The Tigers have been busy this weekend, with a roster move on each of Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. On Friday, Bobby Higginson came off the disabled list, and AJ Hinch took his place. Higginson went 6 for 12 with two doubles this weekend. On Saturday, the Tigers demoted Steve Avery and called up Eric Eckenstahler from Toledo. Eric had a 2.66 ERA in 40.2 innings and a 38/22 K/BB. Avery had been struggling since his first several scoreless outings. Today, Shane Loux finally got the call and he will take Fernando Rodney’s sport in the bullpen. While Rodney didn’t pitch particularly well, he didn’t pitch as bad as his stats would indicate. He allowed a number of soft hits, but could never recover from them. Shane Loux has gone 11-6 with a 3.06 ERA for Toledo this year. He’s a soft tosser that doesn’t strike out a lot of guys, but he doesn’t walk a lot of guys either (58/30 BB/K in 128 innings). Even though Loux is being called up to pitch from the bullpen, I wouldn’t be surprised to see him make spot starts to spell the Roney/Ledezma/Bonderman rotation.

Other Stuff
-Lynn Henning had another good column today. He weighs in on mid level free agents, Alex Sanchez, and the lack of talent at high levels of the organization.
-Ramon Santiago picked up two RBI in the same game. Those were numbers 8 and 9 on the season.

So we know the Tigers offense has been bad. Since I’ve been writing about the Tigers for 100 games this season, I’ve run out of adjectives for bad, so let’s just stick with bad. Last night however, they managed to score 7 runs. Five out of the seven runs came courtesy of two out hits. This is unusual because the Tigers are hitting .176 with runners in scoring position and two-outs. This got me thinking about the Tigers offensive efficiency. Even when the Tigers get baserunners, they seem to do a poor job of turning them into runs. I looked at a simple measure that I called Throughput (it probably has other names as well, don’t mean to be stepping on anyone’s toes), which is runs divided by hits+walks+hbp’s. Essentially, the number of baserunners that turn into runs. Not surprisingly, the Tigers throughput of .307 is last by a long margin. Cleveland is next worst at .351 and the AL average is .380.

I then came across the Run Efficiency Average on the Diamond Mind Site. REA is runs divided by total bases plus walks. Not surprisingly the Tigers are dead last in the American League by an incredible margin.

The league average is .270, and the Tigers are at .225. Last year the Tigers were at .238, and the league average was again .270. In Tom Tippett’s article he points out that it is very rare for teams at the extremes to repeat performances from year to year. Of the 20 least efficient teams since 1974, 19 improved in relation to the league the following year. The 2002 Tigers were the 3rd least efficient team with regard to league average of the last 20 years, and have moved even farther from the mean this year.

So in conclusion, the Tigers don’t get many people on base, and they have a hard time converting those baserunners into runs. As much as I’d like to think that the caught stealings and sacrifice bunts have contributed, I’m not sure they have. True, the Tigers lead the league in caught stealing with 45 and sacrifice hits with 43. However, the Royals have 41 sac bunts and are leading the league in efficiency. Also, the caught stealing number is offset by the Tigers low double play rate. The Tigers have hit into 57 double plays, and the next fewest are Texas’ 68.

The big difference is that the Tigers have had 1485 plate appearances with runners on base. The rest of the league is averaging 1727. Furthermore, the Tigers hit .226/.296/.344 in that situation. What it comes down to is that as bad as the Tigers are at getting runners on, they hit just as bad, and a little worse once they get there. And if the runners are in scoring position, it gets even worse when they hit .214/.289/.336. And while it’s hard to imagine, they are even worse when there are two outs and runners in scoring position, .186/.287/.285.

The Tigers just aren’t good by any offensive measure. Next week I’ll look at the Tigers REA against.

Other Stuff
-I’ve been trying to promote some of the other great blogs out there. Seeing as the Tigers just played the Indians, now would be a good time to mention the Cleveland Indians Report. It’s where I go to check in on the Tribe.
-The more games Ben Petrick doesn’t play at catcher, the less I like the trade. At least he had a break out game last night.
-Work is pretty busy right now, so I’ll probably only be doing two updates a week or so for the next month.

