2013 Season, Former Tigers, Links

Happy New Year!

66 Comments

Hello Friends – I hope that everyone had a happy and healthy holiday season.

I’ve got a few stories of interest that I plan to post below, but first, I’d like to ask if anyone out there would like to help with the game posts this year. We could use one, maybe two more. Assuming we get the help, that will allow us to put up more than just game posts during the season. If you’re interested – just note it in a comment and I’ll email you off-line.

Secondly, I’d like to raise some money to re-vamp the site. DTW is awesome already, mostly due to the in-depth discussions (seriously, you ever see the comments elsewhere?), but there’s no doubt that a redesign taking advantage of some of the latest technology could improve things a bit. I need to get with billfer on this, so no timetable yet, but hopefully soon. In the meantime, know that an ask is coming. If any of you are developers/designers (it’s a WordPress site), let me know.

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On to our Tigers.

P&Cs hasn’t yet been released, but spring training opens up against the Braves on February 22nd… In the meantime, check out Dan Dickerson’s weekly 1 hour radio show to suppress your excitement for another 7 weeks.

Alan Trammell was my favorite Tiger growing up, and remains in my short list of favorite athletes of all time. I think this is probably the case for many Generation X Tiger fans. I used to get worked up about his HoF credentials, but those had largely subsided, until Matt Snyder of CBS Sports reignited the flame. His article names Trammell and Whitaker as the greatest double play combo of all time (using combined baseball-reference WAR), and it’s not even close; and then points out that they are the only non-active duo on his list where at least one of the tandem is not in the Hall of Fame.

I’m excited about Bruce Rondon, but you know, Brian Wilson is out there. Yeah, Tommy John recovery and all, but for the right price? What do you think? I’m on the fence. I can think of worse ways to spend money, and his gimp prank is legendary, but I think we can go to Dotel or Benoit if Rondon doesn’t work out.

Good luck Bondo. I’m sure you’ll strike out Avisail Garcia with a lefty on the bench in mid-June to clinch a W for the Ms.

Delmon Young = Jeff Francouer?

FanGraphs posted their top 15 organizational prospects last week.

 

66 thoughts on “Happy New Year!”

  1. Kudos to you guys for working on some ideas to evolve the site. I think there’s a lot of potential to keep improving and building it into something much bigger. Now is a good time to try and invigorate a blog or message board while so many other boards out there aren’t very good or have much to offer.

    I feel optimistic that Trammell makes the HOF. I think a lot of people realize he’s an iconic Tiger and some might want to make up for Whitaker not making it. I don’t really care much about it though since the HOF is an inconsistent popularity contest and they don’t do a good job of selection of the best players or most valuable players. The more people that get into the HOF that don’t deserve it, the more it takes away from the credibility and the prestige, and at this point it’s too much of a joke to take seriously.

    I think eventually Whitaker will get in one day too although it could take a while, but he’s eligible again in 2015 next. Bill James has Whitaker as the 13th best 2B of all-time:
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lou_Whitaker#Hall_of_Fame_eligibility

    I don’t think Brian Wilson offers much value while we have many other pressing needs, so I’m fine with throwing Rondon in there for now and would rather stay away from more overpriced pitchers until we can get our offensive problems under control. I think we are still 4 good batters away from where we should be, so until we get those bats I’m not going to get excited about any more pitchers. Thanks for the link to the gimp prank, haven’t seen that one before!

    Also don’t really think Fangraphs spent much time on this ranking list. I think we have a really weak Top 15 at this point compared with what we should have by now, but they aren’t even getting our most valuable or best potential prospects ranked very well. I’ll keep an eye out if I see more lists in the future that are interesting or useful, but I don’t think this effort from them is very good. Kobernus being in the list is highly annoying. We had to trade for him and now he’s our #8 guy, yet he wasn’t valuable enough for Washington to bother protecting. Just another scary perspective to think about when looking at how weak our farm system is after a decade of neglect and destruction.

