I had the pleasure of attending last night’s game. No, I didn’t stay for the whole thing. I made it through 12 and a half innings before calling it a night. It was a beautiful night to be at a game, and the Tigers put up a good effort. In particular the bullpen really stepped up. While they’ve been a frequent target of mine for poor performance. As a group they did a tremendous job last night. Most impressive was Steve Colyer, who has struggled mightily this year.

Sanchez was his usual frustrating self. I loved the bunt hits, and getting all the way to third in the first inning. He also made some nice plays tracking down balls over his head. However, why in the 5th inning did he stop running between 2nd and 3rd? Being at the game, I didn’t get to see replays or hear analysis. Just a mind boggling play, which is what I expect from Sanchez.

Knotts to get start
Not surprisingly, the Tigers didn’t elect to stick with a 4 man rotation. (I’d be surprised if they even considered it) Instead, Gary Knotts will get the start on Friday. Knotts biggest problem last year was consistency. At times he’d look great, other times miserable. Trammell hasn’t committed to keeping him in the rotation, so Knotts will be making a pitch to make another start.

The Tigers AA affiliate has taken a more aggressive (mini-reg required) hitting approach. The suprising result is that they are also drawing more walks.

Also, apparently this is new for the Tiger farm system:

Last Friday I took a brief look at how some of the system’s top position prospects were performing. After the debacle on Saturday, it only seems appropriate to try and find some pitching hope. This list is in no ways comprehensive, and I’ll try to focus more on “prospects” so don’t expect to read about Pat Ahearne. So, in no particular order:

Franklyn German: German is off to a strong start at Toledo. On the season he’s made 12 apperance and pitched 13 1/3 innings. He has 15 strikeouts against 5 walks. That’s a few more walks than I’d like to see given his past control issues. The good news is he’s only allowed one run.

Rob Henkel: Henkel has only managed three starts this year due to shoulder soreness. He may need to go on the disabled list again. When not injured, he hasn’t been dominating. He’s had 10K’s, 8BB’s and 14 hits in 15 1/3 innings.

Kenny Baugh: Baugh is off to a strong start. Despite being 1-3 he has a 3.86 ERA. Most impressive is his 27/6 strike out to walk ratio in 28 innings. Last year Baugh was trying to regain arm strengh. Hopefully he is back to pre-surgery form. These numbers are very encouraging and it’s a possibility he will spend some time with the Tigers this year.

Wil Ledezma and Matt Roney: I’m not sure if they are prospects or not anymore because they’ve already spent a full season in the majors. However, both are pitching well for Erie. Both have 3 wins and an ERAs in the low 3’s. Ledezma has 29 strikeouts, but also 12 walks in 31 innings of work. Roney is 22/6 in 26 innings.

Felix Sanchez: Acquired for Jon Connolly, Sanchez was rocked in his first outing. With only 3 relief apperances, there isn’t much to say at this point.

Kyle Sleeth: After a rough debut, Sleeth has been pitching the way everybody thought/hoped he would. For the season he has 34 K’s and 8 walks in 38 innings. His ERA is 2.84. He gave up 4 earned runs in his first start, and only 8 over the next 5 starts. If he can stay healthy, he will move up quickly.

Joel Zumaya: Zumaya has had some struggles. He’s still striking guys out (27 in 32 innings). However control has been a problem and he’s walked 19.

Humberto Sanchez Sanchez’s numbers are almost identical to Sleeth’s, but they’re better. Thirty-four K’s and eight walks are identical to Sleeth. Sanchez has allowed two more hits than Sleeth. However, he’s allowed 3 fewer homers. Oh, and he doesn’t turn 21 until the end of the month.

With the Tigers having an off day yesterday, I thought I’d take the chance to peruse the Tiger farm system. The following are just some brief capsules on various Tiger prospect’s performance.

Curtis Granderson Granderson has been solid in his first month at AA Erie. He’s hitting .274/.390/.420 with 13 RBI’s and 2 HR’s. The OBP looks real good, but the slugging is a tad low. He also hasn’t made an error through 24 games.

