Monthly Archives: November 2007

Players, Trade Rumors

Not Livan Hernandez

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As the Tigers continue to look for a veteran starting pitcher, it was probably inevitable that speculation about former 1997 Florida Marlin Livan Hernandez would arise. Dave Dombrowski has a penchant for the familiar, and Jim Leyland seems to have a considerable say in roster construction, and Hernandez is an older NL player. Throw in a glaring Tigers need and this was bound to happen. But it shouldn’t and I get the feeling this could be Jose Mesa the sequel.

What Hernandez has going for him is that he’s a workhorse. He’s amassed over 200 innings every year since 1998 except for once, when he only got to 199 2/3. And for a time he was effective. From 2003 to 2005 he was a pretty good pitcher. But he’s turned in an ERA+ south of 100 9 times while being above average only 5 times. And that was when he was a younger pup.

He’s coming off an age 32 season in which he only struck out 3.96 batters per 9 innings and walked 3.48. He allowed 34 homers last year. Granted, Arizona is an easier place to hit homers with a park factor of 115 (15% easier to hit homers there than an average park), but the other numbers don’t paint a pretty picture. His FIP last year was a replacement level-esque 5.73. And if you’re wondering about the defense behind him, his fielders were a hair better than average last year. Using PMR, they converted 6 more balls in play into outs than would be expected.

Even if Hernandez were to benefit from a less homer friendly park, that benefit would be far surpassed by the hit he’d take for moving leagues and for his continued aging.

I understand the desire for a solid starting pitcher, but Hernandez doesn’t represent that. That the Tigers continue to focus on aging veteran players from the weaker league is a concern, and this is yet another instance. If the Tigers are looking for this type of production, and are looking to save money, just hand the ball to Jordan Tata or Virgil Vasquez or Yorman Bazardo who I am confident could post an ERA north of 5 just as easily as Hernandez could. And those guys make the league minimum. If you’re going to balk at paying $10-12 million for a league average pitcher, then $7 million for performance that could be had for free should surely make you shudder.

Links

links for 2007-11-15

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Contracts

Valuing Kenny Rogers

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At the end of last season Kenny Rogers future involved one of two paths:  retiring or resigning with the Tigers. The quote was “It’s either here (Detroit) or nowhere.”  But last week despite Rogers’ decision to play again, Scott Boras said they were going to explore options.  Now it appears that the sides are having a tough time finding middle ground with Rogers/Boras rejecting two Tigers offers.  The question then becomes how high should the Tigers go to bring back Kenny?

How to estimate value

At The Book blog, there is a method for valuing players.  I encourage you to read all the comments, where various players and their recently signed/or prospective contracts are discussed.  The short of it though is that on the free agent market, one win above replacement  will cost $4.4 million. So how many wins above replacement would Rogers bring next year?

First let’s establish replacement level.  A replacement level player is someone who can be had for the league minimum.  Think a non roster invitee to spring training.  That level of performance using this method is described as a .380 pitcher.  But what does this mean?  Take for example a situation where on average 4.5 runs are allowed per game.  A pitcher that allowed less than that would have a winning percentage (using the pythagorean or pythanport equations), and a pitcher that allowed more would have a losing winning percentage.  In the case of a .380 pitcher in a 4.5 run environment, it would mean they’d allow 5.9 runs per game.

Using Bill James projections for 2008 Rogers’ FIP is 4.57.  Fielding Independent Pitching is calculated based on strike outs, walks, and homers – the things a pitcher has control over – and is a solid indicator of true talent level.  As a comparison, the AL FIP last year was 4.51 so for all intents and purposes Rogers projects to be an average pitcher (.500) next year.

The same projections have Rogers making 23 starts and amassing 145 innings which is the equivalent of 16.1 9 inning games.  As an average pitcher you’d expect him to win half of those games and so he’d be worth 8 wins to the team. (Note:  these wins are not the same totals as what you’d find in the traditional won-loss record.  This is looking at contribution to the team)  If the Tigers didn’t spend the money on Kenny, and went with the bare minimum the replacement level pitcher with his .380 winning percentage would account for 6 wins in that same playing time.

So Rogers is 2 wins above replacement.  If you stop there one could say that based on these projections Rogers should make $9.2 million next year(2 x 4.4  and .4 more for the league minimum).

