The oblique problem isn’t going away for Brandon Inge and he is now on the DL. Dane Sardhina’s contract was purchased from Toledo and he’ll back-up Pudge Rodriguez. I’d guess that Sardhina wouldn’t be put into the rotating catcher situation that Inge was in.
This will certainly limit some of Jim Leyland’s flexibility when it comes to late inning defensive replacements.
Sardhina is a career 222/263/337 hitter in the minors so this isn’t the ideal situation by any means. In retrospect putting Inge on the DL a week or so ago when the team had 2 off days would have been a better move. The Tigers don’t have an off day now until July 7th and there are 5 of those day-game-after-a-night-game situations between now and then. So Sardhina will get a handful of starts.
On a side note, my buddy Russ wondered that since Inge strained the oblique on a check swing, if it was a repetitive stress injury – kinda like carpal tunnel syndrome.
I watched Sardhina quite a bit in spring training. He caught as many innings as Pudge it seemed ..can’t hit a lick but is a good defensive catcher with a decent arm…..should be a pretty solid replacement
Those five errors in his stat line this year don’t inspire much confidence
Leyland mentioned earlier that he was even toying with the idea of trying Raburn back there.
Our depth at this position was extremely thin coming into this season and now it looks like it might turn into a real liability.
What are we going to do next year?
I just checked out Kyle Pearson, the guy the Tigers got from Pitt for Bautista….. He’s on the DL.
What are the rules for putting somebody on the DL retroactively? I know the player can’t have played any games since the retroactive date, but it might make Inge available sooner (from this point) than 15 games.
Although I guess it doesn’t matter if he won’t be healthy enough to play by then anyway.
I hope Inge gets well soon. That’s the 12 Tiger to hit the DL this season. That’s half of our roster. I don’t think any other team could of survived this many injuries as well as the Tigers have.
I’m sure they’ll make it retroactive to June 22, which is the last time he played so that will get him back sooner, if he’s ready of course. Those oblique thingys can be tricky.
The Cardinals have been decimated too, Chief. And they have been playing unbelievable all year they are 12 games over. Red Sox have been hit pretty hard lately as well.
Cleveland’s been massacred too. Losing 2 of their top 3 starting pitchers (Carmona, Westbrook) as well as their #3 and 4 hitters in the lineup (Martinez, Travis Hafner’s corpse). That smarts.
So, I’m looking at Pearson’s stats in the minors… he looks terrible. What’s good about this guy that he was worth a decent reliever?
Joel:
As ar as Bautista goes, since they DFA’d him all they could hope for was getting some no-name minor leaguer (Pearson) in a trade, or 50K if he was picked up on waivers. I think they scewed up by DFAing him and bringing in Possum to take his place, but who knows, maybe thre were other considerations that we don’t know about.
As for Inge, I don’t know that we lose that much flexibility, especially if he is supposed to be catching every other day. As for the hitting, since he is knocking the ball at a .215 clip, I don’t think we will see that much of a drop in production either. It would be better to have him available, but it isn’t the end of the world either. Hopefully he will miss only 10 games or so.
Both of the above cases are examples of what to me seem to be some very strange roster management decisions this year.
Thanks for the explanation, Vince, I didn’t realize he’d been DFA’d.
As the Chief Engineer Of The Anti-Inge Express I would point out that not only is Inge hitting .215 for the year and striking out at a .315 clip, since June 11 he is 2-14 with 9k’s. That is simply awful hitting. Putrid.
It’s only a guess, but Dane will have a hard time doing worse than that.
Pudge has played 6 of the last 8 games and Leyland likes to give called up players time in the field. We are going to see more Dane than many would probably like. I am not saying he is an ideal replacement, but if he hits above .142 he will be hitting better than Brandon has over the last 3 weeks.
He’s also not making outs at a .311 clip. While that’s not exactly setting the world on fire, he’s also posting a .286/.421/.500 line with RISP so that’s OK. And if you’re interested in a larger sample, he banged out a .296/.370/.416 line with RISP in ’07. The key, obviously, is to avoid sending him to the plate with no one on base.
“Not making outs at a .311 clip” is good for 13th place on the Tigers. He lags behind several “reserve” players in that regard.
Moreover, in the American League Brandon’s OBP of .311 ranks 103rd (!!!) among batters with at least 140 ab’s. And that is only in the American League. (!!!) I can’t even imagine where his .311 would rank in all of MLB, probably something like 206th?… Yeah, I’d agree with you that is “not setting the world on fire”.
Thanks for pointing out his OBP… For the season Inge’s strikeout average is higher than his OBP. Simply jaw dropping.
Spare me the sample size argument. Inge is a .239 career hitter with more whiff’s than hits. Inge has a CAREER OBP of .304!!! I tried to ask NASA to calculate how far down the MLB career list that is, and they said trying to calculate that figure would freeze all shuttle launches for a decade. There is sample size for you.
