All posts by billfer

2009 Season, Spring Training

Could Brandon Inge be poised for a breakout?

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The often offensively challenged Brandon Inge started out the season homering in 3 straight games. While he has dropped off the 162 homer season pace he was on, there is some statistical evidence to suggest that Inge may be on his way to an improved offensive year.

John Dewan of ACTA Sports (the same group that publishes The Fielding Bible) has been looking at spring training performances and how they translate to the regular season. They have found that a very good spring may be an indication of things to come.

For the most part, we agree with the common perception that they don’t have value. A bad spring training means nothing. An average spring training tells us nothing. Nevertheless, we did find that when a player has an exceptional spring, it does suggest a better than a 60% chance they will take their game up a notch.

An exceptional spring is defined as posting a slugging percentage .200 better than career norms. There are 46 such players on this year’s list including one Brandon Inge who rode 5 grapefruit league homers to a .593 slugging percentage which is .202 better than his .392 mark. The surge has been attributed to a new stance and hand position at the plate.

Now as Dewan notes historically there is a 60% shot of improved performance, so it isn’t a guarantee. However those are still some noteworthy odds.

2009 Season, Minors

Tigers Minor League Wrap – 4/10/2009

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Toledo 4 Indianpolis 2
Scott Drucker allowed 1 run on no walks, a strike out and 3 hits in 5 innings. Casey Fien allowed a homer in 2 innings. Brent Clevlen was 2 for 5. Wil Rhymes and Mike Hessman each walked twice (Hessman also struck out 3 times).

Altoona 0 Erie 2
Max Leon tripled in both runs in a 1 for 3 effort. Cale Iorg added a double. Alfredo Figaro pitched 5.2 scoreless innings allowing 5 hits and a walk while fanning 4. Brett Jensen picked up his second save fanning 1 in 1 inning of work.

Lakeland 1 Tampa 2
Kyle Peter had a hit and a walk as the leadoff hitter and added 2 stolen bases. Thad Weber allowed 2 runs, both unearned, in 5 innings.

South Bend 4 West Michigan 6
Billy Nowlin was 2 for 3 with a walk and drove in 3 runs. Gustavo Nunez added 2 hits. Luke Putkonen fanned 4 and walked none but allowed 3 unearned runs in 3.2 innings. Victor Larez fanned 6 in 3 innings and Brayan Villarreal struck out 3 in 1.1 innings.

2009 Season, Game Post

Fish Fries and Flyovers – Opening Day: Rangers at Tigers

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PREGAME: The Home Opener is finally upon us. All of the regular traditions will be in place. People will find their regular watering holes or tailgate spots. Therer will be a ceremonial first pitch. Four F-15s will buzz the park once the DSO completes the National Anthem. The traditional Opening Day fish fry will take place at various Big League Grills in the stadium. You know, the regular stuff.

The weather looks like it will cooperate and stay dry and not too cold.

As for the game, it will be Armando Galarraga for the Tigers earning the Home Opener nod after his impressive debut year in 2008. He’ll take on Kris Benson and the undefeated Texas Rangers. Benson hasn’t pitched since 2006, so who knows what will happen.

Have a great day everyone. I’ll be down at Casey’s early so stop by and say hi.

Game Time 1:05

POSTGAME: Well that was some kind of fun. It was a glorious day weather-wise, and the boys represented the English D well with a thorough thumping of the Rangers.

It’s been a full day, and a long week with 3 games in two cities for me, so we’ll keep this short.

