Monthly Archives: August 2007

2007 Season, Contracts

Tigers continue to shell out the big bucks

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First went Rick Porcello, now it looks like the Tigers are dishing out more money. Lynn Henning reports that the Tigers have an agreement with 5th round pick Casey Crosby in the 800K neighborhood. The right handed high school pitcher from Illinois hums along in the low 90’s and was thought to be a sandwich pick (all those extra picks between the 1st and 2nd rounds) but slid due to those wonderful signability issues.

Meanwhile BA reports that the Tigers are close to a $1.5 million deal with 6th round pick, shortstop Cale Iorg. (Hat Tip: Take 75 North) Iorg is coming off a 2 year mission and has a verbal commitment to ASU. The same article mentions that the Tigers also inked 26th round pick Matt Hoffman, a prep lefty.

Getting both Crosby and Porcello in the fold is a huge boost to the system and both could factor in newly developed top 10 lists. Adding Iorg would just be icing on the cake at this point. I haven’t seen any reports on 10th round pick Dominic De La Osa.

Contracts, Players, Roster Management

Tigers ink Rick Porcello, irritate Selig

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Well there’s some happy news at least as the Tigers have agreed to terms with Rick Porcello. Porcello of course is the Tigers first round draft choice, who despite being the top high school pitcher in the draft, slid to the Tigers at 27 due to those “signability issues” that Tigers fans have become so fond of.

Porcello is now the Tigers number 2 prospect, right behind Cameron Maybin.

The deal appears to be for something north of $7 million and Baseball America reports that it is a Major League contract. This is significant, more significant than the money, because it means that Porcello is placed on the 40 man roster immediately. And with that comes an option year this season. But I believe due to his age at time of signing, he’ll get a 4th option year meaning that the Tigers won’t have to put him on the big league roster until 2011.

As for the money I’ve seen $7.3 and $7.7 reported but either way it is a record for a high school player and it is way above the “suggested” slotting system that MLB has in place. And of course it is a ton of money for a high school kid who is still a long ways from the bigs, but it’s an even longer ways until free agency (6 years of big league service time). So if he gets up and has any measure of success he becomes a bargain compared to replacing that production on the open market.

Porcello’s stuff includes a mid 90’s fastball and both a slow curve and sharp slider. He also commands a change up.

We’ll see if the Tigers announce the signing of 5th round pick Casey Crosby who has reportedly been in the fold for quite some time. But again because the Tigers were going over slot, they were waiting until closer to the deadline to announce. Cale Iorg and Dominic De La Osa are the other remaining Tiger top 10 picks who are unsigned.

2007 Season, Minors

Tigers Minor League Wrap 8/13/07

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Toledo 2 Norfolk 5
Timo Perez hit a homer, but the bigger news of course is Joel Zumaya making his first rehab appearance. He threw 18 pitches, 11 for strikes and struck out a batter but also allowed a double.

Erie – DNP so no Maybin homer.

Lakeland – DNP

West Michigan 4 Wisconsin 2 in progress
Brennan Boesch and Ryan Strieby went deep. Charlie Furbush had another great outing with 10 K’s and no walks over 7 innings.

Oneonta-DNP

GCL Tigers 3 GCL Braves 1
Marc McBratney came up a double short of the cycle. Brandon Johnson went 7 shut out innings allowing just 5 hits, no walks while fannign 4.

Minors News

2007 Season, Pitching, Roster Management

Jair Jurrjens to start

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The Tigers will reach down to Erie for their Wednesday night starter. They’ve tabbed Jair Jurrjens to take on the Indians. Jurrjens has been on quite the roll allowing just 2 earned runs in his last 3 starts. He’s fanned 24 over that 23 inning span.

The safe roster move would have been to go with Virgil Vasquez. With Jurrjens coming up a spot will need to be cleared on the 40 man roster, but Kyle Sleeth could be let go without much hassle. The only other issue is that if the Tigers send Jurrjens back down to the minors, they will burn an option year.

Nonetheless I’m excited to see what Jurrjens can do.

Jurrjens to start Wednesday in Cleveland – Detroit Tigers Insider – MLive.com

2007 Season, Game Post

Game 118: A’s at Tigers

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PREGAME: Chad Gaudin and Chad Durbin
Game time 7:05pm
OAK @ DET, Monday, August 13, 2007 Game Preview – Baseball-Reference.com

POSTGAME: Huh. I’m really surprised. I thought these brief pregame posts were to the key to success. Oh well. Tonight was pretty brutal. Bad pitching, bad fielding, bad hitting. All they were missing was a baserunning mistake.

