The Tigers released some updated ticketing numbers today. As of the start of business today, the Tigers have sold 17,830 full season equivalent season tickets. That’s up from 9500 last year. Plus, in the first weekend of individual game sales they sold 86,606 tickets. That pushes the paid attendance to 1,530,836. As a point of reference that surpasses the 1.37 million they drew in all of 2003 and the 1.50 million they drew in 2002.
Winning does wonders.
What with the game on TV and everything today, I thought a game thread would be in order. Those lucky (or perhaps unlucky given the current economic condidtions) enough to be not working this afternoon can catch the game on ESPN at 1:15. I’ll be at work and looking forward to catching the DVR version when I get home.
The Tigers send out the “power arms” of Justin Verlander, Andrew Miller, Joel Zumaya, and Fernando Rodney.
POSTGAME: There was some stuff to like, and some stuff to not like today. The final outcome doesn’t really fall into either of those categories. The Tigers did draw a number of walks, including 2 with the bases loaded. Granted that was a product of Yankee wildness, but the Tigers did a good job laying off. They also had a number of hard hit balls, but most were foul.
The bad stuff was 3 strikeouts in the first inning with the bases loaded. Considering that was a point of emphasis this spring, it was disappointing to see.
Plus there were a few scares today. Brent Clevlen got beaned by a Yankee pitcher and Carlos Guillen was nearly beaned by Sean Casey.
The relevant pitchers all looked pretty good with the exception of one bad inning from Justin Verlander
Regardless of the outcome it was great to be watching Tiger baseball again.
The biggest story out of the Tigers camp right now is a possible contract extension for Carlos Guillen. Michael Young’s 5 year $80 million deal certainly helped to stir the pot. I think that gambling on Guillen is something the Tigers need to do.
Drew Sharp says to let Guillen walk if he wants Michael Young money and years. That’s great, but who do you want playing shortstop then? Before spending really boomed, Orlando Cabrera was inked to a 4 year $32 million deal to play shortstop at the age of 30. The same Orlando Cabrera who has Deivi Cruz and Neifi Perez listed as comparables. This past offseason 30 year old Julio Lugo signed a deal that will pay him $9 million per for 4 years. Granted those deals are substantially less than Young’s contract, but it is still far from cheap.
Continue reading The Guillen Gamble
Forbes has ranked all the general managers with at least 3 years experience from the 4 major sports (MLB, NFL, NHL, NBA). Detroit Tigers GM Dave Dombrowski came just about in the middle at 48th. In terms of baseball GMs though he did pretty well.
The highest rated baseball GM was Billy Beane at 26. Dombrowski ranked 9th among MLB general managers behind Beane, Minaya, Epstein, Sabean(?), Gillick, Schuerholz, Beinfest, and Jocketty.
If you’re wondering about the other Detroit general managers, only Joe Dumars garnered a favorable rank (9th). Red Wings GM Ken Holland came in 90th. Amazingly Matt Millen didn’t come in last (which is just one more reason to question the validity of the rankings), placing 96th out of 98 general managers.
Methodology
Hat Tip Baseball Think Factory
So, how have everyone’s ticket-getting experiences been today? I got into the “virtual waiting room” and was in there for 40 minutes before my browser crashed. Did anybody else have better luck?
Meanwhile, the cheapest Opening Day tickets on StubHub are up to $138.
3:45PM UPDATE: Things seem to be running along smoother now. The Tigers just issued a release saying that as of 2:15pm both the Saturday, June 9 game against the New York Mets and the Saturday, August 25 game against the New York Yankees were already selling standing room only tickets. At that point nearly 61,000 tickets had been sold today. Combined with the 16,500 full season equivalents that puts 2007’s paid attendance already at nearly 1.4 million. In 2006, individual game sales for the entire first day, which included Opening Day, totaled only 29,000.
Just cleaning out some leftover data from the pitch-by-pitch analysis from the last couple weeks. These are a couple things I calculated along the way, that never made it into a post. These data are from 2006.
