4-2, 1st place, .5 games up. Magic number is 155 (I think).
I managed to catch the Crawford double right as I went to bed last night. Needless to say I didn’t sleep well.
Sanchez v. TBD tonight. Someone please post the lineups. I’m traveling, so the post-game may be a little late.
Interesting stat of the day: A Sanchez W today would be the first of the season for any of Verlander, Scherzer, or Sanchez.
1. Max was not sharp early. Lots of hits. Ks and double plays will fix that. He got into a groove in the middle innings and stayed there until the 7th.
2. Lots of weak outs vs. Haren. His stuff was good. I know we like to blame the Tiger bats, but sometimes you gotta give credit where its due.
3. We rarely see Cabrera with such weak swings and bad at-bats. Something is not right. Makes me nervous about his core.
4. VMart was solid at 1B tonight.
5. There will not be many outfield assists this year. Get used to it.
6. What in the world was Martinez doing on a delayed steal? Unless he’s taking Twinkies from Miggy’s locker, Martinez should not be attempting to steal anything.
7. Phil Coke cannot give up the game winning hit to a lefty. His days are numbered.
I’d like to start with a few thoughts on the first week.
First of all, we got shorted by two games. Opening week off days are kryptonite to my baseball superman.The rain made things worse.
Secondly, day games are awesome. Props to the Tigers’ scheduling powers that be. I love following as much as I can during the work day, knowing that I can re-watch at night.
Thirdly. 4-1 to start the season is fantastic. The starters were fantastic, the hitting was good enough, and the late inning wins can mean a lot for a team with some new key pieces. This is going to be a great season.
Finally…the bullpen. Oh boy, this is going to be a problem.
Bullpens are curious creatures. Often morphing on a weekly basis. What you look for from your bullpen is consistency, and we have had very little of that over the past few years. Rondon going down didn’t help, but let’s be honest, he was far from a sure thing. I know that Nathan hasn’t been sharp early, but he’s earned a long leash. Coke has used up 8 of his lives. Al Al has had an abundance of opportunities and continues to disappoint. I don’t see great things from Krol, Chamberlain, or Reed, so any setup help we’re going to get is likely going to come from outside the 25 man roster.
It’s early, but a 6.08 K/9 from the pen isn’t gonna get it done. This will be an ongoing topic.
Stat of the Pregame – the Tigers as a team have struck out 26 times this season. The Upton brothers have struck out 21 times in 47 ABs.
Puig out tonight. Interesting NL style lineup moving the speed guy from 9 to 1.
1. Rajai Davis, LF
2. Ian Kinsler, 2B
3. Torii Hunter, RF
4. Miguel Cabrera, 3B
5. Victor Martinez, 1B
6. Austin Jackson, CF
7. Alex Avila, C
8. Andrew Romine, SS
9. Max Scherzer, P
The Jose Iglesias shinstorm has officially hit the fan. I don’t know if someone stepped in a pile of his shins or what, but ESPN is reporting that the injury which kept him sidelined late last year could keep him sidelined for most of 2014.
The injury has been rather mysterious with a bunch of cryptic reports coming out of Lakeland. I knew there had to be something wrong when he still couldn’t run this deep into Spring Training. Recognize that the report is still speculation, but I can’t see Iglesias playing anytime soon.
Stephen Drew is avail and plays SS. That’s all I want to say about that for now.
Ian Kinsler was an instant fan favorite from the minute he broke into the big leagues in 2006. A hard swinging, fast, top of the lineup guy who plays old school baseball (including the socks) and is a female favorite (so says my permanent roommate).
He had a 20/20 year in 2007, and 30/30 year in 2009 and 2011. He’s been an above average player every year, and even though he had a down HR/SB year in 2013 (13/15), he actually posted the 2nd highest VORP of his career, 5.3, last year.
But frustration stemming from back to back WS losses and raised expectations across the Rangers organization did not suit Kinsler well. In fact, I’m pretty sure that the fans down here in Texas were happier to get rid of Kinsler than the Tigers were to move Fielder along.