  2. Hello All – I saw an article in this morning’s Dallas paper on Michael Bourn, and one of the charts showed that Detroit was a bottom five -23 for Total Zone Fielding Runs Above Average according to BR. AJax was a -14. How can this be? Bad luck? A poor arm? Hopefully Lee will read this and explain it to me.

    1. -14 seems ridiculous to me. Although, I will say that this year Jackson did seem to misplay some flyballs. I thought that this was his weakest year defensively. I doubt it is a trend that continues, though.

  3. That’s a really good question. AJax performed well in this category last year. The answer lies more in the fielding portion as opposed to the arm. There aren’t a ton of opportunities to score with the arm and the -14 is too low that it is coming from the fielding portions of the equation. Comerica Park has the largest Centerfield in baseball, and AJax has a lot of play opportunities he participated in that were associated with runs. This statistic affects a player when a ball is hit to his zone, so presumably the CF of Comerica Park is going to get high accounting totals that put him at a disadvantage to perform well in this category.

    The fact that AJax had a great number last year and a poor number this year is the peculiar thing and my best guess for that is it’s just bad luck. Maybe last year was a freak year where fewer balls entered his zone and this year was a freak high year of those occurrences. If you consider every other CF out there, then maybe across the board the numbers just left AJax to be an extreme outlier last year by severe random luck. So I’m willing to bet the rest of his career he would continue to mimic more of the negative numbers and he may never be lucky enough again to get a favorably low distribution of scoring plays in his zone like he did last season.

    Plus if our LF/RF were especially weak this year, then they could have failed in such a way that had more runs charged to AJax’s zone. So really a combination of 3 things I see here, a tough gig in CF at Comerica, weak defensive teammates, and statistical random luck creating the occasional outlier (AJax’s freak good year last year).

    1. I don’t think he had a “great year” last year, but he was definitely in the positive. Maybe we’re overrating him.

      But I agree with you on the corner positions and luck. I’m pretty sure that when Lee sees this he’ll be able to clear it up for us.

      1. Well he was ranked as the AL’s 4th CF in Total Zone last year, at least by one TZ version, there is more than one system used. And yeah I’m sure Lee will pick up on anything else relevant that we might not have considered.

      2. I believe that Lee (of Detroit Tiger Tales, for those unaware) covered 2012 MLB CFs in a post on defensive metrics within the past month (part of a series that covered all positions). I just tried going to the blog to locate the article and post a link to it here, but something funky appears to be going on with the site at the moment.

        Something I’m learning about defensive metrics is to not put all your trust in one source. Defensive metrics are as slippery as public opinion polls.

        2. Well there’s nothing wrong about the stats of AJax’s Total Zone. It’s not about putting trust in a source so much as understanding the relevance of the data, and understanding the story that the data is trying to tell. More importantly it’s about determining how to put ALL of the stats together to figure out what a player is worth, and that’s the particular area where most GMs tend to fail, especially ours.

  5. Kevin – I would be willing to write game posts when called upon. Let me know what’s involved beyond the obvious (and easy) research and writing.

    1. I’d rather it be for Starlin Castro, but we’d have to have an outlet to move Peralta to make it work. Hardy does not interest me, so I’d rather figure out what team wants Hardy the most and get them in the deal too if we were forced to deal with Hardy.

    2. Hardy would be a defensive upgrade, but an offensive downgrade over Peralta, even at JP’s poor ’12 season. I’m not convinced it is worth it given that the probability of an offensive bounceback from Peralta is greater than from Hardy. I’d say no just based on the fact that the bottom our order is still potentially a weak spot (will the real Alex Avila please stand up) and the LF platoon issue hasn’t been resolved.

      Also, Porcello and Boesch need to be traded. Maybe a three-way deal gets some of this solved, but if Hardy is leading man in this performance, I’m not buying a ticket.

      1. I think it’s been about 15 years since I have paid for a Tigers ticket. I have gone to countless games because my father often gets season ticket packages with his buddies and likes me to go with him so I do it for him, but I wouldn’t spend a dollar on a ticket not because I’m broke but I’m very principled in that I won’t give a sports team a dollar for a ticket unless they run the team beyond my minimum competency expectations, and the Tigers just can’t seem to get over that hump.