While delving into Curtis Granderson’s strikeouts, I calculated many of the same stats for the rest of the team. Here they are:
Continue reading Statistical Leftovers
The Detroit Tigers today announced the club has agreed to terms with righthanded pitchers Chad Durbin, Zach Miner, Jordan Tata and Joel Zumaya, lefthanded pitcher Wilfredo Ledezma, infielders Tony Giarratano and Chris Shelton and outfielders Brent Clevlen and Marcus Thames. Plus they renewed Jason Grilli’s contract for 2007. This means that everyone on the 40 man roster has a contract for 2007.
For, lo, the winter is past,
The rain is over and gone;
The flowers appear on the earth;
The time of the singing of birds is come,
And the voice of the turtle is heard in our land. – Song of Solomon 2:11-12
Play Ball!
It seemed only appropriate to channel Ernie Harwell with the first radio broadcast of the year today.
I won’t be doing game threads for all of spring training, but I wanted a reason to post the voice of the turtle.
Game time 1:05pm.
So while yesterday was the exhibition to the exhibition season, this one was against the New York Mets, a bona fide big league club. And the Tigers won. Mack Avenue Tigers has the wrap-up so I won’t duplicate it here. I will just point out good games for Marcus Thames, Curtis Granderson, and Andrew Miller and a pretty rough game for Neifi Perez.
Because of research and video blogs and interviews, I’m a full week behind on links and such so I’ll try to catch-up.
When the big club is away, the kids will play. Roger DeWitt caught some of the action so if you want to see the possible Tigers of the distant future, you can see Dallas Trahern, Jeff Larish, and Audy Ciriaco (who I’m hoping has a big year) sporting Tigers road garb.
Continue reading This time it counts…a tiny bit
Opening Day tickets won’t be going on sale on March 3rd like the rest of individual game tickets. With a Comerica Park record 16,500 full season equivalent ticket packages sold, it means there aren’t a whole lot of Opening Day tickets left for the general public. Instead the club will hold a drawing.
The Opening Day registration period begins at 9 a.m. (ET) on Friday, March 2 on the team’s website, www.tigers.com. The registration period ends at 11:59 p.m. on Sunday, March 11. The random drawing will take place early in the week of March 12 with winners being notified by e-mail no later than Friday, March 16. Winners will be eligible to purchase two tickets for Opening Day.
There is no charge to register for this opportunity and no obligation to buy a ticket. There is no assurance that any particular registrant will be selected. Winners may not transfer this purchase opportunity.
Fans who do not have Internet access can still register for the random online ticket drawing by calling (313) 471-BALL (2255) and working with a sales representative from the Tigers to complete the form. Winners who registered on the phone would be contacted by a member of the Tigers sales staff after the drawing.
If you miss out on Opening Day you can always try for the second game, April 4th when the team will pass out American League Championship rings.
And if you’re wondering, the price for Opening Day tickets on StubHub is up to $99 $120.
Curtis Granderson is all over the new social web. He’ll be the second Tiger, joining Nate Robertson, to blog for MLBlogs. You can also find him on MySpace (hat tip Motown Sports and The Dugout).
I know it was an only an exhibition before exhibition season, but it still resulted in a game, with 9 innings, and live pitching – and a boxscore. That’s right, fresh stats are fresh stats, even if they are irrelevant.
But let’s work our way through it anyways.
What’s not to like about Granderson leading off with a home run? Or how about Marcus Thames playing first base and knocking 3 doubles. Cameron Maybin with 2 hits of his own. Ryan Raburn going yard. A shut out by the pitching staff is always nice. And an error free day by a number of defensive subs. Neifi even had a big hit. The only downside is that the Tigers didn’t pick up a walk – I kid of course.
Now I’m not making too much out of this. I’m actually not making anything out of this. A two touchdown win doesn’t mean anymore than the 1 run win last year. I’m just taking enjoyment from the fact that we are one step closer to the beginning of the season.