– We’re 1/4 of the way through the season. Let’s hope that was our worst quarter.
– Miguel Cabrera is 4th on the team in OPS at .850, just behind Fielder at .851. Austin Jackson leads the team at .958, slightly ahead of…Andy Dirks at .954. The rest of the Tigers are comfortably below what would be considered average for a Major Leaguer.
– Warning – Jackson is at a .388 on balls in play. That should regress to around .350 (he’s higher than league average b/c of his speed), though it never dropped in 2010.
– A lot of people thought that JV would take a slight step back after his sterling MVP/Cy Young season last year. He’s actually posting a higher K rate, a lower WHIP, a lower ERA, a lower walk rate, and a lower HR rate than 2011.
– Even though Yu Darvish is 6-1 with a 2.60 ERA, 1.32 WHIP and 2.23 K/BB, I think that Drew Smyly has out pitched him – 2.89 ERA, 1.19 WHIP, 3.38 K/BB.
– FanGraphs finished up their radio broadcaster rankings. The vast majority of the baseball that I follow is over the airwaves, so these were incredibly entertaining to me. Dickerson and Price came in at a respectable 13th, though I think that they could have been a little higher. Respondents seem to love Dickerson, but to be lukewarm towards Price. Correctly so, the Yankees and White Sox came in last and 2nd to last, respectively. The voter comments are hilarious, I definitely recommend reading all of the articles.
Dickerson has certainly grown on me over the years, but Price has not. He has a habit of talking over Dickerson and generally has nothing interesting to add to the broadcasts. Someone needs to tell Price to wait his turn and let Dickerson do 80% of the talking.
I am not in agreement with your opinion of Jim Price.
Many years ago, Price would labor-on about his personal life, playing days or talk former Tigers constantly. He has since subsided considerably on those fronts.
Up until a few years ago, Jim Price would do the play-by-play of a few innings of the game. That stopped abruptly and rightfully-so.
A color analyst’s job is to follow-up on the play-by-play comments of Dickerson – even requiring a change of topic direction sometimes.
I am in agreement (somewhat) with Kevin. Both Dan and Jim should have been rated higher….. perhaps #7 (in my opinion).
We are blessed to have such a good TV broadcasting pair. The best-ever in Detroit were Ernie Harwell and George Kell. The 2nd best pair was obviously Ernie and Paul – who tag-teamed for many-many years.
Worst-ever were Rizz and Rathbun
One of the key characteristics that I value broadcasters on is their fan interaction (or maybe better put “love of the fan”). While very different from each other, Harry Caray and Ernie Harwell had great fan interaction. I still remember having a wonderful converation with Ernie before Ranger v. Tiger games. He was truly interested in you as a fan and asked you questions on what you liked or didn’t like about the Tigers. Like Ernie, Jim Price has this similar trait. I recall him talking to fans from the Tiger Stadium broadcast booth long after they signed off. Jim is Jim and I appreciate that! He brings lots of enthusiam to the booth that parallels the enthusiam of devoted fans.
Okay, I’ll grant you it’s my opinion that Price has nothing interesting to add. However, it’s not my opinion that he talks over Dickerson all the time. That’s a fact. I might appreciate what he has to say more if he said it at the right time.
The Hen-o-meter remains high with Mud Hen Justin Henry batting 0.333 for the season and 0.392 for May. He is also second in hitting in the entire Tiger farm team system. And, did I mention he plays a mean second base? See: http://www.milb.com/milb/stats/stats.jsp?pos=&sid=milb&t=p_pbp&pid=518784
That has to be an error. Rick Porcello has been terrible this year. They should have traded him, when people thought he was good.