        I agree with your basic assessment of Hardy, although he does have some possible offensive upside. He had a tolerable season with the bat in maybe 2 of his 8 years, so he could possibly break through and be a late developer. He’s 30 now, if he was a couple years younger it would be more encouraging, but his prospects of being a good hitter are quickly dying.

        Here’s my offer to Baltimore. Peralta for Hardy and I’ll throw in some junk prospects, here’s a list of bums you can pick a couple. No? Fine, then don’t waste my time about Hardy, cause there are at least 20 guys that are regulars in MLB or prospects that rank on my priority list ahead of him. If we had enough offense on this team then maybe I’d value the defense more, but we have bigger fish to fry right now and Hardy over Peralta isn’t the type of big splash that we should be looking to make.

        1. “Peralta for Hardy and I’ll throw in some junk prospects…”

          I wouldn’t go that far. Maybe if BAL was the one to throw in one or two bum prospects provided they could potentially be usefully included in any deal which secured a decent return in a Porcello and/or Boesch trade.

          Basically I don’t see Hardy as making the Tigers a better team over all, so why bother? I guess it doesn’t hurt to go window shopping on the chance there will be a great deal you can’t say no to, but as you said, there are bigger fish to fry.

          1. Yeah that’s why I think the conversation with Baltimore needs to revolve around let’s identify the 1 team in MLB that covets Hardy the most, and that makes some kind of trade possible. The problem is I suspect it may be possible that BAL and the Tigers (DD) might be the top 2 teams in baseball that think he’s worth the most. So that doesn’t do us any good from my POV, but from DD’s POV he might be chomping at the bit to do a trade like this.

            1. J.J. Hardy is a better SS overall than Jhonny Peralta. More than slightly.

              I’m not sure what the Cubs bring to the table in the rumored trade, but the deal I’d make with the Orioles would be Porcello, Peralta, and Boesch for J.J Hardy, Jake Arrieta, and Nolan Reimold.

              Not that I’m anxious to trade Porcello, but I remain anxious to trade Peralta.

              1. Well the Cubs have been rumored for a long time now to want to trade Alfonso Soriano. So they are probably hoping DET will want Soriano to solve our OF need. Plus they need another pitcher so they want Porcello. The Orioles and Cubs would be negotiating over who gets Porcello and the team that doesn’t will take something else.

                That would all fit for your trade of giving up Porcello/Peralta/Boesch. Then the question becomes which team gets Porcello, and how much money will the Cubs throw in on Soriano’s contract. Plus the Tigers already have a cramped 25 man roster list, so I wouldn’t be surprised to see them trade 3 candidates for roster spots for 2 guys since they are going to want to make room for Pena, Kobernus, and Lobstein that we picked up this offseason.

              2. A defensive upgrade at shortstop would be nice, but not at the expense of trading Porcello. I’m sure Rick doesn’t want to go to the bullpen, and perhaps his agent is telling the Tigers as much behind the scenes. I don’t care. The fact is is that both Scherzer and Fister have had injury problems. If one of them goes down, Porcello would be right there to plug in. Unless Casey Crosby really puts it together this year, what other options would the Tigers have that wouldn’t be a disaster? Porcello is still young and has the potential to be vey good. Trading him for Hardy, who is journeyman shortstop (why would he have bounced around so much if he wasn’t), isn’t a smart long-term move.

              3. Yeah but we also see every year DD sacrificing the long-term for the benefit of the short-term. He has been doing that to an excessive extreme. He doesn’t build out the future for value and efficiency and he rides each team like as if it’s the last year the world will exist. So I agree with your point, but what’s in our best interest and what is likely to happen are two very different things here in Detroit. Your point makes it sound more likely that Hardy would be a Tiger target, and well he clearly is. All we can do is hope the trade doesn’t get worked out.

              5. I agree with Scott as well. The thing is, I wouldn’t trade Porcello for Hardy straight up. The deal with the Orioles that I’m interested in is SS for SS (3B to them, though, I should think), P for P, and OF for OF.

