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Hopefully it works. Nate has struggled his last few times out.
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Henning says the Tigers have to have more production from first, even if Sean Casey is a nice guy. Even the traditional stats point out Casey’s flaws. RBI is a flawed stat, but when you’re a regular with 11 at the end of May, something is amiss.
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At the end of the article it notes that Omar Infante will start at 3B if his knee is okay. That’ll be 3 straight starts at 3 different positions.
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Joe Posanski ranks the 25 most exciting players in baseball. This is 11-25. Carlos Guillen checks in at 20.
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Jeff Jones notes a sharper breaking ball and Seay credits better conditioning for his success
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Seriously. This is long, but read it. And look at the pictures. Seriously. Seriously
12 thoughts on “links for 2007-05-30”
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Nice to see someone in the media take Casey to task, and more importantly, the Tigers for sticking with him regardless.
I am sure Casey is doing his best, but at this pace, we’ll get 30 RBIs out of 1B. That would be an absolute joke. In some fairness, May has been much kinder to Casey. That said, he still only slugged .415 in May (shouldn’t that be a 1B’s OBP?).
Please, at the bare, bare minimum, Leyland, Jim, move him down in the order.
What are the options at 1B if Casey doesn’t heat up in the near future?
1) Move Guillen to 1B; start Infante at SS.
2) Call Shelton up–who doesn’t appear to be back in the groove at Toledo.
3) Give Thames more starts at 1B (probably the most realistic option).
4) [Dream alert] Trade for Mark Teixera and sign him to a long-term deal. Probably costs too much in pitching prospects.
Casey has heated up, he’s hitting .341 so far this May. I don’t anticipate he’ll stay that hot but he’ll hit for his normal average. He’s never slugged, he’s known for hitting gaps and using the entire field to get on-base somehow.
If they were to play Guillen long-term at first, right now I’d bet they’d put Perez at short.
Shelton is pretty close to in the groove right now. He’s > .422 OBP. He still striking out a bunch but taking walks, and really bounced back as of late. His BA on 11th of May was .228, he’s back to .280.
As for Thames, Casey is doing better than him right now. He won’t be an everyday guy until he can hit right-handers, right now his righty BA is .135.
The options right now at first beyond Casey aren’t great. There isn’t much viable on the team without large sacrifices which could possibly be worse than Casey out there daily. Shelton is still a bit streaky to be trusted, imho but he could very well be a solid possibility post all-star game.
That’s my .02.
1. Won’t happen.
2. At this point, that should happen. Shelton, in fact, appears to be in a groove. It’s not the power hitting groove we last saw, but it is a groove. His line is .283 / .422 / .417. Getting on base 42% of the time may not continue at that pace at the major league level, but it is certainly an improvement and signs Shelton has found his eye even if he’s lost his power. Again, .140 ISO may not be real great, but it’s a step above the current guy.
3. Probably won’t happen.
4. This team is on track for 900+ runs. I’d rather not trade away something useful at this point since the run scoring is not nearly as big a problem as run prevention.
Dont worry about Casey or Inge. Think intangibles.No changes. This is a solid team.
If you go to the baseball-reference website you can see the splits statistics for every team.
Here are the Tigers OPS+ relative to position:
RF 185
SS 145
CF 143
2B 112
DH 110
Ca 102
3B 84
LF 84
1B 73
Since Inge is probably Top 5 at his position defensively I wouldn’t worry too much about him. But it would be nice if he could bat over .250, though.
I know Nate can bounce back and break through his even record. I’ll be cheering for him.
At the very least, bringing up Shelton and maybe catching him while he’s in a groove may be worth the look. I’ve said numerous times that Shelton isn’t a long term answer at 1B for us and I’m skeptical on him, but he’s locked in right now. And we’ve seen what he can do when he’s locked in for a month or so.
And why does no one bring up Craig Monroe’s stuggles? He’s K’ing at the same rate as Inge and he’s actually got less HR’s. I’m afraid our best chance to get full value for him was this past off season. I’m not sure we can get by being severely lacking of any bats at 3B, 1B and LF.
And ‘intangibles’ are nice and all, but when guys are hitting like they have no arms, I don’t care what ‘intangibles’ they bring.
The other problem is that there’s not much roster flexibility. When you’re carrying a full-time DH, you can’t really carry two first basemen. And I don’t see DD releasing Casey to bring Shelton up. We’d all love to see Perez released, of course, but then you need another OF since you don’t want Infante backing up 2B, SS, 3B, and CF.
When is Texiera going to be a free agent? I seem to remember him saying last season he’d be interested in playing for the Tigers.
Intangibles are like air, you take it for granted until you don’t have it.
And if you haven’t read the Baseball Beetle article–do so. Now. There are no words to describe it.
I’d like to see Shelton get called up. It seems like when Casey is hitting well, no one else is and vice versa. (see: World Series)