Adjustments

The former was the scientific part, not it’s time for the non-scientific adjustments.  The first adjustment is for age.  Rogers is 43 and is coming off an injury filled season.  Should he be valued the same as a player in his mid thirties?  Probably not. Health and the ability to maintain performance are real and justified concerns. The typical age adjustment is to knock off a .5 win.  That would put his value at $7 million.

Another way to guard against this, is to add performance incentives.  If Rogers is healthy and productive for a full season, I think he should be rewarded.  The projection has him at 23 starts.  If you put in a kicker for 30 starts, how much should it be?  If you assume 6.3 innings per start, and he makes 7 more starts, that would be 44.1 more innings.  That works out to an additional .6 wins over a replacement pitcher.  And the cost of .6 wins is 2.6 million.

But at the same time the Tigers probably value Rogers more than most other teams.  Right or wrong, Dombrowski & Leyland like the familiar.  There is a comfort level with Rogers on the staff.  The other pitchers seem to respond to having Rogers around.  Valuing this contribution is difficult.  While personally I think this type of thing tends to be overblown among fans and the media, I do think some of this effect exists and don’t want to discount it.

Bottom Line

When the news came out about Boras testing the market I called it posturing and at the time made a guess that I just pulled out of nowhere:  1 year – 7.5 million, 1 million bonus for 20 starts, 1.5 million bonus for 30 starts.  That actually doesn’t look to bad right now and the only real difference is I’d give him a little more in incentives while keeping the base the same.

As a base salary Rogers should probably make $7-8 million after adjusting for age and giving him a bonus for the extra value he brings to the team.  If he makes 20 starts his total contract should go to $9 million.  If he makes 30 starts his total contract should go to $11.5-$12 million.

2008 Season, Contracts, Trades

Jones’n a day late

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The Tigers make 2 moves, and my internet connection flakes out that night. As such, I’ll just wrap the analysis into one post. Before getting into the individual evaluations I wanted to note that with the Todd Jones signing, the Tigers payroll has eclipsed the $100 million mark. I have it pegged at $102 right now (not counting the relief the Cubs are sending in the Jacque Jones deal.

Todd Jones

I can definitely see some merit in this signing. It’s a one year deal and at $7 million it is certainly palatable – even if it’s over market value. With a healthy Zumaya, this deal makes all kinds of sense. The veteran comes back for one more year to help transition to the young gun. Trouble is, we don’t know now if that gun will be firing bullets or blanks or anything.

Because of the uncertainty surrounding Zumaya, I feel the Tigers should have gone after Francisco Cordero. The Tigers very well may end up in a situation where they will be looking for a free agent closer next year anyways if Zumaya can’t comeback or isn’t ready to assume closing responsibilities. In a year that the Tigers were clearly in “go for it” mode, getting a top shelf closer would have fit the bill. If Zumaya does come back, you have a pretty solid bullpen – especially as Fernando Rodney becomes a free agent in 2010.

Bill James projects Cordero to throw 61 innings with a FIP (fielding independent pitching) of 3.15. Assuming a league average FIP of 4.43 that would make Cordero worth about one more win than Todd Jones. Jones projects to a 3.77 FIP.

Still, Cordero isn’t a sure thing. He had a bad year in 2006 when he blew 11 saves. It’s probably an anomaly, but it’s out there. Also, Cordero would have wanted to come to the Tigers. It isn’t the laughable proposition it was 3 years ago, but there are no guarantees.

There is value in the Tigers moving quickly to fill a need. Plus Dave Dombrowski and Jim Leyland have a penchant for the familiar making them comfortable with Todd Jones. As for the $7 million, the Tigers probably overpaid. Jones is about one win above replacement level. Assuming a win in the free agent market is worth $4.4 million then Jones salary should be about $4.8 million (you need to add the major league minimum to the base).

As long as Todd Jones can continue to keep his slugging against south of .400, and if he can limit the walks, the should be okay in 2008.

Jacque Jones for Omar Infante

My initial reaction to this trade was that I liked it, and that has held up over the last day. I like Infante, and at age 25 there is a still a chance he could be a productive major league player. But it was clear that isn’t wasn’t going to happen for him here in Detroit. Plus he’ll be in his second year of arbitration. Plus, the Tigers have a couple players who could fill the utility role for cheap. So even though Infante may have some value to some club, he didn’t have a lot of value to the Tigers. That they got a real major leaguer in return is a coup.