David Espinosa Espinosa was a first round pick of the Reds at one time. He was drafted as a shortstop, but has since moved to the outfield. His performance in the past has been forgettable. However, he’s had a strong spring hitting .341/.432/.610 with 5 dingers. He’s also stolen 5 bases. While he’d pretty much lost his prospect status, he could regain it if he continues to perform well. He’s only 22 and performing well at AA.

Donald Kelly Whle not really considered a prospect, Kelly’s ability to get on base at a .400 clip in Lakeland last year earned him a promotion to AA, and a spot on the Tigers 40 man roster. While he’s accumlated 13 walks and a .353 OBP, he’s only hitting .215 with no power. He’s also committed 7 errors at shortstop.

Brent Clevlen The .306 average and .370 OBA are promising in Clevlen’s first season at high A. However, Clevlen hasn’t been hitting for power, he’s only slugging .361. Also, he’s striking out about once every 3 at-bats.

Mike Rabelo Believe it or not the Tigers have a catcher in the minors who is doing well. True he’s 24 and only in A ball, but at least he’s succeeding. He’s hitting .325 with a .388 OBA.

Scott Moore Moore is posting a whopping .418 OBA mostly on the strength of 18 walks. He’s only hitting .240, but he has hit 3 homers. The bad part is he only has 5 extra base hits total.

Tony Giarratano Tony is picking up right where he left off at Oneonta last season. He’s hitting a .303 clip and he has 5 stolen bases. He has however committed 6 errors at shortstop already.

Kody Kirkland Unfortunately, Kirkland wasn’t able to pick up where he left off at Oneonta last year. He’s struggling mightily at West Michigan where he’s hitting .160/.209/.247. His K/BB rate is 26/3 and things just aren’t looking good.

I remember hearing Jack Morris talking about saying this back in the 80’s to his teammates. Given the recent performance of the Tigers pitching staff, the starters might have to ask for 15 runs. The starters have been inconsistent, the bullpen has been rocked, and there’s really nothing nice to say about anyone right now. The starters aren’t working deep into games. The long relievers Yan and Knotts are getting hit hard. The set up guys Patterson and Levine are getting hammered. And the lefty arms have struggled as well.

So what can the Tigers do? Well Nate Cornejo has had a sore shoulder and knee for a month and didn’t tell anybody. Now he’s out of the rotation and on the DL. That leaves the team with 4 starters. Because of off days, they can get by with a 4 man rotation for the next week and a half. Then what happens? I have this feeling that Cornejo will need significant time to strengthen the arm so I’m treating him as unavailable. That leaves the Tigers with essentially 3 options.

1. Call up a long arm/starter from the minors. Pat Ahearne would be the most likely candidate. He’s pitched fairly well at Toledo with a 2.64 ERA and a 33/5 K/BB ratio. Other options include Shane Loux, or reaching down to Erie and pulling up one of last year’s rule 5’ers (Ledezma and Roney).

2. Trade for a starter. The problem is who? Teams aren’t looking to dump pitchers of quality at this point in the season, and the price would probably be prospects. Prospects are in limited supply in the Tigers organization making a trade difficult to complete.

Kris Benson has been mentioned often on message boards as a guy that could be acquired. He’s making a boatload of money this year (6.1 million) that the Pirates would love to dump. The problem with Kris Benson is that he’s not that good. Actually, I’ll restate that, “He hasn’t been that good since 2000.” In limited duty the last two years he’s been essentially a replacement level player. His EqERA the last two years was 5.60 and 5.58. A replacement level player can be had for about $5.7 million less then what you’d have to pay Benson.

3. Use a 4 man rotation. The Tigers are having a tough time trying to find 4 quality starters. Why would they want to try to find a 5th? My only concern with this would be the increased overall workload on Bonderman. Johnson and Maroth are old enough that I’d be less concerned with their arms. If you get into situations with double headers or you want to space out Bonderman, then there enough long relief guys to spot start someone.

If it were up to me (and there are approximately 487 reasons why it’s a good thing I don’t have any authority), this is the option I would go with. Then again if it were entirely up to me I would call up Wil Ledezma as my long man/spot starter. He can take Gary Knotts place. I also would have called up Franklyn German instead of Chris Dingman. Dingman has given up 4 homers in 10 innings of work.