So the Tiger pitching staff has collapsed since the All-Star break. Is it reason to panic, or become concerned (with the Tigers is anything reason to panic?)? Absolutely not. This is a young staff and there are going to be bumps in the road. Jeremy Bonderman was the latest to get shelled. He was hit hard by a very good hitting team in a hitters ballpark. He just didn’t have it last night, and so his streak of 7 consecutive quality starts was snapped. Don’t read too much into the fact that he had a bad outing, because 7 of his last 8 have been pretty good. Now, if he tanks his next three times out, then you can worry a little.

As for Wil Ledezma, again he is a young guy. This was only his 3rd start. In all honesty we probably got a little too excited because he pitched shut out ball in his first two starts. But even looking at his second start, guys hit the ball pretty hard off him, just right at people.

Nate Cornejo and Mike Maroth can start their own support group for guys who take no-hitters late into games, only to get hung with a loss.

The most troubling part of the pitching slump is that it’s effecting a couple guys in the bullpen, Jamie Walker and Steve Sparks. Two of the Tigers more tradeable commodities. Sparks was shelled last night, and Walker had a rough outing on Saturday.

Other Stuff:
-Franklyn German now has 14 K/0 B in 11 innings for Toledo. Is it time for him to come back and to demote Rodney who has walked 9 in 10 innings to go along with 15 hits?
-For what it’s worth, Brandon Inge is hitting .295 .361 .466 with 3 home runs
-In July, Eric Munson has a .321 OBA, and is slugging .457 despite a .196 batting average
-Alex Sanchez has 9 RBI already in July. His previous high in a month was 8 (twice last year).
-Ben over at the Universal Baseball Blog writes about the Ben Petrick/Bernero trade-and he likes it for the Tigers.

I think tonight’s Sox/Tiger game had to be one of the most pitiful displays I’ve seen in a while. Given the fact I’ve been watching the Tigers all year that’s saying a lot. Each team was only credited with one error, but it should have been more. Carlos Lee and Ben Petrick both made bad plays in left that allowed runs to score. Alex Sanchez negated a 3 for 5 effort with two boneheaded baserunning errors. This is a game that the White Sox should have won easily. The Tigers couldn’t figure out Buerhle, and Roney was getting hit hard. But through a pretty poor sequence in the 8th, the White Sox let the Tigers score 4 runs to get with in one.

Instead of the Tigers capitalizing on the White Sox generosity, they allowed two runs to score in the bottom of the 8th. The inning could have been over had Jamie Walker cleanly fielded a comebacker. Instead, that left the door open for Ben Petrick to misplay a well hit ball into a two run double (in all honesty it was a tough play, but it looked pretty bad nonetheless).

Matt Roney has now struggled in all 4 of his starts on the road. The previous three were in definite hitters parks (Coors/Fenway/Kaufman) so it was actually hard to come to a conclusion. And even now, 4 starts is far from a conclusive sample size. However, this has been true of his relief appearances as well. Going into tonights game he had a 2.04 ERA at home and 5.06 on the road. He has 20 walks (13K’s) in 31 innings away from Comerica, and only 11 walks in 35.1 innings at home (20K’s).

Other Stuff:
-On Thursday, the Tigers scored 10 runs in a game for just the second time since September 23, 2001. They scored 11 runs total in the previous two series (White Sox and Red Sox)
-You knew that Chris Mears would give up runs eventually. Fortunately when they came, they didn’t hurt the Tigers.
-Alex Sanchez has twice as many caught stealings (10) as he does walks. Considering his OBA is .297 is it really necessary for him to create more outs? Yes he’s fast, but 17 stolen bases in 27 attempts isn’t that impressive.
-Shane Halter got the start for Eric Munson on Friday. Normally I would complain about this, but Munson has been in a serious funk lately. His average has fallen all the way to .233. Including his pinch hitting attempt tonight, he has gone 27 PA’s (9 games) without an extra base hit.

There are some new (relatively) Tiger blogs. Make sure you check them out:
Brian Borawski Tiger blog
Baseball Pundit

Also, Tigers Central has an article urging Mr. I to go out and spend some money. It’s worth a read.