  • Armando Galarraga stepped up big today. I’m expecting regression from him due to his BABIP being at unsustainable levels. But, he could always pitch his peripherals “into” his ERA. That’s something we saw as the year wore on last year, and with 8 K’s and 1 walk today that certainly is getting off on the right foot.
  • Miguel Cabrera hits the ball hard. Sometimes it has sufficient lift to carry the fence. Sometimes it lacks the lift and instead dents the fence. But for 5 straight games now he is hitting bullets.
  • Ryan Perry struggled with control today. It was about the only downside on the field.
  • Brandon Inge made an awesome play going back on a pop-fly. The funny thing is my buddy Russ had mentioned the pitch before that Carlos Guillen looked to be playing too deep. Inge took care of that though.
  • I haven’t experienced Opening Days other places, but I truly believe that it just has to mean more in Detroit than most places. It may not be the best, and other cities like St. Louis and Cincinnati truly appreciate it also. But it completely changes the city for one wonderful day every April.
2009 Season, Game Post

Game 2009.004: Tigers at Blue Jays

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PREGAME: It was really nice that the Tigers got a win last night so that Rick Porcello doesn’t have the added pressure of stopping a losing streak. What’s that you say, Rick Porcello? Yeah, the kid is making his debut. And he’s doing it against Ricky Romero, another first rounder making his debut. I’m pretty geeked to be heading to this game. The post game will be significantly delayed as I travel home following the game.

Game Time 12:37

Detroit vs. Toronto – April 9, 2009 | MLB.com: Gameday

POSTGAME: The kid did all right. He is a ground ball machine as advertised and he can certainly field his position. His infield defense wasn’t particularly sparkling though and with a little mor ehlpe he’s spending more time pitching out ofo the windup rather than the stretch. He did get hurt by homers a couple time swhen he left the ball up, but all in in it seemed like he wasn’t overmatched. Most impressive was after allowing a homer, he fanned the next two hitters.

Other stuff:

  • Juan Rincon has been really bad in two appearances
  • I had a great view of that Alex Rios/Marcus Thames triple. I was in that section in the corner. The one with the Tigers jersey. I thought about posting to the blog but thought that might be tacky while he was injured.
  • Carlos Guillen picked up a couple of hits as he starts to look a little more comfortable.
  • Not a lot of fans at the Rogers Centre for the two games I went to. It made things comfortable at least as we could spread out, and the kids got a ton of autographs without the crush of people. So at least that’s good.
2009 Season, Managing & Strategy

The one about the bullpen last night

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Gut wrenching losses are good fodder for second guessing (and page views). My thoughts and perspective on what happened last night (some of these may sound like a defense of decisions made or not made, that’s not necessarily the intent).

1. Why take out Edwin Jackson, he was pitching awesome? Edwin Jackson had been pitching awesome, until he lost his control. For those that hate pitch counts as a reason to pull a pitcher, you should love this decision. Clearly the 89 pitches weren’t the issue. It was the fact that after peppering the strike zone all night he started falling behind hitters.

2. Why only one batter for Bobby Seay? Leyland was playing platoon advantages. Look at the righties coming up after Snider. There wasn’t a lefty in sight. Seay did his job.

3. Why not Ryan Perry then? The popular belief is that this was too much of a pressure situation for a debut. I don’t believe it, and I don’t think Leyland does either. When Zumaya debuted it was in a hold situation. He’s not afraid of that at all. And really, if Perry comes in a blows it then how many question why he was brought into a pressure situation to debut? A ton. Most questioned when Rodney and Zumaya were brought into pressure situations when first returning last year, and they’d faced those situations before. No. The real reason was because at the moment Leyland views Lyon as his second best reliever behind Fernando Rodney.

4. Why use your second best reliever in such a high leverage situation? This is the better question, and one that stat heads have been hammering on managers for for years. But if it’s not the 9th you can’t use your closer for some reason.

5. Why leave Lyon out there in the 9th? I’ve got nothing. This was stupid. Even if you let him start the inning, when he continues to struggle why not go get him. Ridiculous.

2009 Season, Game Post

Game 2009.003: Tigers at Blue Jays

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PREGAME: Losses suck, and I’m sure the Tigers won’t go 0-162, but let’s just get that first win out of the way okay fellas? Otherwise it become a “thing.” And the hand wringing becomes hard to tolerate. Somebody has to be blamed for everything bad that happens. It doesn’t make for a happy fan base (or a happy blogger).

