Yearly Archives: 2007

Trades

Holy Freakin Crap

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The Tigers have pulled off a franchise altering trade today sending former first round picks Cameron Maybin and Andrew Miller, along with Mike Rabelo and 3 minor league pitchers to the Florida Marlins for Miguel Cabrera and Dontrelle Willis.

When Dave Dombrowski decides to go for it, boy does he go for it. Like in 1997 when he loaded up for a run at the World Series, Dombrowski has quickly put together what has to be considered the best line up in all of baseball. To do it they had to give up 2 of the blue-est of blue chippers. Normally I frown on such a move, but rarely do you get in return a 24 year old with 138 career home runs and a 313/388/542 line in 2700 at-bats either. The Tigers had to have emptied their farm system, but this isn’t for a player on the wrong side of 30. This is someone who has yet to enter his peak. The Tigers have to sign him to a long term deal for this to work, but I can’t imagine they make this trade without some sort of frame work in place.

As for Dontrelle Willis, his 5+ ERA in a pitchers park in the NL is certainly disconcerting. But the Tigers were giving up a player that was likely to be in their rotation next year, and they had to fill that spot and there are certainly worse ways to do it than with Willis.

The Tigers gave up some seriously talented players, but if you’re going to do it, do it the way the Tigers did and get a couple guys in their mid 20’s in return. Cameron Maybin and Andrew Miller are tremendous prospects, but Cabrera is a rare, rare player and for the Tigers to acquire him is a major coup.

As for the other 3 pitchers, Jon Paul Morosi is reporting that they are Burke Badenhop, Dallas Trahern, and Eulogio De La Cruz. Trahern is the prize of this group. He’s a heavy groundball pitcher who was set to pitch for AAA Toledo this year, and was a decent bet to reach the majors in 2008. De La Cruz we saw last year, and he has the potential and stuff to strike out a ton of guys, but he’s still searching for consistency.

The Tigers still have Rick Porcello, who couldn’t be traded yet, and is now the clear top prospect in the system. I’m also pleasantly surprised the Tigers didn’t have to move Jeff Larish, Mike Hollimon, and especially James Skelton.

As for what happens next, the Tigers just have to sign Cabrera long term. They also have some of their own players to move. Cabrera is thought of as a third baseman, but he could play left as well. I don’t know where he’ll play for Detroit and it depends on who they can get for Brandon Inge probably. I know that the Tigers just traded for Jacque Jones, but I don’t think they are married to him.

I applaud Dombrowski and the Tigers for pulling this off. The Tigers have the pieces in place to be a very very special team this year and I can’t wait for spring training. I’ll have more on the trade over the next couple of days.

2008 Season, Contracts, Free Agents, Trade Rumors

Rogers, Rumors, and the Winter Meetings

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The Winter Meetings kicked off today. My fellow bloggers have already commented on how it will be a fairly quiet meetings for the Tigers. That’s what happens when you fill your biggest needs within a couple weeks of the end of the season.

Still, I don’t think the Tigers are done this offseason. While I don’t expect big moves from Detroit during the Winter Meetings, there is still work to be done. The Tigers still have a number of players to tender contracts to. There are currently only 16 members of the team who are signed, and likely to be on the 25 man roster. At least two of those players could be in for a substantial payday.

Curtis Granderson is entering his last year of indentured servitude. The Tigers could sign him for half a million and be done with it. However, it wouldn’t surprise me to see a 5 year deal which would buy him out of his arbitration years and first year of free agency. That would gain the team cost certainty through 2012 which also coincide with the years where he figures to be in his prime.
Continue reading Rogers, Rumors, and the Winter Meetings →

Links

links for 2007-12-03

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Minors

MiLB.com Top Prospect list

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The Tigers placed 2 players on the MiLB.com top prospect list. Cameron Maybin ranks 3rd overall behind Jay Bruce and Evan Longoria. Rick Porcello debuts at 14 which is impressive to say the least.