Without any Tiger news to report, I figured now would be a good time to look around at what is happening on the farm.

AAA Toledo
Shane Loux is the best prospect story in Toledo. He’s likely to find his way into the Tiger rotation at some point this season. He’s 9-6 with a 3.13 ERA. However, he’s not a strikeout pitcher with only 48 K’s in 112 IP. Nate Robertson, acquired in the Redman trade continues to show progress. Despite allowing 10 HR’s he has a 3.50 ERA with 72K/36BB in 113 IP. Franklyn German seems to have found control (or impatient hitters) in Toledo. In 8 IP he has 10 strikeouts and no walks. On the negative side he’s hit 2 batters and given up 8 hits (but no home runs). Matt Anderson continues to get hit. He’s given up 46 hits (4 HR’s) in 35.2 innings to go along with 30 strikeouts and 8 walks.

On the offensive side, the only players of note are demoted Tigers. Omar Infante has gone 8 for 55 with 1 home run being his only extra base hit. The good news about Omar is that he has walked 7 times in 62 PA’s. Brandon Inge is hitting .268/.333/.423 which isn’t great, but might this be progress for Inge? Ernie Young continues to hit well .293/.367/.484 with 13 HR’s

AA Erie
Like Toledo, the story in Erie is pitching. Rob Henkel (also acquired in the Redman trade) continues to impress, despite missing the earlier part of the season to injury. In 56.2 IP Henkel has 54K/19BB and a 3.34 ERA. Henkel could also join the team when the rosters expand to 40, and will compete for a spot in the rotation next year. While Kenny Baugh got off to a rough start at Erie, he’s had 4 consecutive quality starts. Preston Larrison has been disappointing with 43 K/43 BB in 88 IP and a 5.32 ERA.

Offensively CF Nook Logan has 28 steals, but only a .306 OBA. Jack Hanahan (3B) continues to struggle, not hitting for power or average .234/.310/.334.

High A Lakeland
Lakeland actually has some guys that can hit, and walk. Outfielder Curtis Granderson (3rd round 2002 draft) has been putting up solid numbers for Lakeland. He’s hitting .282/.356/.442 with 7 home runs. Fellow outfielder David Espinosa, acquired in the Brian Moheler trade has an OBA of .327, which is impressive given his .236 batting average. However, he probably won’t be ready before he runs out of options next year. First baseman Juan Tejada is also hitting well, .291/.362/.415. Third baseman Ryan Rayburn is hitting 245/.357/.426 with 8 home runs. Lastly, the player nobody is talking about is Donald Kelly. Kelly is a 23 year old infielder who has an OBA of .408 (.301 BA). He plays first, third and short. While he doesn’t hit for much power, he does get on base a ton. I’m not sure why he’s not really considered a prospect. Maybe it’s because he’s a little old to be in A ball, or maybe it’s because he is too skinny (6-4, 190). Whatever the case, you never hear his name and I don’t know why.

Low A West Michigan
The story at West Michigan starts with Jon Connolly and ends with Joel Zumaya. Baseball America has a piece on Connolly in it’s latest issue (you have to be a subscriber). Connolly’s ERA is an incredible 1.24, and he’s only given up 2 home runs and 28 walks in 123 IP. People are still leary though because he isn’t a power pitcher. His fastball is mid to high 80’s and he complements is with a change up and curve ball. His 5.1 K/ ( IP number doesn’t bother me, but the fact he has thrown 123 innings is cause for concern. Considering he’s 19 and only pitched in short season ball prior to this year, this is probalby his highest inning total.

Joel Zumaya is a hard thrower that scouts love, and hitters can’t seem to find. He’s 7-5 with a 2.85 ERA and 85.1 innings pitched. What jumps out at you with Zumaya is his 119K/37BB. Zumaya throws in the mid to high 90’s and received off season tutelage from Barry Zito. Jordan Gerk has also been impressive in the bullpen with 56K/7BB in 52 IP with a 2.00 ERA. Ian Ostlund has 13 saves, and a 0.37 ERA in 23 appearances. He has struck out 31 and walked 4 in 24 innings.