With all that being said, the Tigers pitching will get better. They will not continue to give up 10 runs a game like they have for the last week. However, changes need to be made and made quickly.

Writing a month in review column was something I started doing last year. Needless to say, this is the first month I’ve been able to do this when the Tigers have posted a winning record.
Comings, Goings, and Doctor Appointments
Prior to the season, the Tigers dealt Cody Ross to the Dodgers for Steve Colyer to bolster their bullpen. Mike DiFelice was also released, and then resigned to a minor league contract. The last semi significant transaction was that Andres Torres was DFA’d. He cleared waivers, but chose to sign a minor league deal with the White Sox instead of returning to Toledo.

The Tigers had their share of ailments, big and small. The biggest blow came in their 10th inning of the season when Dmitri Young broke his leg in Toronto. He’ll be on the shelf for at least another 2-3 weeks. The Tigers also lost Fernando Rodney for the year when he underwent Tommy John surgery. Aside from that the Tigers lost Alex Sanchez for a week due to a groin injury and the flu. They also lost Higginson for a couple days to the flu and a turned ankle.

By the Numbers

The Tiger offense was a dominant force, showing an ability to score piles of runs consistently. They scored 5 or more runs in 15 of their 23 April games. They finished just a shade behind Minnesota in runs scored per game for the month. The Tiger offense also ranked in the top half in on base average and batting average. The main reason for their success was their performance with runners in scoring position. With RISP the batting average jumped to .321 and the Tigers .907 OPS led the league. Remarkably, the Tigers have maintained this offensive output without Dmitri Young.

The pitching staff didn’t fare nearly as well. They rank in the bottom third in most categories. The starters and bullpen have been inconsistent. An interesting stat twist is that the Tigers pitchers have the highest ground ball to fly ball ratio, but have allowed the most home runs. The home run number is especially troubling given Comerica’s dimensions.

The good news for the pitching staff is that they ranked dead last in strike outs last year. This year they rank 5th. Also, there have been several strong bullpen performances that included 2 four inning saves.

Who’s hot
Newcomers Rondell White, Ivan Rodriguez, and Carlos Guillen have all exceeded expectations. The three are hitting a combined .324/.396/.490 and Rondell White led the AL in RBI’s.

But if you want to talk about really exceeding expectations look at Brandon Inge managed to do. His month included a 10 game hit streak from the 9 spot in the order. He hit .333/.410/.574 with 3 home runs (two of them Grand Slams). In addition to the offensive surge, he managed to play competently at centerfield, catcher, and third base.

Despite getting shelled in his last start, Nate Robertson was pretty darn good as the 5th starter. Mike Maroth went from losing 5 games in April last year to posting a 3-1 record on a 3.58 ERA while leading the staff in innings.

Who’s Not
I know Greg Norton hit a home run today, but he was miserable during April going 3 for 29 with 9 strike outs. Alex Sanchez hit .324 for the month, but he’s listed here because despite being a leadoff hitter, he failed to take a walk in 72 plate apperances.

The majority of the pitching staff falls under this category. They haven’t all been bad the whole month, and there have been some great performances by most of the staff. However, there have been a number of really poor performances as well. I think the overall staff numbers/rankings bear that out. Particularly bad was Gary Knotts. In 11 1/3 innings he surrendered 15 hits, 11 walks, and 3 home runs. Nate Cornejo also was knocked around consistently and posted an 8.44 ERA.

Lowlight of the Month
I think this would have to be Dmitri Young’s injury in game 2. Despite the fact the Tigers offense has continued to hum along, it has forced Trammell to play Rondell White and Pudge Rodriguez more than he’d probably like to.

Highlight of the Month
It’s nice to have some options for this topic for a change. I could choose White’s walk-off homer, the 11 run 6th inning against Cleveland, or the inspiring home opener win. However, I’m going with the opening day shut out of Toronto. Despite the fact that Toronto hasn’t played well this season, the Tigers went in an shut down what should be a good hitting club. What’s more is that they piled runs on a traditional nemesis in Roy Halladay. The way they won that game seemed to propel them off to this great start in April.

Looking Ahead
In May the Tigers play 20 games against AL West opponents and they make two trips to the west coast. They finish the month with 4 games against Baltimore and 4 games against struggling division rival Kansas City.

