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I actually found myself rooting for Grandy as an analyst
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Matt’s been on a roll and today he looks at the Tigers top catching prospect, James Skelton. Skelton’s got a stick, but at 165 pounds may be undersized.
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Exploring Dunn, Ibanez, Stewart, and the current platoon options.
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Sheffield had a labrum tear that was discovered during surgery. It’s fixed and he should be ready for the start of the season. However his pitching days are over.
Monthly Archives: October 2007
links for 2007-10-08
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Matt Wallace takes a look at 40 man roster maneuvering.
links for 2007-10-07
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Hey I made the list! Twenty-one! Woo
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Get your geek on
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Nice analysis on the search for a replacement shortstop
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No personnel decisions for Carlos: Carlos Guillen was asked who would be on his short list to play shortstop for the Tigers in 2008. He provided three names: Cesar Izturis, Omar Vizquel and Jack Wilson.
Leveraging Todd Jones
WPA Leaders
| Rank | Name | WPA |
| 1 | J.J. Putz | 6.17 |
| 2 | R. Betancourt | 5.38 |
| 3 | Takashi Saito | 4.27 |
| 4 | Heath Bell | 4.12 |
| 5 | Joakim Soria | 3.85 |
| 6 | J. Papelbon | 3.72 |
| 7 | Joe Nathan | 3.63 |
| 8 | F. Rodriguez | 2.95 |
| 9 | Hideki Okajima | 2.93 |
| 10 | Pat Neshek | 2.83 |
| 11 | Carlos Marmol | 2.8 |
| 12 | Brandon Lyon | 2.8 |
| 13 | J. Isringhausen | 2.75 |
| 14 | Manuel Corpas | 2.71 |
| 15 | Tony Pena | 2.56 |
| 39 | Todd Jones | 1.57 |
WPA or win probability added tracks a teams chances of winning over the course of a game and the measure for an individual player is the difference in win probability when a player enters the game compared to when they leave. WPA of .5 represents 1 win. The complete list of WPA reliever leaders can be found at Fangraphs.
Last week Dave Dombrowski indicated that the club would like to have Todd Jones back, but under the condition that he may be moved out of the closer’s role at some point during the season. Right now the ball is in Todd Jones court as he evaluates his options, and tries for a gig closer to his Alabama home. But is a set up role better for Jones than as the 9th inning man?
Not your typical closer
Jones doesn’t possess one trait that is common among closers, an ability to strike hitters out. In 2007 Todd Jones was dead last, by a considerable margin, among closers (or people who finished at least 35 games). His 4.84 was considerably behind David Weathers 5.56. What’s more is that there were 12 closers who’s K-rate was more than double that of Jones.
Still, Jones manages success because of other things he doesn’t do. His renaissance as a closer came in 2005 with the Florida Marlins when he simply stopped walking people. He only issued 25 free passes between 2005 and 2006 in over 130 innings. However in 2007 he struggled with his control, relatively speaking and issued 23 walks in 61.1 innings, and that put him in the bottom half of closers.
So with a bad strike out rate, and a not so good walk rate, he must have had sterling defense behind him right? Not so much. His batting average on balls in play was .299 which ranked in the bottom 3rd, or the top 3rd depending on your point of view, but it’s the bad 3rd regardless.
Look at these numbers, how did Jones manage to have blown save numbers comparable to Francisco Rodriguez and Bobby Jenks? He had 2 things working for him. The first is that he keeps the ball in the park. He only allowed only allowed 3 homers this year, and a slugging percentage of .371 meant that it would take several hits for Jones to blow a save.
Continue reading Leveraging Todd Jones
Pudge speculation and innuendo
We’ve now heard from all the relevant players involved in the should we exercise Pudge’s option discussion. Mike Ilitch weighed in on Pudge last night:
“Pudge did a big thing for us, putting a face on the franchise,” Ilitch told The Associated Press on Wednesday night. “He’s made a lot of contributions.
“I don’t think it’ll be a tough call, but we’ll see.”
And Pudge’s agent Scott Boras made his statement yesterday as well:
“In this marketplace, if they no longer wanted Pudge, that would surprise me, knowing what Pudge has done for the organization and knowing the loyalty the Ilitch family has for their players,” Boras said.
Boras of course speaks agent, so make of it what you will. He also cited that since Pudge had made the club so much money that he thought it would lead to the “fulfillment of his contract” which of course will be fulfilled either through the buyout or the option. Nevermind that Pudge made a lot of money playing for the club, way more than anyone else was offering at the time and the Tigers essentially bailed out Boras and Pudge.
Dave Dombrowski of course chimed in on Monday with the media and in typical Dombrowski fashion didn’t indicate which way the club was leaning.
And the then final player in this drama, Pudge, spoke of his time in Detroit in the past tense. Of course he was asked to reflect on his time in Detroit, or essentially he was asked to reflect on the past, so I don’t see the use of the past tense as peculiar.
“It was a good roll here. It was very nice. Very good four years.”
So put the pieces together the way you want. I still think he’s coming back, either via the option or an extension.