In the outfield Brent Clevlen has come alive. He has 10 home runs to go along with .269/.362/.444. Last year’s first round pick, Scott Moore, has struggled at times this year and is hitting .230 .326 .374 with 5 home runs and 71 strike outs.

R Oneonta and GCL
The big name here is Kody Kirkland, the player to be named later in the Randall Simon trade. Lynn Henning did a piece on the prospects the Tigers received from the trade in last week’s paper, so check it out for more info. Anthony Giarratano, this year’s third round pick, has debuted going 10 for 18 with 3 double and a homer. Jay Sborz, this year’s second round pick made his debut pitching two scoreless innings and striking out two.

Baseball Musings found something good about the Tigers Double Play Rate:

The Oakland Press is running a 5 part series on the demise of the Tigers since 1984. Here is the link to part 1

All the Tiger news this weekend comes from the mound. Saturday saw Matt Roney battle Pedro (and hang with him). Roney’s line for the night was 6.2 IP, 4 H, 1 ER, 2 BB, 7 K. Roney clearly likes pitching at home. In his two Comerica starts (against the Blue Jays and Red Sox) he has given up 1 run in 13.2 innings on 5 hits and 4 walks (plus 11 K’s). On the road he has made 3 starts, and his stats are 12.1 IP, 11 R, 17 Hits. Now while his road starts were at Coors, Fenway, and Kaufman, the problem appears more to be his control than the stadium. On the road his K/BB ratio is 4/10 and at Comerica it is 13/10.

Next there is Wil Ledezma who has yet to give up a run in his two starts. He scattered 6 hits over 7 scoreless innings. While he only had two strike outs he didn’t walk anyone. However, subjectively he wasn’t quite as effective as his last start. A number of balls were hit hard, but fortunately they found their way into outfielders gloves (only 3 ground ball outs). Grady Little while giving Ledezma credit said that if the game were in Fenway, they might have had 7 or 8 runs early. And in all honesty, he probably isn’t far off.

The next bit of news is that the Tigers traded Adam Bernero to Colorado for AAA catcher/outfielder Ben Petrick. This killed the “Why the Tigers should try Bernero at closer” article I was pondering. Ben Petrick’s numbers aren’t overly impressive at Colorado Springs. He’s hitting .259/.333/.500 with 11 home runs (second on the team). He has struck out 53 times in 258 plate appearances, but he does take some walks (26). Baseball America projects him to a .231 average at the major league level (which is what AJ Hinch projected to as well). Sadly, this is still an improvement for the Tigers at catcher. Colorado plans to use Bernero exclusively out of the pen.

The best news regarding the Tiger pitching staff is that the organization is very aware of how much their young pitchers are throwing. Lynn Henning reports that Ledezma and Bonderman will both get 12 days of rest. Furthermore they are looking at how to restrict the innings of their rookie pitchers. There is further evidence that Bonderman and Ledezma will get shut down early, or the Tigers will got to a 6 man rotation. With Bernero’s departure, this would probably indicate that Knotts and Loux will get some starts (and possibly Sparks too) towards the end of the season. During the telecast today, Jack Morris was sharing a conversation that he had with Bob Cluck. The Clucker is particularly concerned with the number of innings guys throw while they are under 25. According to Morris, Cluck feels that pitchers shouldn’t increase innings from one year to the next by more than 50. (One could argue that this is kind of a strange and arbitrary rule because going from 25 to 75 innings is quite different than going from 125 to 175. The important thing is that he is aware) Also Cluck is watching the innings that the minor league pitchers are accumulating. With the exception of one 118 pitch outing by Bonderman, the Tigers have done a great job of babying their young pitchers.

I should have a pretty full minor league report at some point during the All Star break.