              6. Back to my earlier comment though, here’s a recent quote that I think fits with my possible theory that BAL might value Hardy more than anybody, making it a hard trade, or an overly pricey trade if they overvalue him more than any other team:

                When asked if the Orioles would have to be overwhelmed to trade shortstop J.J. Hardy, manager Buck Showalter responded “What word is above “overwhelmed?”

                So my question for Buck is, well if you need to be beyond overwhelmed for Hardy, then what’s your price for Manny Machado?

                Smoking Loon – are you opposed to trading for Machado instead if he’s not also untouchable in BAL’s mind? And would you rather have Hardy or Castro from the Cubs?

                Also the Padres, Pirates, and Mariners are also rumored to be interested in Porcello from MLB Trade Rumors. I still like keeping an open mind about Grandal from the Padres.

              7. TSE, I don’t know enough about Machado defensively to say whether I’d be interested in trading for him. Hard to believe the Orioles would value Hardy above (supposed SS of the future) Machado. Not interested enough in Castro to involve Porcello in such a trade. Nor Smyly. It also seems like Castro is one of the few pieces in place for the Cubs to build around – I think they’d want too much.

                I would like really good defense at the SS position, and I’d sacrifice some offense for it. That’s the one thing left on my wish list for making the Tigers a more interesting and hopefully better team.The trade I’d most like to see to that end is with the Mariners, Peralta and Boesch for Brendan Ryan and Casper Wells + useful prospect. As I’ve mentioned before, apologies to those tired of hearing it. The question mark with Ryan, to me, is not the Santiago-level bat, which I can live with, but durability. Peralta has certainly been durable.

                All that said, I can live with Peralta for another season, and I could even live with a Santiago/Worth platoon.

              8. Ok. Well yes I assume the Orioles value Machado over Hardy. If Hardy is worth “x”, we have to pay more than “x”, going by the statement from Buck that he would have to be “beyond overwhelmed”, which implies he’s not looking for an even trade, but to get beyond what the player is worth, otherwise you can’t be overwhelmed. So let’s say he wants 30% north of “x’s” value. So if Machado is worth say “1.5x” as an example, then does he require the same overwhelming and thus we have to give him 30% more than “1.5x” to get Machado, or would he take say 10% more than “1.5x” for Machado? I’m interested in figuring out the proportions here (since we are apparently dealing with a typical unrealistic nutcase that thinks his own players are worth special premiums). I don’t want to ever trade for a player where I have to give up more than what the player is worth, but I might hate paying 10% more over Machado than to pay 30% more over Hardy.

                Machado, according to what I read about the Orioles, has not developed to being ready to take on the MLB SS defensive tasks. That doesn’t mean we can’t gamble and take a chance on him to play SS, but if we don’t want to do that then that doesn’t mean we have to take on Machado, rather he could be dealt to the 3rd team, i.e. netting us Castro perhaps since the Cubs aren’t as ready to compete for a title so they might be a better fit to wait on Machado being ready. That’s just an angle I see to get Castro, by sending them Machado, which we would hopefully have to overpay less for than we would for Hardy.

                I personally can’t live with Peralta or Infante as starters in the infield. But I did it somehow last year and I’ll have to manage again this year if that’s our fate since I have no choice. And I’d rather have suffer through it than have to way overpay for Hardy or anybody else. Somewhere there is a SS that we can get that isn’t as overestimated in value as the Orioles apparently value Hardy.

              10. Well the fact that he’s suspended for the first 50 games excites me because I think the Tigers have the greatest odds of all teams to win their own division, so we uniquely have the advantage that those 50 games won’t hurt us and he could be a factor during the playoffs, plus give us depth at C for the future. If he blossoms to a superstar then it also opens up the flexibility to move Avila to fill another need as well.

  8. He’s Back! The Tigers announced that they have signed Don Kelly to a minor league deal, with a Spring Training invite.

    1. LOL There was never any doubt in my mind. He’s essential to the team, otherwise the womenfolk wouldn’t come out to the park.

        1. Sounds like a great idea for a blog. Unfortunately for Don, Jeff Kobernus is 8 years younger than him, so he might have to be replaced by the new guy that can’t hit.