  • Chad Durbin was pretty awful. He walked 4, but even when he was getting ahead of hitters he couldn’t put them away. It was foul ball after foul ball until a hanging breaking pitch said “hit me!” Andrew Miller is scheduled to make a rehab start on Wednesday, but even if things go well he won’t be able to start until Monday. Does Chad Durbin make his next start or does Zach Miner or Virgil Vasquez get a shot.
  • Jason Grilli came in to a tough situation and got a ground ball, that should have scored one were it not for a Carlos Guillen error. But then the next inning was terrible with 8 straight balls resulting in a run being walked in. Not the difference in the ball game by any means, but yet another bullet point on his resume. I’d get upset about Grilli still having a spot on the team, but really what’s the point anymore? If he hasn’t pitched his way off the team, what is walking in a run in a blowout?
  • The offense was no where, and that was disappointing against a pitcher who just hasn’t been good for quite a while. This wasn’t Scott Kazmir, it was Chad Gaudin. And yet he posted a career high in strikeouts with 9. The Tigers couldn’t take advantage of limited scoring opportunities and never chipped away at the lead after plating 2 quick runs in the first. Really, they never hit the ball hard save for 2 or 3 well stuck pitches.
2007 Season, Minors

Tigers Minor League Wrap 8/12/07

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Toledo 2 Indianapolis 4
Ramon Santiago went 1 for 3 with a walk. Erick Almonte walked 3 times. Anastacio Martinez went the distance allowing 3 earned runs on 6 hits, 1 walk, and 4 K’s.

Connecticut 6 Erie 7
Three games at AA and 3 homers for Cameron Maybin. He also singled and walked. Mike Hollimon was a homer short of the cycle. Dallas Trahern started and only lasted 4 innings getting knocked around for 6 runs on 9 hits.

Vero Beach 8 Lakeland 2
Justin Justice was 3 for 4, as was Mark Haske. Burke Badenhop allowed 2 unearned runs on 4 hits in 6 innings pitched.

West Michigan 4 Wisconsin 5 (10 innings)
Brandon Timm was 3 for 5 with a triple. Jeff Gerbe fanned 7 and walked none, but allowed 4 runs on 7 hits.

Williamsport 8 Oneonta 9
Casper Wells and Mike Sullivan each had 3 hits. Cory MIddleton homered.

GCL Tigers DNP

Links

links for 2007-08-12

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2007 Season, Game Post

Game 117: A’s at Tigers

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PREGAME: Dallas Braden and Nate Robertson.
Game time 1:05pm
OAK @ DET, Sunday, August 12, 2007 Game Preview – Baseball-Reference.com

POSTGAME: Okay, the Tigers have secured at least a split of the series and have won back to back games. We were here last Wednesday too, and look how grumpy we turned out. But for now, relishing in a thumping by the good guys will suffice.

Today the Tigers beat up on a bad pitcher, exactly what they haven’t been doing enough of. Of course you’ve heard that Magglio Ordonez homered twice, and he’s the only Tigers not named Al Kaline to accomplish the feat in the same inning. With the week he’s had, he’s pushed his slugging percentage up to .599 and is back in the MVP discussions.

Nate Robertson wasn’t great, but the 5 walks were in large part due to Angel Hernandez’s awful strike zone. The two teams combined for 15 walks, so it wasn’t an issue that was exclusive to Robertson.

Again, I went with the super short pregame post, and it worked, so we’ll do that again tomorrow. Just didn’t want to think I was mailing it in or anything.

Oh yeah, and thanks to the Indians and Yankees the Tigers are back in first…barely…for now.

Tigers 11 A’s 6

2007 Season, Minors

Tigers Minor League Wrap 8/11/07

Toledo 4 Indianpolis 2
Chris Shelton went 2 for 2 with 2 walks and even stole a base. Dane Sardinha hit his 9th homer and drove in two. Dennis Tankersley went 8 innings allowing just 5 hits and 2runs while fanning 8. With the back end of the Mud Hens bullpen hanging out in Comerica Park, Jose Capellan assumed closers duty and got the save with a perfect 9th.

Connecticut 9 Erie 10
For the second night in a row, it was good to be a hitter. Mike Hollimon (12), Jeff Larish(23), Cameorn Maybin (2), Clete Thomas (6), and Nick Trzesniak (2) all homered. Maybin added a couple walks to his night as well. Andrew Kown allowed 10 hits and 6 runs in 4 innings.

Vero Beach 5 Lakeland 1
This one ended after 7 due to rain. Mike Hernandez, Justin Justice, Mark Haske, and Deik Scram combined for the 4 Lakeland hits. Lucas French allowed 4 runs (2 earned) on 5 hits and 2 walks in 5 innings.

West Michigan 7 Wisconsin 2
James Skelton singled and walked. Brennan Boesch and Brandon Timm each had 2 hits. Matt O’Brien went 7 innings allowing just 2 runs on 8 hits, 1 walk, and 4 K’s.

Williamsport 1 Oneonta 5
Justin Henry was 2 for 2 with a walk. Chris Carlson was 1 for 2 plus a walk and 3 RBI. Mark Brackman allowed 1 run on 2 walks, 6 K’s, and 7 hits in 6 innings.

Williamsport 1 Oneonta 4
Ronnie Bourquin doubled and singled. Guillermo Moscoso allowed 1 run on 6 hits walking none and fanning 6 in 5 innings. Noah Krol notched his 12th save and has now fanned 30 in 22 1/3 innings.

GCL Braves 1 GCL Tigers 4
This was the completion of a previously suspended game. Hayden Parrot went 2 for 4, the only multi-hit effort. Brandon Hamilton allowed 1 hit and 2 walks in 3 innings. Richard Zumaya pitched 3 scoreless innings allowing a hit and fanning 3.

GCL Braves 2 GCL Tigers 1
Jon Kibler took the loss despite allowing just 1 earned run in 5 1/3 innings on 3 hits and a walk.