I’ve switched commenting systems on a trial basis. We’ll see if this one works a little quicker. The only consequence is that all of your previous comments have disapperaed. If we like the new system we’ll keep it and lose the old comments. If not, we’ll switch back to the old one and restore those old comments. Let me know what you think

Sure the Tigers only scored 7 runs in their last 3 games, but when the White Sox only scored 3, the Tigers came away with the sweep. Jeremy Bonderman and Nate Cornejo followed up Wil Ledezma’s debut with excellent starts of their own. Bonderman was in control the whole game, and always seemed to make a big pitch when he most needed it. What was most impressive was his ability to not get rattled by 3 errors (actually it was 2 errors and a piss-poor call). Another former young Tiger pitcher would have come unglued.

Today I got to witness in person, Nate Cornejo pitching 8 innings of shut out ball, allowing 7 hits and 2 walks against 2 K’s. (as clarification, the post I made earlier about Cornejo did not include stats from this game) He was helped out by some nice defense (including his own) and 2 double plays. I also got to see Dmitri Young and Ramon Santiago look lost against Loaiza. Loaiza has made a lot of guys look foolish this year, but those two guys really seemed to struggle. But, in the end the Tigers beat Loaiza 1-0 for the second time this season.

Other Stuff: Danny Knobler reports that Bobby Higginson’s bad hamstring has half the strength of his healthy one. Bobby indicated he won’t return until he’s 100%.

Knobler also reported that Chris Mears is the closer-for now. Quoting Trammell, “Right now, he is going to be the guy (in the ninth),” Trammell said. “The fact of the matter is, we’re running a hot hand.”

The crowd today was reported as 18,206 but actual attendance was much less (no surprise). In all fairness the weather forecast called for thunderstorms which could have hurt walk-ups and induced no-shows. The number was probably boosted by a large number of groups in attendance. Those in attendance were really into the game and gave Nate Cornejo a standing ovation for his performance at the end of the 8th. It was great to see the enthusiasm for the team. Let’s hope the Tigers can build on this momentum against the BoSox.

Much has been written about Nate Cornejo’s “success” this season despite his unfathomably low strike out rate of 1.6 K/9 IP. Baseball Prospectus did a piece in early June (when Cornejo was really humming along with a sub 3.00 ERA). It showed that with runners on base, only 17% of balls in play resulted in hits. This was dramatic because the Tigers team was allowing hits on 27.1% of balls in play at the time. If you believe the theory that pitchers don’t really effect the outcome of balls that are hit in play, then you believe Nate was incredibly lucky.

Since the article was written on June 1, Cornejo has had two good outings, and a bunch of bad ones. Looking at the rate at which balls in play become hits, it has risen dramatically.

So what does this tell us? Basically that Nate was pretty lucky early in the season, and that he’s been pretty unlucky as of late. Considering that for the season, the Tigers have allowed hits on 27.9% of balls in play, it looks like for the season Cornejo has actually been a little bit unlucky. Based on the team rate, you would expect Cornejo to have allowed 100 hits on the season. That’s a difference of 10 hits over 17 games, or about .6 hits per game.

Because Cornejo’s K rate is so low, along with a low walk rate and average home run rate, 86.5% of the batters he faces put the ball in play. The league average is 72.5%. Why is this important? Because so few of his outs are strike outs, Cornejo is very reliant on his defense to help him out. When he’s “pitching unlucky” he’s really getting burned. In June and July when Nate was “pitching unlucky” he gave up 59 hits. With the same unlucky defensive efficiency, a pitcher who allows balls in play at the average rate would have allowed 48 hits. Over those 7 games that’s a 1.6 hit per game difference.

This also leads into a brief discussion of pitching efficiency. Bob Cluck’s argument in favor of Nate’s low strike rate is that Cornejo’s pitching is more efficient than a traditional player. While in theory, Cornejo maybe able to get a given batter out with fewer pitches by inducing players to put the ball in play, he’ll ultimately end up facing more batters as more reach base. Nate is averagig 3.53 pitches per plate appearance, and 15.4 pitches per inning. I don’t know league averages for these stats, but they don’t feel extremely efficient to me. And, it could be argued that any improvement over league averages could be attributable to Cornejo’s lower than average walk rate.

I’m not sure if this answered any questions, but it was definitely interesting to do. I’d like to give a little plug to Twins Geek who inspired this analysis with a couple of articles (this one, and this one) that he did a couple weeks ago. Plus, it’s a really great site.