          1. The scrappier player with the dirtier uniform will get the nod from JL. Don’t count Kelly out.

  9. In other news, Mike Napoli reportedly just agreed to a 1 year $5MM deal after previously thinking he had a 3 year $39MM deal. Wow did that money vanish fast! (although he can earn more in incentives)

    And the Indians are sniffing around Ryan Raburn.

      1. Cafardo saw Leyland manage a few games and thinks he is one of the top 4 or 5 managing today. Therefore, Cafardo has NO credibility.

  10. Don Kelly was released because they had Raburn ( twice). Raburn is gone. Kelly is still here.
    He is the only active player to have played every position on the field in the major leagues, including pitcher.( wikipedia)

    1. Boesch 2.3, Coke 1.8. Not signed: Mad Max Scherzer Tigers offered 6.05, Scherzer filed for 7.4).

      1. I wonder what numbers Scherzer would be seeking for a long-term contract, and what teams will give us for him in trade. And I guess Boesch will have to be traded considering the Tigers seemingly value him at close to 0, so that’s all cost savings in their mind.

  12. Under the category of “Never Happening,” but is fun to speculate about, how about a Prince Fielder for Troy Tulowitzki trade? I think that would plug our hole at shortstop. Move Jhonny to third until Nick C. is ready and Miggy goes back to first (where he should be). Not sure if this has been brought up before … just a thought!

    1. It’s a really exciting thought to think about a mega trade like that! Prince would be a tough player to trade considering he was recently a FA and we apparently were willing to pay more cash for him than anybody else when no material was needed to acquire him. So he doesn’t have much trade equity unless you want to make the case that the market price for players keeps increasing, so his value to trade is probably higher today than it was on the day that we signed him which it surely would have been 0 on that day. He just hasn’t built up enough trade equity that we could get anything much for him at this point considering there might not be a team that even wants to take on the contract.

      It would be similar to the Angels saying let’s trade Josh Hamilton for somebody. Well they couldn’t trade Josh Hamilton to us for Jeff Kobernus at this point. We could have had Josh Hamilton for a giant bag of money if we wanted, but we weren’t willing to do that, so we sure aren’t going to give Hamilton all that money plus give up something on top of that.

      Tulo is an interesting guy to think about trading for however. Colorado was in last place last year and Tulo is worth more to the Tigers than he is to Colorado. They have very little to no shot of winning the WS, but we have a great shot, so it’s logical to think that the Rockies and Tigers should be talking about placing him where his value can be capitalized on, and then simply negotiating the right amount of proceeds to Colorado for that. If Colorado is ready to compete on a high level in 5 years, well it does no good to waste 5 years of Tulo, but if they could put him in the bank so to speak and defer having to utilize that player asset while gaining a bonus for taking the deferral, then it would be a brilliant trade for them to do that.

      Seeing as they were in last place last year, that goes to speak about how not so intelligent they are, so they’d probably be one of the last teams that would think themselves out of the hole and on to the top. Even the best teams in baseball are run by complete fools, so when you are one of the worst teams, you are severely intellectually handicapped with regard to being able to figure out how to solve your problems in an optimal way. Welcome to the crazy sick world of professional baseball, you just can’t make this stuff up!

    1. $750k for 1 year…

      This is more validation that the move to acquire Delmon in the first place was a poor decision, that was another good trade by Minnesota to dump his huge salary and pick up free prospects in the process while also hurting a division rival and stunting them from making a key value-adding move that they could have made instead. What a waste of time, money, and opportunity.

      1. The move to acquire him wasn’t necessarily a poor decision as he performed probably beyond what was expected for the last half of ’11. However, the decision to keep him beyond his hot ’11 finish was a blunder. DY has been a streaky hitter his entire career and he just happened to get hot at the right time for the Tigers two seasons ago. One didn’t have to have an Einsteinian IQ to project another .270/.300/.425 type finish in 2012. I think DD could have made a good haul for him in trade before the start of the ’12 campaign, but I get the feeling he drank the “he’s-finally-broken-out” koolaid. And as the old saying goes, “the rest is history.”