Pinch Hitting: First game memories
Here’s where I hand it over to you the readers. Earlier this year I celebrated the 25th anniversary of my first Tigers game. I was able to pinpoint the date by searching through retrosheet.
After seeing the amazing pictures that were taken of the Tiger Stadium last week, and the auction and upcoming demolition, it left me feeling more than a little nostalgic and melancholy.
So here’s the challenge, see if you can find the box score from your first Tigers game and please post it in the comments.
Was it at Tiger Stadium, or some place on the road?
Looking back at the boxscore is there anything that surprised you about the game or didn’t match your recollection?
links for 2007-10-03
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The best and worst in the defensive metric ultimate zone rating. Inge, Granderson, and Ordonez rate in the top 3 at their positions while Carlos Guillen is second worst next to Derek Jeter
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Twins blogging friend Seth is running a playoff contest. Stop by and participate
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Curtis Granderson will be an analyst for TBS on Friday.
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Photos from inside Tiger Stadium
First base irony
At the start of the 2006 season the Tigers had a log jam at first base with Dmitri Young, Carlos Pena, and Chris Shelton set to man that position and DH. Pena was jettisoned in the spring, while Dmitri Young battled legal and substance abuse problems spending a chunk of the season on the DL in rehab. Meanwhile Chris Shelton was ripping the ball in April putting up Ruthian numbers.
Fast forward to September 2006. Dmitri Young is released during a rain delay, Chris Shelton is toiling in the minors, and the Tigers have traded for Sean Casey who isn’t hitting a lick.
Fast forward to October 2007. Chris Shelton is still in the minors as he used up his last option year. Sean Casey slugged on the wrong side of .400 when as a first baseman .400 is the wrong side of .500. And Dmitri Young and Carlos Pena win comeback player of the year awards in their respective leagues.
You can lament the Tigers moves, but they were also defensible. Young had a lot of problems last year, and they were problems he wasn’t solving in Detroit. And while I was against releasing Pena, he floundered all of last year and barely sniffed playing time with the Yankees and Red Sox and was even cut this year in Tampa. Again, I don’t think he has this type of season if he’s still with Detroit.
So instead of being frustrated, I’ll simply say congratulations to Dmitri Young for getting his life and career back on track. And congratulations to Carlos Pena for realizing his potential before it was too late.
The 9th Inning
All season, reader Sam Hoff has been calculating the team’s performance over 18 game stretches. Why 18? Because it represents 1/9th, or one inning of the season. Here is his 9th inning report. Thanks to Sam for his contributions all season
The 9th Inning is over.
Each 18 games represent 1 inning of a baseball season. The Tigers record for each inning in 2007:
Starters: Bullpen:
W-L RS-RA HR-SB-AVG/OBA/SLG W-L-IP- ERA W-L-S-ERA
1: 10-8 86 -79 17-9 -235/313/380 5-2-110.2-3.66 5-6-8-4.68
2: 13-5 112-97 23-10-308/377/518 9-3-102.1-4.84 4-2-8-5.03
3: 7-11 110-96 26-7 -310/364/517 7-7-110.2-3.99 0-4-3-7.80
4: 13-5 136-75 20-5 -324/390/508 13-4-103.0-4.37 0-1-2-3.47
5: 11-7 91 -79 23-20-272/357/443 10-5-112.0-3.46 1-2-7-3.33
6: 7-11 84 -113 17-8 -276/325/415 3-8- 99.2-6.59 4-3-6-4.31
7: 7-11 83 -110 20-10-266/315/436 4-10-101.0-6.50 3-1-4-5.12
8: 10-8 95 -77 15-18-298/373/455 4-5- 91.1-4.93 6-3-1-3.18
9: 10-8 90 -71 16-16-292/349/445 7-6-101.1-4.17 3-2-5-3.15
In my 8th inning recap I said that the Tigers needed a 14 win 9th inning to have a shot. In retrospect, that wouldn’t have been good enough. They would of needed 16 wins to tie the Yankees, or subjectively 15 wins including a sweep of the Indians to tie them. The 9th inning started 5-1 before getting swept at Cleveland which effectively ended the hope for post season. They played 5-4 after being swept.
In looking at the season above, it is the three 7-11 innings that did the Tigers in. It is no coincidence that those 3 innings are also the only inning in which either the bullpen or the starters had an era over 5.03. No matter what the Tiger offense does (and they outscored the 2006 version by 65 runs), it all comes down to pitching as the Tigers 2007 ERA jumped by 0.74 (3.84 to 4.58). Those numbers are even more exaggerated when you consider that the American League saw less scoring in 2007.
I’d like to say the Tigers should rebound, but they have the oldest batters in AL (average age 30.9, older than the Yankees 30.6). They also have the 5th oldest pitching staff (28.5, lower than only Boston, NYY, Baltimore, and Cleveland). The pitching age is probably a deceiving figure as the Tigers do have a bevy of young starters.