The combination of Pudge, a winning April, and the promise of All Star tickets amounted to a significant increase in attendance for the Tigers. For the 13 April home dates 255,397 fans came out to Comerica. That’s an average attendance of 19,646. Last year the Tigers averaged 15,886 in their 9 home dates during April. In 2002 they averaged 16,889 in April. Given that April and May are historically tough months for the Tigers to draw crowds, this is a very positive sign.

Trying to project it out over the course of a season, a straight multiplication would give a final attendance of 1.6 million. However, due to the month to month variation in attendance, I took a look at how much of the yearly attendance comes from the month of April. Since 2003 was bad for a lot of reasons, I took a look at 2002. Looking back two years gives another advantage because the Tigers played the same number of games in April 2002 as they did in April 2004. In 2002, April accounted for 15% of the yearly attendance. Extrapolating based on 2002 would yield an annual attendance of 1.75 million.

Of course future attendance will depend on the Tigers ability to remain relevant. Despite ending the month with back to back losses, the Tigers still finished with a winning record. As further prove of the Tigers increasing stature, last Saturday the Tigers drew 21,000 against Cleveland. What made it remarkable is that the Red Wings and Pistons were both playing home playoff games, and the Lions draft party was occuring at the same time.

Rodney to be Tommy John’d
I know this is old news at this point, but Fernando Rodney is out for the year. After originally being diagnosed with a sprained ligament in the spring, the Tigers medical staff hoped things would work out with rehab. Unfortunately the pain persisted and he was sent for a consult to Dr. James Andrews who deemed Tommy John surgery to be necessary.

This could be a big blow to Rodney’s career. While pitchers return from Tommy John surgery and regain their old form, Rodney was already on the old side of being a prospect. He turned 27 this year, and now he’s missing a full season of activity.

This makes the Ugueth Urbina signing even more attractive. While is was widely believed that the Tigers would look to deal Urbina come the trade deadline, that becomes less likely without another closer on the horizon.

I’d imagine that Rodney will be moved from the 15 day DL to the 60 day DL which would allow the Tigers to add another player to the 40 man roster.

Tigers trade Jon Connolly
In a classic Dave Dombrowski trade, the Tigers a hard throwing lefty. Baseball America has this to say about Felix Sanchez:

Despite Connolly’s sub 2 ERA last year, nobody was really sold on his status as a prospect. He throws soft, and his biggest strengths are his change up and pinpoint control. He also didn’t strike out many guys at West Michigan last year.

The Tigers also included a PTBNL in the deal.

I have no strong feelings one way or the other on this deal. While Connolly’s performance last year was very impressive, I don’t know how sustainable it would be at higher levels and he’s probably still 2-3 years away from the majors (if he makes it that far). Sanchez is closer to being a big leaguer, in fact he had a cup of coffee with the Cubs last year. However, he has control issues and he doesn’t have an overwhelming strike out rate.

Sanchez was assigned to Erie and placed on the 40 man roster. I’m not sure if there was a spot open, but I can’t seem to find who was taken off to make room.

Tigers get thumped
I didn’t see the game, but caught the majority on the radio and it didn’t sound pretty. The 8 run fourth sounded like it was set up with fielding gaffes and bad bounces. Despite that, there were still a ton of hits that inning as well.

The Tigers will welcome in Seattle to close out the month. Tomorrow morning I’ll have a month in review post similar to what I did last year. I’ll follow the same format, except that I’ll be writing about a winning Tiger team for the first time!

Pat Caputo has an interesting article about Brandon Inge today. According to the article, Brandon Inge once upon a time hit the ball hard. Then Phil Garner told him to change his swing.

The Hardball Times have posted their first cut of pitching statistics now as well. Their pitching stats include runs saved above average (RSAA), fielding independent pitching (FIP), defensive efficiency ratio (DER), and line drive percentage. The stats are through the 4/26 games.

Like I did with the offensive stats, here’s what I found interesting in these stats:
1. A couple days ago I wrote that I thought Nate Cornejo wasn’t pitching as badly as his ERA would indicate, and that he was the victim of some bad luck. Well, Nate’s DER (which is the percentage of balls in play that the defense converts to outs) is .587, which is significantly lower than the rest of the team. Given that the rest of the pitchers have the same defense behind them, you’d expect that the numbers woudl be similar.