      1. I think the fat mouth had more to do with his departure than performance. Minus that, he could have fit in quite nicely as the RHB to spell Dirks, bad glove and all.

        1. There is not enough room on the roster for a Left Field backup specialist who doesn’t play the position well. Good luck to the Phillies in their gamble to make him their regular leftfielder.

            1. Well, the Phils have 3 LH starters, so maybe they figure the damage won’t be too bad with the predominantly RH lineups those pitchers will likely face. I’m just so very happy that the Delmon Young era is over in Detroit. Although it only lasted less than a season and one-half, it was still waaaay to long.

              1. Darn….all my Vicksburg Tiger connections are now gone! Delmon to the Phils and Justin Henry (AAA) to the Red Sox!

              2. Yeah it’s a much more fun game when you don’t have to relish the day that certain players are no longer there. He’s gone now so that’s fine, but I won’t be happy until we go back in time and not acquire him in the first place, or receive reparations paid to the team by the GM that made the failing choice, or show the capacity to learn from this and not invest in more lousy OFs in the future. And I don’t think any of those 3 things are going to happen any time soon. Needless to say, I’m not happy about it at all from any angle, I’m still pretty furious.

              3. Are you furious about Delmon Young’s performance in the 2012 ALCS (among other things), TSE? I know winning baseball games isn’t your thing, but please.

              4. No I’m not upset by his performance, I’m upset by our choice to take a chance to gamble on his performance since I thought he was well overpaid and a detraction from getting a good OF for the long-term. We probably would have been more apt to bid higher on Cespedes if we didn’t already waste the spot and a lot of money on DY. It couldn’t have hurt to have that extra cash in the OF open to put towards a solid investable player which DY was not.

  15. Porcello for a couple prospects? I don’t get it. Porcello isn’t the frontline starter he was projected to be, but he’s an established major leaguer at a premium position and he still has some upside.

    I would think we’d be able to trade him for someone who can plug one of the holes on our 25-man roster.

    1. the Braves fans down here were upset that Ahmed was packaged in that deal–they really like him.

      that said, we need more than this for Porcello. he’s not Cy Young, but he has 4 full years experience, he’s very young, and he would translate well to the NL.

    2. I don’t think there’s a hole in the 25-man roster big enough to warrant trading Porcello. Six starting pitchers is not too much, but just enough. Someone’s gonna get injured, Someone’s gonna get sore. It’s a given. The time to trade Porcello, or Smyly, or Scherzer, will be in July or August.

    1. Well Santiago is already bought and paid for. If they could release him to save his entire salary then they would probably do that but it is not an option. DD likes him and has always liked him due to his value to play multiple positions and that you know what you are going to get out of him.

      1. I think Santiago will be gone before the regular season begins. I’ve always liked him, but I think the baton of expendable & unlikely to improve has been passed from Raburn to Ramon.

        1. I disagree. Santiago has been a symbol of consistency off the bench. Giving up on him would be like putting a knife into the heart of our defense.

          1. I don’t think Santiago has anything on Worth defensively. As far as the IF bench role goes, I think it’s a wash whether it’s Santiago, Worth, or Kobernus. Peralta and Infante aren’t going to be pulled late in the game for a defensive replacement, and it goes without saying that Cabrera wouldn’t be. It’s really a question of who you would want to fill in at SS or 2B in case of injury. I’d rather see someone other than Santiago get a shot. But maybe he’ll have a great spring at the plate and change my mind. I’m sure he has the inside track as far as Jim Leyland is concerned.

  17. Gentleman, I have to say that you all bring up good points about some of our teams more tenuous situations. But, and I use an Exclamation point for emphasis, the Tigers have a good nucleus of veterans and youngsters that could gel and give Mike Illitch his first World Series trophy as owner. Brian Wilson is good, but what ever happened to the days when the majority of your team was grown in the farm system, like the 1984 Tigers. Lets give Rondon a chance to sink or swim with the big boys, but keep the closer by committee option in tact. Just remember how Phil Coke stepped up to the plate for us in the playoffs when Valverde imploded. The farm system is our future. It has been and always will be.

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