Kinsler had always been regarded as a difficult personality in the clubhouse, and for whatever reason he didn’t get along with Rangers’ GM Jon Daniels. When Nolan Ryan was forced out last year, that led to even more apparent discontent from Kinsler, which manifested itself in popups (from HR seeking upper-cut swings), loafing down 1B on ground balls, and lapses in concentration on the base paths (11 CS against 15 SB was the 2nd worst % in the AL last year). As one Texas commentor (-er?) wrote “I look forward to watching Kinsler get picked off of 1B in a Detroit uniform next year.”
Well, ESPN asked Kinsler about the Rangers this week, and Kinsler didn’t leave anything in the clip. He stated his desire for the Rangers to go 0-162, and referred to Jon Daniels as a “sleazeball.” I don’t know Daniels, but that’s the first such characterization that I’ve heard. Daniels was professional in his response, preferring to leave it alone. I do want to note that Kinsler said his quotes were taken out of context. No word if he meant that he wanted the Rangers to win a few games.
Kinsler was a key cog for those AL Championship teams, and he still has the talent to be an All-Star player in Detroit. Let’s just hope that the change of scenery will result in an attitude change as well.
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In other news, Andy Dirks will be out until approximately June. This is troublesome because Dirks was slated to start in LF, and he’s really the guy who should be filling in for an injured starter. Looks like Rajai Davis will be the starter and that his backup will be filled internally. I don’t know much about Rajai Davis, other than he gets a lot of “stolen bases” whatever those are. But this news, coupled with Kinsler’s word bombs, didn’t make for a merry Spring Training Tuesday. Hopefully Jud can restore the shine with some Lakeland lowdown.
With the dawn of any new season, there are always a number of (seemingly) pressing stories heading into spring training. Hopefully Coleman and Smoking Loon will take my cue here and allow us at DTW to focus on them one by one.
I’d like to start at third base.
(note, all stats below are from FanGraphs, they could vary slightly at BR)
According to FanGraphs, Miguel Cabrera had the 2nd highest 3B WAR in all of MLB last year at 7.6. Josh Donaldson, and his 12.1 Def rating snuck ahead of Cabrera at 7.7
Cabrera’s -14.6 def rating at 3B was just a shade behind David Freese for the worst 3B Def rating in all of baseball, and was the 6th worst defensive player rating in all of baseball. (Prince Fielder, who managed a -16.5 at 1B, was the 3rd worst according to FanGraphs). The effect of poor corner d in the D has been well documented for the last two years, and was definitely a factor in the Fielder for Kinsler swap last November.
With Cabrera returning to 1B, this shores up 1B, and opens up a spot in the field for Nick Castellanos.
Castellanos, who is by all accounts an average fielding 3B, should still be a noticeable improvement in terms of range on the left side of the infield. Playing next to Iglesias will help significantly. Offensively, Castellenos is expected to hit around .270 with 10-15 home runs, but we’ve got some time to let the kid grow. If he can manage to play average baseball and mature at the big league level, we’ll be alright. He’s been the Tigers top prospect for two years now, so I’m as excited as anyone to see what he can do.
The question for you today is what happens if Castellanos gets injured or isn’t quite yet ready (or insists on playing left field)?. There isn’t another true 3B on the roster and Lombardozzi (picked up from Was for Fister, remember?) and Kelly would have to fill in. Yikes. I can’t imagine that Lombardozzi and Kelly are expected to log a high number of at bats at 3B. I’m guessing that Castellanos will get his shot early, but if things don’t pan out, DD will bring someone else in.
In other news…
Kinsler’s #5 is retired – Hank Greenberg. So he’s gonna wear #3 in the hopes of renewing a little #1 to #3 magic.
This got me thinking of those mid 80’s Tigers teams…not a HoFer on them. And we’ve got two first ballot guys right now.
The time has come.
DTW is ready for a design & usability overhaul. Yes, this includes the ability to edit comments.
I’m not sure how quickly this can be accomplished, but let’s get started.
1) We need a Word Press developer. As you likely know, the DTW is built on Word Press. Word Press has plenty of plug and play options, but we’d feel much better with an expert performing the upgrade. Please speak up if you are a Word Press guy or gal, or know of one.
2) We’ll likely need some funds. Not much, but we may ask for some small donations.
