the final stretch of spring training, the 2007 predictions are starting to come with increasing regularity. Here’s what today revealed.

Simulatin’

The Replacement Level Yankee Weblog ran a series of Diamond Mind Simulations. He ran 1000 seasons using each of PECOTA, Marcel, Chone, Diamond Mind and ZiPS. I summarized how the tigers fared below:

I think it is safe to say that the ZiPS projections look to be the most realistic – kidding of course. The truth of the matter is, and I’ve been thinking this as I read all sorts of projections, all teams in the Central not from Kansas City have a legitimate shot at taking the division.

The composite of all 4 simulations have the Tigers 3rd in the division with 87.4 wins behind Cleveland with 88.3 and Minnesota 89.2. The sims weren’t quite as favorable to the White Sox with a projected 75.9 wins.

Sports Illustrated

A less stat/computer/geeky preview from the folks at SI have the Tigers coming in 2nd in the Central and ranked as the 5th best team in the American League. The scouting report is pretty standard citing the Tigers balance as a strength, and injury & last year’s pitcher workload as concerns.

Cranking Win Shares

While not a prediction system per se, the Baseball Crank takes a look at Established Win Share Levels for the AL Central. EWSL attempts to quantify the talent level on a team by looking at past performance and adjusting for age. The Tigers rank favorably because they are pretty solid top to bottom. The downside is that because of the age of the key players, the age adjustments are most unfavorable.

Pitching, Roster Management, Site News, Tiger History

Catching up and cleaning up

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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.
Continue reading Catching up and cleaning up →

2007 Season, Minors, Roster Management, Spring Training

Tigers announce 10 more cuts

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The Tigers optioned Mike Rabelo and Brent Clevlen to AAA Toledo. There was some question (at least in my mind) whether they would have Clevlen repeat AA given his struggles last year. I wonder if this is any indication that they may be moving Cameron Maybin to Erie to start the year.

The Tigers assigned Craig Dingman, Dennis Tankersley, Joey Eischen, Brent Dlugach, Mike Hessman, Kevin Hooper, Cameron Maybin and Brandon Watson to minor league camp.

Don’t read too much into Maybin. He wasn’t going to make the team, and it’s about getting him more playing time at this point.

Fan Experience

Tigers DVD Giveaway

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detroit-tigers-ae-dvd.jpg

On Friday I wrote about a new DVD featuring the Tigers World Championship teams from 1945, 1968, and 1984. The folks from A & E have provided me with 3 copies that I in turn get to give to you. To do this I’m running 2 contests. You are eligible to enter both contests, so you have a couple chances to win.

1. Final cut

I will be giving away one DVD to the reader who guesses who the Tigers last cut of spring training will be. Just pick one Tiger and if he is the last to leave the big team, you could win. Now a couple notes:

  • If there are multiple people who correctly select the last cut, the winner will be determined via a random drawing
  • If there are multiple players cut on the same day, which represent the final cuts, each player will be considered a correct player. If this results in multiple correct entries, again we’ll go the drawing route
  • Being placed on the disabled list does not constitute being cut.

Use the Contact Form to submit your best guess. Because there is a time implication on this one, all entries must be received by noon ET on Tuesday March 20th. One entry per person please. The winner will be announced when the roster is trimmed to 25.

2. Tiger Memories

In this contest I will select 2 winners. This one will require a little more effort and I want you to write about your memories from a Tigers World Series victory. Pick one of the World Series’ featured in the DVD (45/68/84) and tell me about your experience. What I want to know are things like me how old you were, where you were, what you were doing at the time and why it was special to you.

The judging of this will be completely subjective and done primarily by me (but I reserve the right to consult some other judges). I’ll be looking for stories that are interesting, touching, well written, etc.

All entries should be less than 300 words. Again, use the contact form to submit your entry. Entries for contest 2 need to be submitted by noon ET on Saturday March 24th. I do plan on posting the winners, so you expect that your entry could end up here. The winners will be announced on March 27th.

Please enter a valid email address on the form, otherwise I won’t be able to contact you if you win.

Now if you just want to go ahead and buy one, you can find them at A & E’s online store. If you order before March 28th you will receive a bonus DVD – Modern Marvels Baseball Parks.

2007 Season, Game Post, Spring Training

Game Thread: Devil Rays at Tigers & Tigers at Braves

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It’s is split squad action today. It also marks the first telecast of the year on FSN which will have the D-rays and Tigers. Meanwhile, WXYT will have the radio of the Tigers and Braves game.

Nate Robertson will be the starter in the Devil Rays game and Zach Miner will start against the Braves.

Unfortunately, I’ll be unable to watch this afternoon but feel free to comment here.

Game Times 1:05pm