That major leaguer of course is Jacque Jones. The stuff to like about Jones is that he is a solid defender who can play all 3 outfield positions. But his arm has him better suited to center of left. He’s also left handed, which is helpful for the Tigers.

If the Tigers deploy him as part of a platoon, they have the makings of an acceptable offensive outfield. Jones against righties has hit 294/342/483. Meanwhile Marcus Thames against lefties is 263/333/512. For a total cost of $5 million or so a combined 280/335/490 line would fit nicely in this lineup.

The concern with Jones of course is that his slugging fell off the map last year when he only hit 5 homers. It was a Sean Casey-ish year, but it wasn’t nearly as conspicuous as he played a large chunk in centerfield. Whether it was an anomaly or aging remains to be seen. It’s also worth noting that Jones posted the best walk to strikeout ratio of his career last year. For what it’s worth James projects a 278/332/433 line but without facing lefties he has a chance to better that.

So I give the trade a thumbs up. Still, I’ll miss Infante’s salsa at-bat music this season.

Other stuff

  • Craig Monroe is now a Minnesota Twin. Best of luck to Craig. He always has mashed in the Metrodome where he’s hit 305/351/520 for his career so this could be a good fit.
  • The Tigers completed the Roman Colon trade by acquiring Danny Christensen from the Royals. Christensen is left handed and 24. The former appears to be his most dominant trait. He struggled in AA last year as he gave up a ton of hits, 23 of them for homers in 140 innings.
Contracts, Players

Tiger sign Todd Jones

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The Tigers inked Todd Jones to a 1 year deal. If you’re keeping score at home, that’s 2 Joneses today. I’ll have more tonight. In the meantime here is a post looking at Jones’ 2007 season.

Conference Call Notes

  • People are happy. Todd is happy. Dave is happy.
  • Jones’ kids are excited because they are friends with the other Tigers’ kids.
  • Dombrowski on getting other relievers: number one priority is getting a starting pitcher right now. He’s not forgetting about the bullpen, but feels that with Todd Jones and Fernando Rodney the pen is solid. (He also cited the experience that Zach Miner and Jason Grilli got last year). My take: it depends how much they spend on a starting pitcher as to what they’ll do with the pen.
  • Gotta run and will update with other notes later tonight

UPDATE: Flaky internet connection killed any updates last night. I’ll analyze both Jones transactions tonight.

Trade Rumors

Tigers close to acquiring Jacque Jones

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Jon Paul Morosi is reporting that the Tigers are “close to finalizing” a deal where Detroit would send Omar Infante to the Chicago Cubs for Jacque Jones. 

If it comes to fruition, I like the deal.  Omar Infante doesn’t really have a role on the team at this point and never seemed to garner Jim Leyland’s favor (this was the reason for the Neifi Perez acquisition).  Ryan Raburn and Mike Hollimon both look ready to assume the super sub role that Infante held for the last 2 years.

As for Jones, he could make for a nice left handed platoon partner in left field for either Raburn or Marcus Thames.  For his career Jones is a 294/342/483 hitter against right handed pitching.  The biggest concern is that he’s coming off a year in which he only slugged .400 and only had 5 homers.  Whether it was a one year fluke (it was by far the lowest slugging of his career) or him collapsing remains to be seen.

Still, he’s only owed one year and $5.5 million so even if he is awful it won’t hurt the team financially.  It’s only a problem if he’s awful and continues to garner playing time (like that’s never happened before).

Defensively he played a couple outfield positions for the Cubs and rated well at least in terms of PMR.

Tigers near deal for Cubs OF Jones

Statistics

Bill James Handbook fun

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Last week one of my favorite publications showed up on my doorstep – The Bill James Handbook. This year’s version doesn’t disappoint. I’ve already dropped references to +/- fielding metrics which are an important reference point for evaluating defense. The usual assortment of win shares, park factors, player stats, and projections are also available. There is also a section on baserunning (the Tigers ranked 6th overall and had the highest percentage of their baserunners score). But my favorite part of the book are the leader boards which feature the top 10 in a number of obscure categories.