3) Let’s talk about requests.
– Ability to edit comments, check.
– Better mobile site, check.
– Updated design, check.
– What else?
In other news…
I read a bit about Brad Ausmus today. Did you know that he went to Dartmouth?
Hello friends.
P&C…right around the corner. I feel a deep longing and smell a faint scent of hope. The feeling is growing stronger, the smell more pungent. Baseball may not quite yet be in the air, but it’s working its way up through the brown hardened grass, and is sure to arrive soon; more ready than ever to tickle and torture us for another six months.
Six glorious months.
Fun site news coming tomorrow.
For P Ian Krol, Inf Steve Lombardozzi, minor league P Robbie Ray.
I hate to see him go, but we can’t afford to keep our top 4 pitchers. Or so they say.
Discuss.
So many thoughts, more coming tonight.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Fielder and $30M for Ian Kinsler. Kinsler’s big contract is up in 4 years. Fielder’s bigger contract is up in 7.
I’m going to start with Jim’s question below. There’s been a lot of discontent surrounding Kinsler down here, and it’s been rising for about a year and a half. After six years of a .794 OPS or greater, the last two have been rather average for 2B. People think he should be a perennial All-Star. He’s prone to lapses in attention and he may be the most picked off base runner in the AL, other than Elvis Andrus (and Darrell Evans). He’s basically embodying the classic decline you would expect for a borderline All-Star in his early 30s.
That alone was likely enough to put him on the trading block, but this move is being driven by the need for the Rangers to find a place for Jurickson Profar. Profar is the golden child of one of the best farm systems in the league, and the team is anxious to find out what he can do. Realize that the Rangers also lost Nelson Cruz and it’s uncertain whether they’ll pony up what he’ll get elsewhere. Fielder fills that hole nicely.
We all knew that the Tigers over-reached on the last 2-3 years of his contract in order to have Fielder for the first 4-5. Well, the first two were pretty disappointing, and Fielder’s playoff efforts were, well, non-existent. I haven’t done any direct comparisons, but I’m certain that we would have been better off with just about any other 1B in the league in the playoffs, and that’s simply offensively. If you include the poor fielding and base running blunders, Fielder had to have had a net negative effect.
I can’t help but wonder if there is something else going on with Prince Fielder that we don’t know about. Maybe it was the divorce, maybe he couldn’t handle being the 3rd or 4th biggest name on the team, perhaps it was the pressure oozing out of Leyland’s smoke rings. He’s definitely been off since October of 2012, and I hope that heading home to Texas will allow him to return to his Milwaukee self.
Trading Fielder has a myriad of other effects. Here are a few topics for discussion:
– The Tigers just saved about $76M on paper. How much of that does Scherzer see?
– Does Shin-Soo Choo see any of that? Hunter in left, Dirks as the 4th?
– What do we gain defensively by sliding Cabrera to 1B and putting anyone else at 3rd?
– VMart/Cabrera 1B/DH sounds nice.
– I love Brad Ausmus already. Not sure if he had anything to do with this. But I’m looking for an Ausmus jersey.
1. Jackson, CF
2. Choo, RF
3. Cabrera, 1B
4. Martinez, DH
5. Hunter, RF
6. Kinsler, 2B
7. Avila, C
8. Castellanos, 3B
9. Iglesias, SS
Congrats, Max. Scherzer earned 28 of the 30 first place votes. Even Fangraphs was on board with this. Don’t let this one slip by you – Anibal Sanchez finished 4th in the voting (and had 1 first place vote).
(saving this space for tomorrow)
In other news, Peralta met with the Mhets yesterday.
The Tigers are going to have to deal either Porcello or Scherzer (or Fister) this off-season, else we’ll all have to pledge to buy Hot N Ready’s until our belts explode. This means Smyly to the rotation, which is less exciting to me now than it was last year at this time.
Joe Nathan is getting a lot of pub as he looks be the early favorite for your 2014 closer. Curious to see how free agent Joaquin Benoit is feeling right now. I mean, he didn’t load the bases. He only gave up 1 of those earned runs.
Brayan Pena’s replacement is Ronny Paulino.
I’ll update this tomorrow.