In the 9th inning, the offense was lead by regulars Ordonez 2-11-397/462/603, Guillen 2-8-299/356/478, and Granderson 2-3-273/355/455. Casey ended his Tiger career with 1-6-424/457/545 in 33 abs. Timo Perez flirted with 400 having 0-7-381/409/500. Righty platoon players Hessman, Rayburn, and Thames went a combined 6-20-302/333/698 on only 63 abs (Interestingly Rayburn and Hessman hit RHP better during the year, although Thames had a huge advantage against LHP). Polanco went 1-4-309/338/412 and Santiago had a similar 0-5-312/333/406. Sheffield> 1-4-234/379/319, Pudge> 0-7-269/278/346, and Inge> 0-6-167/224/222 all limped to the end of personal subpar years. Rabelo, Infante, Cleven, and Maybin went a combined 1-4-163/200/279 in 43 abs.
The Starters were lead by Nate Robertson who was 2-2-3.25era in 4 starts (Nate also had a nice 1st inning as he was 4-3-2.67era-1.15whip in the 1st and 9th innings, and 5-10-5.68-1.62 in innings 2-8). Verlander was 2-1-4.38 giving up 6 HRs including 4 against Cleveland in his 9/18 start. Rogers may have ended his career with 0-2-4.26-1.63. Jurrgens 2-0-5.74-1.34 and Bazardo 1-0-1.84-1.16 may have given us a preview of things to come in 2008.
The bullpen had a very solid 9th inning performance. Lefties Tim Byrdak and Bobby Seay completed very nice seasons by combining for 2-0-0.69-0.92 in 13 innings. Righties Grilli and Miner combined for 0-1-2.25-1.58 in 12 innings. The back end of the bullpen of Zoom-Zoom, Rodney, and Jones combined for 1-1-5sv-2.75-1.07 in 19.2 innings. The rest of the bullpen was 0-0-8.38-1.55 in 9.2 innings.
It should be an interesting off season. The last 2 years have been similar in the fact that the team started strong then hit huge speed bump. In 2006 the Tigers had the best record in baseball at 76-36 on 8/7, but went 11-23 in their next 34 games then finished 8-8 to go 95-67. In 2007, the Tigers had the best record in baseball at 57-36 on 7/19, but went 11-23 in their next 34 games. A 20-15 after that lead to an 88-74 overall finish.
links for 2007-10-02
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The Mets apologize to their fans.
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Jim Callis speculates that if the Tigers outfield of the future comes to fruition, it will be Gorkys Hernandez in centerfield with Cameron Maybin in right and Curtis Granderson in left.
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A six minute video tour of the Tiger Stadium and the stuff up for auction.
Tigers extend Leyland
The Detroit Tigers made it official today and announced a one year contract extension that will keep Jim Leyland managing the club through the 2009 season. No real surprise here.
Breaking down the Dombrowski pow-wow
Dave Dombrowski held court today in what was deemed an informal availability session and broached a number of topics. Jason Beck was first to the web with the bullet points. Definitely click through to Beck’s reporting, but I’ll weigh in on the bullets as well.
Pudge Rodriguez
No decision yet on Pudge and Dombrowski indicated the team might use their full allotment of time (10 days after the World Series) to make a decision. I just documented my thoughts on the situation and believe Pudge needs to be back next year. Whether that means picking up the option, or buying him out and inking him to a 2 year deal that pays him $7-8 million per – I’d be okay with both.
Todd Jones
Beck says:
They’ve expressed their interest in bringing Todd Jones back for next year, but while he would come back as a closer to start the year, they wouldn’t commit to keeping him there as the season went on.
I like the plan, and don’t want to see Jones blocking Zumaya. At the same time, if Jones is back, and can’t hold down the closer role that probably isn’t a good sign. Also, Jones is looking to see if Atlanta would be interested so he could be closer to home. I’ll be taking a deeper dive look at Jones coming up soon.
The rotation
Three spots are set and allocated to Verlander/Bonderman/Robertson. One spot will go to a veteran – like Kenny Rogers if he chooses to come back or another acquisition if he doesn’t- and the other spot will go to a kid to be determined. While trading Robertson would bring back some value, it also leaves a hole in the rotation and going into the season counting on more than one of Jurrjens/Miller/Bazardo to hold down a roster spot for a full year is a risky proposition. The thought of the three of them holding down one spot and then being available for injuries/tired arms is pretty appealing. Plus a one year deal for Rogers means the whole veteran presence without commiting to someone who might block a youngster when they are ready.
Left Field
Will look to get a left handed bat for the outfield that could be a starter, or a platoon partner for Marcus Thames. The ability to get a starter will probably be directly impacted on the cost of a shortstop, and whether or not they need to fill Kenny’s spot with a longer term contract that would consume more resources.
Jurrjens and Sheffield
Jurrjens will be spending the offseason with Gary Sheffield and working with Sheff’s trainer so that Jurrjens gains strength. I can only wonder how this came about. Did the club initiate it? Did Jurrjens initiate it? Was it Sheffield’s idea? For some reason this just strikes me as a fascinating conversation and a very interesting dynamic. A veteran slugging outfielder near the end of his career teaming up with a 21 year old rookie pitcher from Curacao to build strength. Good times.