I won’t hit everything on the leaderboards, a lot of it is obvious (like Granderson and Ordonez being really good). Plus I don’t want to publish too much content because you should still have some incentive to buy the book. But as a teaser:

Hitting Stats

  • Magglio Ordonez slugged .713 against southpaws which far and away led the league (Frank Thomas was second at .613). Meanwhile Granderson and Ordonez placed 4th and 5th in slugging against righties.
  • Hard to believe it, but Brandon Inge had the 9th best batting average against lefties and the 10th best OBP at .419.
  • Granderson had the highest stolen base success rate and Carlos Guillen had the second lowest. But Guillen had the 8th most steals of 3rd base with 5.
  • Brandon Inge ranked 8th in pitches per plate appearance, and was 5th worst when putting pitches outside of the strikezone in play.
  • The Tigers had 3 of the 6 best first halves in terms of OPS with Ordonez, Gary Sheffield, and Carlos Guillen raking early in the season.
  • Ordonez swung at the first pitch 39.6% of the time which was 5th highest last year. Guillen ranked 9th. Curtis Granderson swung at the first pitch 13.6% which was the 5th lowest rate and Sheffield ranked 9th.

Pitching

  • Justin Verlander ranked 10th in terms of percentage of pitches in the strike zone. He ranked 2nd in terms of pitches thrown faster than 95mph and his 94.8 average fastball was 3rd fastest. But he also threw change ups at the 5th highest rate and curve balls at the 9th highest rate.
  • Jeremy Bonderman threw sliders 34.5% of the time which ranked first. Nate Robertson was 2nd at 22.6%.
  • Even with Joel Zumaya’s injuries and decreased velocity when he came back, he still led the league in 100mph fastballs with 30 and Verlander ranked 2nd with 17.
  • Hitters only posted a .502 OPS against Chad Durbin’s slider, the 3rd best rate in the AL.
  • Only 14.3% of the baserunners that Bobby Seay inherited scored, which was also 3rd best.
  • Nate Robertson sported the 5th slowest average fastball.
Contracts, Minors, Trade Rumors

GM Meeting Wrap

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More great stuff from Jon Paul Morosi in the Freep today as he catches up with Dave Dombrowski at the conclusion of the GM meetings.

The cliff notes are:

  • The Tigers made an offer to Kenny Rogers and are waiting on Scott Boras at this point
  • The Tigers have contacted agents of Mariano Rivera and Francisco Cordero
  • The Tigers contacted the Astros about Brad Lidge, but talks were never serious.
  • On the possibility of being close to making a deal Dombrowski said ““I don’t know. We’ll find out. We’ve had a lot of discussions.”
  • Dombrowski was talking up left handed outfielders Matt Joyce and Clete Thomas.  I don’t know if this is because the Tigers think Joyce/Thomas could help at some point this year, or if they are trying to downplay their interest in left handed hitting outfielders, or if they are trying to boost the stock of their own prospects for a trade.
  • Maybin is now healthy but won’t play the last week of the AFL season.

Dombrowski has inklings of deals but no inkings

One more thing

This doesn’t deserve a post because I know you the reader probably don’t really care, but this is just a quick follow up to the McCosky article. He hasn’t responded to email attempts to reach him (one sent Saturday, another sent Monday), nor has the Detroit News sports editor (an email was sent Monday). He also hasn’t identified which blogs were having a field day speculating. Those are the facts. I’m done with it now.

2007 Season, Awards, Defense

Handing out hardware

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It’s award season and they are coming out fast and furious. Over at SB Nation they have been releasing the results of their blog ballots. Each baseball blog at SB Nation received 2 ballots, and with Bless You Boys being a solo operation, Ian was kind enough to let me vote his second ballot.

Today was the final day of announcements and it concluded with the MVP. Alex Rodrgiuez of course took home first place and he was a unanimous selection. Magglio Ordonez finished second, David Ortiz was third with Jorge Posada and Vladimir Guerrero rounding out the top 5.

Curtis Granderson had a solid showing finishing 7th and even Placido Polanco garnered a couple votes (neither vote came from the Tigers contingent).