Tonight it is Zach Miner who will try to follow up Edwin Jackson’s fine effort. He’ll be opposed by Jess Litsch who put together a heck of a season last year with only 39 walks in 176 innings en route to a 3.67 ERA. The Tigers only have 27 plate appearances against Litsch, and only 4 hits and 2 walks to show for it.

Game Time 7:07 (this one is on FS Detroit Plus for those of you getting the Detroit feed)

Detroit vs. Toronto – April 8, 2009 | MLB.com: Gameday

POSTGAME: That’s a more better. For all the talk of small ball and bunts and hit and runs and advancing the runner…they advanced a lot farther when the ball sails out of the park. The Tigers plated all 5 runs via the long ball tonight which is fine by me.

Zach Miner had a VERY rocky first inning. But he escaped allowing only one run, and came up one out short of a quality start. It isn’t a stat that means a tremendous amount, but for the pitcher’s sake I’d like to see them get it.

And the bullpen. Perfect. They were asked to record 10 outs and Bobby Seay, Ryan Perry, and Fernando Rodney did not allow a baserunner. So it can happen.

  • Miguel Cabrera has hammered the ball in Toronto. He looked great in BP Tuesday night and that carried over the last two games.  But he still trails teammate Brandon Inge in the homer column.
  • Speaking of Inge. Huh. I’ll have more on Inge in an upcoming post, but these homers he’s hitting are crushed. And it’s not because he’s pull happy. Would really like to see it continue
  • Ryan Perry was solid in his debut. He went to a full count a couple times, but didn’t allow a baserunner.
  • Fernando Rodney. Seven pitches, seven strikes. Yes, the last one was hit as far as it possibly could be while staying in the park, but I’m not going to complain.
  • Sure to be overshadowed by the other relievers, Bobby Seay had the best night of the 3. He recorded 4 outs, 2 via the K, with only 12 pitches. Awesome.
  • Ramon Santiago had a rough night with 2 K’s and the E6 that cost Miner the QS. He did have a single though.
2009 Season, Game Post

Game 2009.002: Tigers at Blue Jays

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PREGAME: Well let’s not have a repeat of last night’s debacle. And I’m not talking about the throwing of stuff on the field, which may be curtailed because the stadium will be dry tonight. No, I’m talking about the beat down the Tigers took as the Blue Jays pummeled pitch after pitch into the gaps.

Edwin Jackson makes his debut for the Tigers tonight. He’s faced Blue Jays quite a bit from his days in the AL East. Adam Lind and Alex Rios are both slugging over .600 against him, so that doesn’t necessarily bode well. He has held hitters to a .228/.312/.431 line in SkyDome though.

Lefty David Purcey gets then nod for the Blue Jays. Purcey made 12 starts last year and he posted a solid strike out rate (8.03/9IP), and a decent K/BB ratio (2.0), but he did give up 9 homers in 65 innings leading to a 5.54 ERA.

Game Time 7:07

Detroit vs. Toronto – April 7, 2009 | MLB.com: Gameday

POSTGAME: New faces, same results. Yesterday it was Juan Rincon. Today, Brandon Lyon.

Edwin Jackson was awesome, stunningly awesome. His efficiency and the way he pounded the strike zone was a sight to behold. Unfortunately it was all for naught as Brandon Lyon imploded.

He had some help. Brandon Inge extended the inning with a throwing error. And a ground ball was just out of Adam Everett’s reach. And the pitch that led to the 3 run homer was actually down in the zone. But the 9th inning was all Lyon.