There are still a couple of prospect lists that still to come. John Sickels list should be coming in the next week or so, and Baseball America is still a ways away. Once they are all in (Tigstown and Baseball Prospectus have already completed their Tigers lists) I’ll aggregate the results into a consensus top 10 list.

As a side note, Gorkys Hernandez who is now with the Braves, just missed the list and checked in at 53. As for the rest of the AL Central, the Royals had 2 players on the list. But the Indians, White Sox and Twins combined to have 2 players in the top 50.

Minor League Baseball: News: Top Prospects

Fan Experience

Tigerfest 2008

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The Tigers have sent information to [edit:]some[/edit] season ticket holders about this winter’s version of Tigerfest. It will be on January 12th and once again it will be hosted at Comerica Park. Of course the nice thing about holding it at an outdoor venue is that you don’t have to worry about the ice sculptures melting – for like 6 weeks.

I am a little surprised that they’ll be doing it at Comerica again, because reports from last year were that despite portable heaters the venue was still cold as well as very congested. I’ll give the organization the benefit of the doubt though and will trust that they’ll take what they learned last year to try and alleviate those problems.

No word yet on when tickets will go on sale to the general public, but it did sell out last year so I’ll let you know when I hear something.

UPDATE: Info on tickets:

Tickets for the 14th annual winter baseball event, presented by StubHub! will go on sale on Tuesday, December 4 at 10 a.m. Tickets can be purchased online at www.tigers.com/tigerfest or by calling 866-66-TIGER (84437). The cost of admission will be $12 for adults and $6 for kids 14-and-under. Children three and under are admitted for free.

Free Agents, Roster Management

Tigers sign Kenny Rogers and Francisco Cruceta

70 Comments

The Tigers shored up their starting rotation and bullpen by signing Kenny Rogers and Fancisco Cruceta. Both pitchers were signed to one year deals. I don’t have terms yet of either deal.

Rogers we know about, but Cruceta appears to be signed largely on his performance in the Dominican Republic. It sounds similar to last year’s trade for Yorman Bazardo who was impressing in the winter leagues.

Cruceta, 26, spent the 2007 season with Triple A Oklahoma in the Texas Rangers organization. In 25 outings (five starts), he compiled a 3-0 record, 3.02 ERA (65.2IP/22ER) and 70 strikeouts. Cruceta has appeared in 13 games with Cibao in the Dominican Winter League, posting a 1-1 record, 1.08 ERA (16.2IP/2ER) and 25 strikeouts. He is fourth in the league with 25 strikeouts.

“Cruceta has pitched very well this winter in the Dominican Republic,” Dombrowski said. “He is a quality prospect and we expect him to compete for a spot in our bullpen in 2008.”

Cruceta has compiled a 63-49 record and 3.77 ERA (943.2IP/395ER) in 214 appearances (145 starts) during his career at the minor league level. He briefly saw action at the major league level with the Cleveland Indians in 2004 and Seattle Mariners in 2006.

It certainly doesn’t hurt to take a flyer on the guy, and maybe the Tigers have latched on to some cheap talent.

To make room Chris Shelton and Timo Perez were DFA’d. Neither was a surprise as neither were likely to make the Tigers roster next year. Chris Shelton was out of options and was destined to be moved anyways. You often hear of meteoric rises, but meteors are subject to gravitational forces and come crashing to earth as well. That was the Shelton meteor ride.