My ballot is below:

1. Alex Rodriguez
2. Magglio Ordonez
3. David Ortiz – best hitter in the second half with a 1.153 OPS. Better offensive season than Maggs, but at DH
4. Curtis Granderson – very slight homer pick here, but defense and 26-27 on steals helped
5. Jorge Posada – great season and bonus points for doing it while catching
6. Vladimir Guerrero
7. Carlos Pena
8. Ichiro Suzuki
9. Victor Martinez
10. Grady Sizemore

I had no problem selecting the top 3, but the next 4 spots were a struggle for me. I actually had a half dozen iterations of Granderson/Posada/Guerrero/Pena. I elevated Granderson and Posada because of the defensive positions they play, and Granderson came out on top because of how well he played his position.

As for the other awards here they are, with my ballots as well:

If you click through, Ian has the full voting results.

Tigers Awards

Yesterday the Detroit Sports Broadcasters Association named Ryan Raburn as the Tigers Rookie of the Year.  Today the Detroit Chapter of the Baseball Writers Association of America named Magglio Ordonez as the Tigers Player of the Year.

Other non-awards

Bugs and Cranks is turning the tables on the Silver Slugger Awards and Gold Glove Awards with the Sawdust Sluggers and Lead Glove Awards.  Brandon Inge was named the worst hitting 3rd baseman in the American League while Carlos Guillen was named the worst fielding shortstop.

Despite Guillen’s high error total and decreased range as the season wore on, I don’t think this is a clear cut honor (or dubious distinction).  Derek Jeter was the worst AL shortstop using +/- at -34 and David Pinto’s probabilistic model of range had Jeter missing 40 plays more than expected (Guillen was 19 plays below expected over less playing time).  Michael Young rates worse than Guillen on both measures as well. In UZR Guillen ranks 2nd worst ahead of Jeter and behind Young.

This isn’t a defense of Guillen’s shortstop prowess by any means.  He still deserves to be in the conversation, but I have to give the distinction to Jeter.

Free Agents

More Boras posturing

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Jon Paul Morosi has been all over the place this fall. The Free Press had him in Arizona for the AFL and he is now covering the General Manager meetings in Orlando. He has the scoop that Kenny Rogers has decided to come back, but Scott Boras says that Rogers is testing the market.

This appears to all be posturing on Boras’ part in an attempt to up Rogers price. The fact that Maddux and Schilling have already signed probably works in the Tigers favor in that their is a cap set for what is reasonable. If I had to guess, and this is complete speculation on my part, it will be a 1 year $7.5 million deal with incentives that if he makes 20 starts it goes to somewhere in the $8.5 range and if he makes 30 starts it approaches $10 million.

Boras: Rogers will explore his options

Front Office, Minors, Trade Rumors

The Tigers aren’t interested in A-Rod unless they are

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The Alex Rodriguez to Detroit rumors just won’t die. Going into the offseason I thought the Tigers chances would be similar to their playoff chances in September. Stuff had to fall their way, and it was a longshot, but that they were still in a better position than most teams. But since the end of the World Series, the rumors haven’t stopped.

I thought that the acquisition of Edgar Renteria would take care of that speculation. It didn’t even put a dent in it. Ken Rosenthal still thought it was a fit. Even if it meant bringing in the fences. Meanwhile Jayson Stark was saying that he saw Rodriguez ending up with the Mets or Tigers. Jon Heyman from SI.com lists the Tigers as one of 3 teams moving up in the A-Rod race.

So to squelch all this talk Dave Dombrowski flat out said:

“We don’t have any interest”

…

“We filled our spot when we acquired Renteria”

Still, that isn’t enough to dampen the A-Rod to Detroit enthusiasm. Buster Olney reports that other executives think that Boras could just negotiate directly with Mike Ilitch. But interestingly Jerry Crasnick spoke with 15 GM’s and none mentioned the Tigers as a potential destination for Rodriguez. Maybe the latter group of GM’s read the Business Week article about Ilitch from September when Ilitch said the Tigers weren’t ready to make the $30 million a year leap.

And 3 more A-Rod/Boras-y articles I couldn’t work into the above narrative:

Tigers lose 2

It looked like the Tigers were grooming their next manager in Matt Walbeck. He had 3 successful seasons and asked for and was granted a promotion to Erie last year. Now he’s the Texas Rangers 3rd base coach. Maybe this is just some MLB seasoning for the 2010 season? No replacement has been named but Tom Brookens, the Whitecaps manager in 2007, will be considered.

The Tigers also lost scout Greg Smith who will be scouting director in Pittsburgh.

Links

links for 2007-11-07

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