What could cause this? Maybe the balls in play that Cornejo allows are tougher to field than his counterparts, maybe he’s giving up more line drives. If you look at line drive percentage, he actually has the lowest LD rate of all the starters at .125. The next lowest is Mike Maroth at .149. Even stud in the making Nate Robertson’s LD% is 40% higher than Cornejo’s. It would seem that line drives would have a greater chance of success (for the batter) than ground balls or fly balls. So it doesn’t appear that Cornejo is giving up more “un-fieldable” balls than his pitching teammates.

Finally, Nate’s FIP (as defined by THT “Essentially the proportion of ERA that can be directly attributed to the pitcher. The formula is (13xHR + 3xBB – 2xK)/IP. It works like DIPS ERA, so if you add 3.20 to FIP, you’ll get an approximation of what the pitcher’s ERA would be with an “average” defense behind him.”) is 2.08. Adding that to 3.20 gives an estimated ERA of 5.28. While that’s not a good ERA by any stretch of the imagination, it is a far cry from the run an inning ERA he had going into last night’s game What the 2.08 does suggest is that his increased home run and walk rate have negated (and exceeded) the effect of his increased strike out rate.

In the end, Nate hasn’t been pitching as good as last year, but not as bad as his primary stats would indicate either.

2. The bullpen has command issues. Gary Knotts is allowing 12.2 BB/9, Steve Colyer is allowing 6.8 BB/9, Uribina is allowing 9 BB/9, and Esteban yan is allowing 6.4 BB/9. Those numbers for Knotts and Colyer combine with high home run rates (2.7 for Knotts, and 2.3 for Colyer) to paint a pretty unflattering picture.

3. Bonderman has struggled, but it could be worse. His 9.6 K/9 is great. However, the 2.1 HR/9 is pretty poor. Also, he has the second higher LD % allowed on the team at .220 (Colyer is .280). Despite a high LD %, his DER is actually quite good at .724. So despite allowing a lot of line drives, overall his defense is turning balls in play into outs at a good clip.

The Hardball Times has posted their first page of statistics. So far it’s just offensive stats, but they aren’t posting basic stats. They have runs created (which I used extensively in my season preview), pitches per plate apperance, batting average with runners in scoring position, and line drive percentage.

A couple interesting notes while looking at my Tigers:
1. Six different Tigers have batting averages over .400 with runners in scoring position (and Vina is at .353) which goes along ways toward explaining why the Tigers are leading the league in scoring.
2. The much maligned (by me anyways) Greg Norton is leading the team in pitches per plate appearance at 4.72. So despite his proliferation of outs, he is having extended ABs and making the pitcher work.
3. Carlos Guillen, Rondell White, and Bobby Higginson are the top 3 Tigers in line drive percentage

Reader Mark Auman sent me a note last Tuesday following the Tigers 10-4 win over the Indians. Despite splitting the series with Cleveland, the Tigers were struggling. Here is what Mark pointed out:

Since the last game in Minnesota, the Tigers pitchers have been doing better only allowing 12 runs in the last 4 games. I took a look at how the Tigers fared on these three items during that stretch
1. GET THE LEADOFF MAN OUT: The Tigers allowed the leadoff man to reach base in 13 of the last 36 innings, which is 36% of the time. This is a modest improvement over the 43% they were allowing.
2. DON’T PUT THE NO. 9 GUY ON BASE: In the last 4 games the 9 hitter has gone 3 for 12 with one walk, one sacrifice and only scored one run.
2. DON’T PUT THE NO. 1 GUY ON BASE: In the last 4 games the number 1 hitter has gone 4-16 with one walk, and only one run scored.

The Tigers improved in their performance on all three measures. Now the question becomes are these three items indicators of success or failure? Or did the Tigers just perform better in general. I didn’t check to see how the other hitters in the lineup compared between the two time periods, so I don’t know if the overall performance was better (I’d imagine it was). In my mind, I’d guess that item 1 would probably have the biggest impact, however that item had the smallest improvement of the three. Most disturbing was probably the 9 hitter getting on base over half the time.