Monthly Archives: January 2009

2008 Season, Managing & Strategy, Pitching

Oh those intentional base on balls

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The Tigers struggled with walks in 2008. This is well documented and fairly obvious with the Tigers issuing more walks than every team other than Texas. It resulted in Chuck Hernandez losing his job and the Tigers bringing in a coach who built his reputation on pounding the strike zone. But a significant chunk of those walks came at the hands of Jim Leyland.

The Tigers led the American League in intentional walks with 63. The next closest team had 45 which means Detroit issued 42% more walks than the next most free pass happy team. It also means that instead of ranking 13th in the AL in walks, they rank 11th in unintentional walks. Still poor, but not as ridiculously awful.
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Links

links for 2009-01-29

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2009 Season

Tigers on National TV

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Awful Announcing has the preliminary schedules for both Fox Sports and ESPN. In the case of ESPN the schedule is only through July. It looks like the Tigers will be shut out of privilege of Joe Morgan calling their games – at least early in the season. But they are slated to be on Fox Saturday baseball six times.

The Fox dates are:

  • May 2nd against Cleveland
  • June 20th against Milwaukee
  • July 4th at Minnesota
  • July 25th against Chicago
  • August 29th against Tampa Bay
  • September 19th at Minnesota

Considering the Tigers struggles on Sunday Night Baseball (and Joe Morgan), being kept off the ESPN probably isn’t so bad. Unfortunately for those out of the greater Michigan viewing area though, it probably means you’ll miss those Saturday games though because they will likely be the B or C games on Fox.

Awful Announcing: A Look At FOX And ESPN’s Early Baseball Schedule For 2009

2009 Season, Defense

Henning on the Tigers left side defense

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Lynn Henning writes today about the Tigers infield defensive improvements (emphasis mine):

Those plus-minus ratings are part of compelling research done by scouts and video analysts for John Dewan, president of Baseball Info Solutions, and author of The Fielding Bible, a data-rich evaluation of major league defense that is carried by such Web sites as billjamesonline.net.

Dewan’s research joins with such indicators as Major League Baseball’s “Range Factor” index to help determine a fielder’s true effectiveness. The statistics are broader and deeper than the somewhat deceiving statistic known as fielding percentage, which states only how many balls a player reaches that are successfully turned into putouts.

Thank you Henning. While readers here know that fielding percentage is one of the most useless defensive stats, the greater baseball reading population doesn’t. That’s in large part due to the fact it is so commonly cited in articles like this.

And I don’t bring this up as a knock on mainstream writers because I know with limited inches there is only so much they can do introducing a new stat and explaining it. I’m sincerely appreciative of the fact that Henning took the time for the brief explanation of +/- and used it in favor of FP.

(Now if only he’d gone with zone rating instead of range factor.)

2009 Season, Contracts

The Newest Tiger is Brandon Lyon

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The Tigers will formally announce the signing of Brandon Lyon on Saturday. Terms are not immediately available but it is likely a one or two year contract. Lyon isn’t necessarily being handed the closers position, but he will definitely have a shot to claim it.

UPDATE 2:49 The deal is one year and $4.25 million with another half million in incentives. Eddie Bonine was DFA’d to make room on the 40 man roster

Lyon served as the Diamondbacks closer for the first half of 2008 before losing the job. The ERA and WHIP weren’t impressive last year, but there are a couple of quirks at play. First was a very high .355 BABIP. The second, and likely the reason for the first, is he was tremendously unlucky on ground balls. Last year 13.4% of the ground balls he allowed resulted in infield hits. To provide some context, Ichiro Suzuki has a career 12.2% mark. Suffice it to say that it was abnormally high and likely to correct itself.

The high BABIP resulted in an ERA a nearly a run higher than his FIP.

Detroit Tiger Tales also points out his clean outing rate. Even in 2008, it was higher than every current Tiger reliever other than Clay Rapada and it compares favorably to Trevor Hoffman, Takashi Saito, and Juan Cruz.

I don’t know that Brandon Lyon is the savior at closer, but the signing demonstrably improves the bullpen provided his second half struggles in 2008 were not the result of some sort of injury that could carry over to 2009.