Other stuff of note:

  • Miguel Cabrera had himself a very nice game. A couple walks and a missle to center on the offensive side and two slick plays defensively.
  • Inge’s error sucked, but he also accounted for half of the offense and that homer was an absolute bomb.
  • Bobby Seay did what he was supposed to.
2009 Season, Game Post

Game 2009.001 (aka Opening Day): Tigers at Blue Jays

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PREGAME: Finally. Months 6 months of despair over last year’s debacle are washed away. Two months of roster speculation can be forgotten (six Tigers are experiencing their first opening day). It’s finally time to play ball. Tonight’s pitching match-up is a dandy, as most opening day match-ups are.

The Tigers will try to scratch out a couple runs against Roy Halladay. The Tigers, like most teams, struggle against Halladay. Granderson is 4 for 10 lifetime and Polanco is 5 for 11. And the success ends there.

Verlander has only made one start in his career against the Jays and he got knockeed around to the tune of 6 runs in 4.1 innings. Fortunately we can claim “sample size!” and dismiss this information.

Tonight’s lineup is:

  1. Granderson, CF
  2. Polanco, 2B
  3. Ordonez, RF
  4. Cabrera, 1B
  5. Guillen, DH
  6. Laird, C
  7. Inge, 3B
  8. Everett, SS
  9. Anderson, LF

Yes, Josh Anderson gets the Opening Day start over Marcus Thames essentially as Jim Leyland is trying to save Guillen’s hamstrings – on the first day of the season.

Detroit vs. Toronto – April 6, 2009 | MLB.com: Gameday

Game Time 7:15 (bummed about the lack of high definition for this game though)

Oh yeah, there is another big game tonight. We’ll see how the chatter goes come 9:00pm. Good luck MSU fans.

POSTGAME: For everyone who is ready to say “same old Tigers” not so fast. The bullpen didn’t blow a lead. There. Take that. I’m not saying the bullpen was good, but they didn’t cost the game. That would largely fall on the shoulders of Justin Verlander.

Verlander had nice velocity (he was at 97 the first couple innings), a curve ball that buckled some knees, but command was inconsistent. And the Blue Jays had not trouble with any of it as they banged out 6 extra base hits.

Aside from the shellacking, the other damaging part of Verlander’s outing was that he didn’t even make it through the 4th inning. So Leyland turned to Bonine to mop-up, and subsequently Nate Robertson. Robertson actually pitched well retiring the side with 2 K’s on 9 pitches. My suspicion for Robertson being lifted was that Leyland didn’t want to burn both long guys on the same night.

Juan Rincon had a hard time finding the strike zone, but those runs really had little impact.

The good news is that the offense plated 5 runs off of Roy Halladay, including 2 homers. Curtis Granderson looked good, as did the middle of the order. And of course Brandon Inge with an opposite field homer.

2009 Season

Giving for Grandy

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I love the opportunity to promote good deeds from athletes, and it is fortunately becoming common place to talk about Curtis Granderson. He has a new program called Scoring for Schools in which you can pledge an amount for every run that Curtis scores. The pledges support the Grand Kids Foundation. If you pledge $0.28 by 7:15 tonight he’ll even sign a picture for you. (I apologize for the short notice, type quickly).

Now the Big Tilde brought this to my attention last week but I was negligent in posting until I saw this reminder from Ian at Bless You Boys. But these folks are going above and beyond the 28 cent thing. The Tilde is donating .30 for every run Curtis scores and $.30 for every run Ordonez scores. Ian is letting his readers decide his alternate pledge.

For our DTW I’m going to pledge an additional $.28 for every extra base hit and stolen base that Curtis collects.

2009 Season, Previews

The 2009 Tigers – they might not suck

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For years I would write up season previews where I would almost automatically pick the team for 4th place. I didn’t know if they were a legitimate 4th place team, but I’d inject a little homerism to avoid last place. And then 2006 happened. The team was good. Real good. Picking them first or second in the division didn’t seem homer-ish, it seemed prudent after their World Series run. And an 88 win finish in 2007 and a blockbuster trade in the subsequent offseason further solidified those predictions. Then 2008 happened. I’m not ready to go back to picking the team in the bottom half even though that is the prevailing wisdom. I have them at 84 wins and a second place finish this year. And here’s why.