I’ll have more later

Conference Call Notes

  • Kenny’s negotiation process: There was never a lot of change in his position. He wanted to make sure that he represented what was done best for himself and his family. The change in representation had more to do with Rogers intent to stay in Detroit than anything to do with Boras. He was trying to simplify the process so he could communicate directly with the team. If Rogers had decided to become a free agent in the true sense, Boras would still be his agent.
  • There are performance incentives in the contract.
  • Going to the winter meetings they will still look at opportunities to get better, but they are comfortable with the roster and they don’t see any “gaping” needs.
  • Cruceta throws in the mid 90’s and the Tigers look at him as some who can help the team.
  • The team is aware of Cruceta’s suspension but the team is confident that Cruceta learned from the experience and that Cruceta can help the team.
  • The Tigers were never close to signing any other starting pitchers while the Rogers negotiations were on-going.
2007 Season, Awards

2007 DIBS Awards Announced

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A couple years back myself, Brian Borawski, and Ryan Sosin decided to try and unite the group of Tigers bloggers. We came up with an acronym and a logo and then we decided to vote on some year end awards. This is the 3rd year of DIBS awards. This year’s winners are Magglio Ordonez for player of the year, Justin Verlander as pitcher of the year, and Curtis Granderson as breakout player of the year. There’s more description in the press release below, but I’ll just say that I voted for all the winners.

Continue reading 2007 DIBS Awards Announced →

Links

links for 2007-11-29

11 Comments
Minors, Players

Gushing reports on Porcello

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While the Tigers received bad news in the form of Casey Crosby’s Tommy John surgery, the news is ridiculously upbeat concerning Rick Porcello. Lynn Henning chats with Glenn Ezell (director of player development) and Jon Matlack (roving pitching instructor) and has all kinds of praise for the first rounder.

“I don’t know what he’ll pitch at, but he hit 97 (mph) numerous times and worked comfortably at 94-95,”

and…

“He has two quality breaking balls (overhand curveball and slider), which are occasionally above-average, and one of which I believe will become better than average.

“And he has a plus change-up,”

and…

“He can do things with his fastball: sink it, run it in, ride it. He is far, far advanced beyond just about anyone 18 years old I’ve ever worked with.”

Now keep in mind these are very early reports and are based solely on the instructional league. But it is far better than hearing that he sucks, or that is stuff is pretty good.

At the end Henning mentions that Porcello is likely to start the season at West Michigan, which was to be expected. But he also throws out the nugget that he could finish the year in Lakeland. Don’t know if that is speculation on Henning’s part, or if the Tigers will look to really challenge him – provided he fares okay for the Whitecaps

Links

links for 2007-11-27

7 Comments
2007 Season, Defense, Statistics

The Tigers Defense – What are the Odds?

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Over the last month or so, David Pinto has released the majority of his studies using his probabilistic model of range (PMR). Today we’ll delve into the Tigers defense using this advanced metric.

I’ve explained PMR in the past, but a refresher is probably worthwhile. The PMR model uses data play by play data collected by Baseball Info Solutions. Pinto uses 3 years of this data to find out the probability that a batted ball will be converted into an out. In doing this he accounts for the handedness of the batter and pitcher, the type of hit (grounder, fly, etc), how hard the ball was hit, and the direction the ball was hit. The beauty of the system is that it provides context to the data. Players who have harder to field opportunities get credit it for it. It also removes the subjectivity of an official scorers decision.

What the system doesn’t do is account for throwing ability for outfielders. So a Jacque Jones upgrade in range would be lessened by a weak throwing arm.

On to the data. The first table shows how the Tigers fared by position.

Position In play Plays Exp Plays DER Exp DER Rate Runs
Pitcher 4486 167 159.73 0.037 0.036 104.55 5.5
First Base 4486 296 310.16 0.066 0.069 95.44 -10.7
Second Base 4486 505 494.43 0.113 0.11 102.14 8.0
Shortstop 4486 517 536.95 0.115 0.12 96.28 -15.0
Third Base 4486 446 426.09 0.099 0.095 104.67 15.9
Left Field 4486 327 331.6 0.073 0.074 98.61 -3.8
Centerfield 4486 468 445.78 0.104 0.099 104.98 23.0
Right Field 4486 318 319.88 0.071 0.071 99.41 -1.6

Continue reading The Tigers Defense – What are the Odds? →

Links

links for 2007-11-24

6 Comments