2009 Season, DTW-TV

Detroit Tigers Weblog Live – 1.22.09

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It’s the return of DTW live. Tune in at 9:30 ET tonight and will talk Tigers as they embark on their caravan. Topics include: well the bullpen of course, Verlander’s extension, the demise of WDFN and whatever else comes up. Hope to see you back here at 9:30.

We ended up covering quite a bit in this extended (44 minutes) edition. Once we get back to a regular posting schedule I’d like to keep these a little shorter.

Links from today’s show:

2009 Season, Pitching

Knapp talks Tigers pitching

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Lynn Henning caught up with pitching coach Rick Knapp. Knapp broke down the various members of his staff and it makes for a very interesting read.

He talks about Justin Verlander’s arm slot and balance point (Verlander’s arm angle was a rich topic last year). With Nate Robertson it is falling off to the third base side and getting too “horizontal” which flattens the slider. Jermey Bonderman is built like an ox. Dontrelle Willis is in phenomenal shape. Fernando Rodney needs to keep his emotions in check.

I don’t have the first clue if he’s right with any of these assessments. But what I do like is that he seems to be looking at a myriad of issues. He isn’t forcing everyone into a set way to do things. I’m anxious and optimistic to see what he can do with the staff.

Tigers’ Knapp shows knack with Verlander tip | detnews.com | The Detroit News

2009 Season, Contracts

Tigers get 4 under contract

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The Tigers inked 4 of the 5 arbitration eligible players today. Gerald Laird ($2.8), Edwin Jackson ($2.2), Bobby Seay ($1.1) and Joel Zumaya ($733,000) are all in the fold. Missing from that list is Justin Verlander.

Verlander is the only one of the group likely to be in the mix for a long term deal. It’s also something he may not be eager to sign in the worst offseason for contracts in recent memory, and coming off a season when his numbers were down.

Verlander and the Tigers exchanged numbers and Detroit is offering $3.2 while Verlander is asking for $4.15. It’s a very manageable difference and I’ll guess they settle somewhere around $3.8.

I have updated the salary chart and the team looks to be at about $117 million at the moment.

Tigers ink four, ponder Verlander terms | tigers.com: News

2009 Season, Free Agents

Tigers sign Rincon

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The Tiger announced the signing of Juan Rincon to a minor league deal today. Rincon will get an invite to spring training and will be given a chance to make the Tigers bullpen.

This looks to be a decent signing. Rincon was a stud in 2004 through 2006. But he was busted for steroid use. In 2007 and 2008 he saw his home run rate balloon. In 04 throuh 06 he allowed 9 homers total. He allowed 9 in 2007 and 8 in 2008.

Still, it’s a low risk move and the type of signing I’d hope the team would make several of as they try and build their pen on the cheap.

Juan Rincon » Statistics » Pitching | FanGraphs Baseball

Links

links for 2009-01-20

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Fan Experience

Granderson’s Celebrity Shoot Out – 2009

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Braylon Edwards, Drew Henson, David Terrell & Kirsten Haglund
It looked to be another successful event for Curtis Granderson and his Grand Kids Foundation. Depite some awful weather, there was still an impressive turnout of both fans and celebrities at Lake Orion High School.

Granderson assembled and impressive roster of celebs and athletes with Michigan ties. The biggest in name value was probably Kid Rock, who did his best Rumeal Robinson impression as he knocked down two free throws with no time remaining to tie the game. It was also his birthday and the crowd sang Happy Birthday.

Curtis served as referee and made sure everyone scored. Miss America Kirsten Haglund and Project Runway dude Joe Faris (who played basketball like you’d expect from someone on Project Runway) were allowed to shoot free throws until they made it. Dana Jacobson knocked down a shot on her own (yes I phrased it that way on purpose).

Lloyd Carr appeared to be really enjoying his time as a coach standing up and yelling directions. He was joined on the Blue sidelines by Marcus Thames who was also smiling (but he just signed a new contract so that might have been it). Braylon Edwards once again put on a show, throwing down some big dunks before losing to Jamal Springs Nelson in a overtime dunk-off.

I’m not sure what the attendance figure was, but it appears that the weekend was successful enough to set up a college scholarship in addition to supporting the work already being done in the inner city schools. If you’d like to donate, or for more on the Grand Kids Foundation, you can check out the website.