Back in January I took a look at the Tigers hitters and pitchers through the eyes of win values. It was an exercise in forecasting the Tigers season as objectively as possible. I used other people’s projections (mostly found at Fangraphs) to see how the Tigers would perform. At the time I concluded that the Tigers were an 84 win team. Of course, some things have changed since then:

  • Gary Sheffield was released
  • Rick Porcello made the rotation
  • Zach Miner won the a spot over Nate Robertson and Dontrelle Willis
  • The Tigers added Brandon Lyon
  • Jeff Larish made the team and Ryan Raburn didn’t
  • Josh Anderson was added to the mix

In the process the Tigers got a lot younger. The Tigers boasted 3 of the oldest players in the league in the form of Todd Jones/Kenny Rogers/Gary Sheffield. Now the offense is a mix of veterans and emerging stars and the rotation are veritable babies. The oldest pitcher in the season opening rotation is Armando Galarraga at the ripe old age of 27.
Continue reading The 2009 Tigers – they might not suck →

2009 Season, Previews

Everybody has an opinion – prediction round-up

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I think everyone remembers last year when the Tigers were pretty much a lock for the playoffs in the minds of many prognosticators. Sure, it was up for debate whether they’d win the American League or the World Series, but they were post season bound. Not so much this year. A number of sites and outlets and experts are doing some predicting and, well it ain’t so pretty.

Ken Rosenthal puts the Tigers in last place in the Central. But he acknowledges that anyone in the Central could win it.

Sports Illustrated picked the Tigers to finish 4th with 77 wins, 8 games back of the Twins who they think take the divison with 85 wins.

ESPN the Magazine picks the Tigers…5th in the AL Central because the rotation is questionable.

David Pinto at Baseball Musings picks the Tigers to also finish last, but he gives them a 17% chance of winning the division which is only slightly less that random!

The folks at Baseball Prospectus give us a number of projections and predictions. Joe Sheehan ranks them as the 23rd worst team in baseball, but that is still better than the White Sox and Royals. Chris Kahrl cites PECOTA and has them winning only 80 games, but that is good enough for 2nd in the Central.

Seamheads.com takes the Tigers 2nd with 84 wins, 2 games off the league pace.

Baseball Digest Daily’s panel of writers peg Detroit as the 3rd best team in the division.

And the geeks (I use that term affectionately) at Beyond the Box Score pick the Tigers anywhere from 2nd to last.

If you read through all the links though there is a pretty consistent theme. The Tigers aren’t that good, but they might not have to be to stay in the mix. As for my predictions, those are coming soon.

2009 Season, Minors, Trades

Tigers trade James Skelton for Brooks Brown

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The Tigers have sent James Skelton (or actually they just let the Diamondbacks keep him after the Rule 5 pick cleared waivers) to Arizona for Brooks Brown. I’ve written about Skelton in the past, so we’ll focus on Brown for a moment.

Brown started at AA for the Diamondbacks last year and had a 4.18 ERA with 112 K’s in 144 innings pitched. He’ll be assigned to Erie to start the year. The right hander is 24 years old. Brown didn’t make the BA top 10 for Arizona, but his name did come up in the chat and Will Lingo had this to say:

Will Lingo: That is a pretty good analysis. Brown took a 3.63 ERA into the final month last season, but he was pretty bad from there on out and in the AFL. His stuff also hasn’t been quite as good as it was in college, so some people think he should just take his sinker-slider combo to the bullpen. But his big frame and durability still suggest he could provide more value as a starter. He’ll get another shot in the Triple-A rotation, but I think if he gets to the big leagues it will be as a reliever.

Sickels had him as the 15th best prospect in the organization but noted a loss of velocity and command.
Continue reading Tigers trade James Skelton for Brooks Brown →