His recent trend (let me repeat that for you: 2-14 w/ 9k’s) indicates he is struggling. In this case part of it is due to his being injured, though he began to tank prior to his bedtime back injury. Players do go through hot and cold stretches. Recently Inge has been going through a cold stretch in the midst of an already very cold season.
If one is to believe your posit that the “key” to Inge hitting effectively is to bat him when runners are in scoring position and avoid having him hit when there are no other runners on, then the most effective way to do so in my way of thinking would be to pinch hit him when there are runners in scoring position. So, are we to pinch hit Inge for Renteria, Sheffield, Thames, Guillen, Pudge, Ordonez, Cabrerra, Granderson, or Polanco when they are due to bat with RISP? Boy, that looks silly to me. So while Inge’s RISP stats cherry picked over a year and a half are the only thing approaching meodicre you have to use to defend him, there is no way to apply it in the real world.
Look, I admit I am anti-Inge. Apparently you really like the guy. Great. You are better off saying he “isn’t setting the world on fire” and stating you hope he can improve because anything else is defending the indefensible. Inge’s recent body of work is appalling. His career body of work is just about as bad. Short run and large sample size Inge’s numbers are mind boggling.
Well, I’m not blind to the fact that Inge isn’t exactly A-Rod. Heck, he’s not exactly Pedro Feliz. The only problem I have with the anti-Inge crowd is the perception that he brings nothing to the table. He plays All-Star caliber defense and can play multiple positions well. As a bench player (which is what he should be), that absolutely adds value to any team. While he’s not a gifted hitter, he’s had some decent power numbers (see 2006) and if you remove his putrid first couple seasons as a catcher he’s more like a .250/.330/.420 type hitter – almost exactly average. And even this year he’s got a better slugging percentage than Franchise Saviors Sheffield, Rodriguez and Renteria. So you can feel free to dump on him for the K’s and low batting average, but as a guy coming off of the bench you could do worse.
Agreed on his value as a bench player, by and large. Mostly because he can play three positions well. However, even that value in my opinion is questionable given is .215 average and .315 strikeout average.
I’ll agree to disagree his relative value against Sheffield (I’m no fan of his), Pudge, and Renteria. His slugging might be higher now, but on the whole all of them are having better seasons than Brandon.
I’d prefer to use this year and last year’s stats as oppossed to using two years of stats from several seasons ago when he managed to look decent. Most recent is most relative. If you want to throw out his early years, then fine. But then don’t write out the schlock he is puting forth this year. I find none of the numbers you quote as being average for an every day major league thirdbaseman, which is what Inge thinks he is.
His 27 home run campaign was a complete anamoly. He has not come close to it before or since. Going further, I have made the case, with Bilfer vehemently opposing, that Inge’s 27 home runs that year were very misleading. I can get back into that, but over time Inge’s lack of homeruns during the balance of his career are proving my point to be correct.
Yes we could do worse in terms of a guy coming off the bench. But for a player being paid $6 million a year one has to question the wisdom of having such marginal bench player at that price. Inge is best suited for a reserve role, and none of his stats equals an everyday thirdbaseman. Given his hitting this season he is hardly an everyday catcher.
In any event, the Tigers have MASSIVE catching issues on hand and in the very near future.
My position on Inge isn’t anti or pro. The Tigers would have a better record today, I feel, if they would have traded him for something/anything in the split-seconds after the Cabrera deal and made other moves to more intelligently fill the voids it created, but that’s water near a bridge. Especially in this day of age.
Where was I? Oh. Limitng the discussion to 2008 results and only 2008 results, Inge has brought something to the table and has been of value to the team. His recent slump pales to the point of being bleached to bone-white by comparison with the losing streak slumps of Renteria, Cabrera, Rodriguez, and Polanco, which were simply off the charts for inexcusably miserable production and cost the team plenty more than all of Inge’s Ks combined. He’s also one of 2-3 guys on the team that might properly be called “infielders.” There’s no excuse for his faults, but give credit where credit is due. He performed well when many others weren’t doing so, and the way things have worked out, he’s come in very handy.
“Leyland likes to give called up players time in the field.”
Everyone but Larish. Still wondering about that.
ez: Wow I’m late in responding to your last post on the topic. I was kinda waiting for you to bring up his salary. It’s almost like people blame him for that deal. If you want to blame anyone for that, blame the guy who signed him. And it’s not like he’s making $13 million like some underachievers are in ’08 (looking at you, “Pudge”). And I don’t really think the team will have MAJOR catching issues going forward. If you are going to carry a weak bat anywhere in the lineup, catcher is the place to do it. And I think he’s just fine defensively behind the dish. Anyway, enough of this topic. I say we all enjoy another win.